The Mad Magician (1954)

Thanks for the memories!

I'll tell you why so serious

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

"The Mad Magician" from 1954 is has Vincent Price as a magician who has been constantly screwed over by his manager regarding ownership of the illusions the magician creates, so he kills his manager. And then he kills again. And again! The magician uses his magic show's tricks and illusions to perform the murders and then disposes of the bodies. Without giving too much away, the part that troubled me the most was the first murder and how he disposed of the body. It involves a saw. That's all I'll say. I really liked this one. Price is great in this one as always. I just can't bring myself to criticize anything the man did. He is just a delight to watch and it hurts me that we'll never have another actor like Vincent Price.

"The Mad Magician" is a thoroughly enjoyable follow-up to the earlier Vincent Price classic, "House of Wax". Rather reminiscent of that favourite, it stars Price as Don Gallico, a magician & master of illusion furious with his conniving employer, Ross Ormond (Donald Randolph). Ormond intends to pass on Gallicos' "buzz saw" bit to Gallicos' egocentric rival, Rinaldi (John Emery). So Gallico uses his talents to commit murder, and commit more murders in order to keep his secret. Alan Bruce (Patrick O'Neal), a young police detective, utilizes cutting edge new techniques such as fingerprinting to work the clues.This movie is not going to be as memorable as "House of Wax", which was largely responsible for launching Price as a new star of the horror genre. It's rather formulaic, and predictable, but it's richly photographed in black & white by Bert Glennon, and director John Brahm, an expert in period genre productions such as "Hangover Square" and "The Lodger", keeps the pace consistent. What viewers may marvel at is the makeup (by George Bau and Gustaf Norin), which is pretty impressive for any era in filmmaking."The Mad Magician" also provides great evidence of what a talent Price was. It's a fun vehicle, and the more unhinged Gallico gets, the more enjoyable Price is to watch. The supporting actors are good - leggy Mary Murphy as the assistant Karen Lee, Eva Gabor as Claire, the greedy, grasping woman who'd married both Gallico and Ormond, Jay Novello as landlord Frank Prentiss, and especially Lenita Lane as Prentiss' wife Alice, who has a second career as an author of murder mysteries. Corey Allen, Conrad Brooks, Roy Engel, and Lyle Talbot have uncredited parts.This amusing plot, contrived by Crane Wilbur, leads to an exciting and incendiary finale.Seven out of 10.

I love the Halloween season because a lot of the really good horror type movies are shown!! This one is a little under the radar but it is a good one. Vincent Price plays the lead role. He is a great illusion designer locked into an extremely binding contract. When he tries to go out on his own as a magician he is pulled up short by the employer. Vincent goes nuts and kills the man, then his ex-wife, a competing and overbearing magician, the Great Rinaldi, (who tries to steal the secrets and bind Price to his service by deducing that Price is the killer). Vincent then goes on stage using skin tight masks to impersonate the magician. He is finally found out by a detective using the new fangled means of finger prints. Boy has the law been changed since this picture!! The detective actually breaks into Price's apartment to look for evidence!! That sure wouldn't fly today!!! At the end Price is trying to feed the detective into one of his contraptions and is distracted by an insistent knock on the door. As he goes to answer the door a hidden associate springs to action and releases the detective. The two men fight and Price gets fed in to his own machine. So after three murders the mad man gets it, not in the end, but in a fiery flame of fire.

Basically the exact same movie as "House of Wax" - Vincent Price's first genuine horror hit released the previous year - but seriously who cares, because "The Mad Magician" offers just as many sheer thrills, delightful period set-pieces, joyous 3-D effects, sublime acting performances and macabre horror gimmicks as its predecessor! "Never change a winning team" is exactly what writer Crane Wilbur must have thought when he penned down Price's character Don Gallico, another tormented soul besieged by fate and out for vengeance against those who wronged him. Don Gallico is about to perform his very first own illusionist show as Gallico the Great and plans to exhibit the greatest magic trick in history; entitled "The Girl and the Buzz Saw". Gallico's promising solo career is abruptly ruined before it even begins when his previous employer Ross Ormond appears on stage and shoves a contract under his nose, stating that all of Gallico's inventions are the rightful property of the company. The sleazy and relentless Ormond, who by the way also ransacked Gallico's once beloved wife, takes off with the buzz saw trick and programs it in the show of Gallico's rival The Great Rinaldi. Inevitably Gallico snaps and sadistically butchers Ormond, but – also being a master of creating disguises – recreates his victim's image and even starts leading a double life. "The Mad Magician" is an amusing and thoroughly unpretentious 50's horror movie in Grand Guignol style, with a whole lot of improbably plot twists (the landlady turns out a brilliant crime novelist?) and a handful of fantastically grotesque gross-out moments (although they obviously remain suggestive for most part). The 3-D delights near the beginning of the film, like a yo-yo player and a goofy trick with water fountains, merely just serve as time-filler and contemporary 50's hype, but it's still fun to watch even now and without the means to properly behold them. "The Mad Magician" is also interesting from a periodical setting point of view, as the events take place around the time fingerprints were starting to get used as evidence material and the character of Alice Prentiss is an obvious reference towards famous crime authors of that era. Needless to state that Vincent Price remains the absolute most essential element of triumph in this film, as well as from nearly every other horror movie this legendary man ever starred in. Like no other actor could ever accomplish, Price depicts the tormented protagonist who gradually descends further and further into mental madness in such an indescribably mesmerizing way. You pity Don Gallico, yet at the same time you fear him enormously. You support his vile acts of retaliation and yet simultaneously you realize his murderous rampage must end in death. Vincent Price simply was a genius actor and, in my humble opinion, the embodiment of the horror genre.