The Magic Christian

Directed by
Joseph McGrath (I)

Writing credits
Terry Southern

Cast
Peter Sellers .... Sir Guy Grand KG, KC, CBE
Ringo Starr .... Youngman Grand ESQ.
Isabel Jeans .... Dame Agnes Grand
Caroline Blakiston .... Hon. Esther Grand
Wilfrid Hyde-White .... Captain Reginald K. Klaus
Richard Attenborough .... Oxford Coach
Leonard Frey .... Laurence Faggot
Laurence Harvey .... Hamlet
Christopher Lee .... Ship's vampire
Spike Milligan .... Traffic Warden 27
Roman Polanski .... Solitary Drinker
Raquel Welch .... Priestess of the Whip
Tom Boyle .... My Man Jeff
Victor Maddern .... Hot dog vendor
Terence Alexander .... Mad Major
Running time: 92

UK
Language: English
Technicolor
Sound Mix: Mono
Certification: PG

After more than 30 years, The Magic Christian still entertains. Its style is very much of the Sixties, but its profoundly cynical message - that anything can be bought, that everyone has his price - is, if anything, more relevant now than in 1969 when the film was released.

The star, of course, is Peter Sellers as the obscenely wealthy Sir Guy Grand, who manages to seem almost childlike as he spreads his bounty of cynicism throughout London. Alert listeners, especially lovers of the Goon Show, will also notice that Sellers does almost all of the off-screen voices and several voices of characters seen only in long shot, reminiscent of the films of Orson Welles. This is a terrific film, and enhances my view that anything featuring the sublime talents of Peter Sellers, even when he offered second rate fare in some of his earlier screen work is still infinitely preferable to a lot of first-rate work by others. The childless Sir Guy decides one morning to acquire an heir, so he goes to the park and picks up a homeless man played by Ringo Starr, and adopts him as his son, Youngman Grand. (Ringo actually doesn't have much to do in this film except react to Sellers.)

Sir Guy then enlists Youngman in escapades that, in his hands, skewer the stuffed shirts of upper-class London society and turn the most solemn occasions into a carnival of absurdist nihilism. The most extreme sequence comes at the end of the film, where he scatters money into a huge pit of blood, urine and excrement, and then watches as bowler-hatted City of London types wade into it for the money.

There is an extended sequence aboard a bogus cruise ship called The Magic Christian that may try some viewers' patience as it degenerates into a very Sixties psychedelic montage, but one moment from this section, however, is worth the whole thing: Raquel Welch as the Priestess of the Whip. Dressed as a dominatrix, she has never looked more luscious or voluptuous. Film aficionados will appreciate the many old-line British actors who contributed supporting or cameo roles (Spike Milligan, Laurence Harvey, Richard Attenborough, John Le Mesurier, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Christopher Lee, and others less well known outside the UK) as well as glimpses of younger now-famous faces, especially John Cleese in a hysterically funny scene at Sotheby's. Cleese plays the terminally smarmy, unctuous, patronizing curator Mr. Dugdale, whose supercilious mien is punctured beyond repair by Sir Guy in a scene that I will not describe any further, hoping you one day get the chance to see it. I would dearly love to hear from Cleese about this experience in acting with Peter Sellers. Note also an uncredited Graham Chapman as the leader of the Oxford team during the famous Oxford-Cambridge boat race. This film was shot at about the time of the first season of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and there are definitely echoes of Python in it.

Let's please have this issued on VHS and DVD at once!