The Magic Christian (1970)

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Instant Favorite.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I've been thinking about this movie a lot lately because people keep bringing up Idiocracy, and that movie left a similar bad taste in my mouth. Parts of this movie are funny. Parts of this movie are even probably realistic. But a bunch of white guys who made a ton of money in the entertainment business are not the right people to be making fun of normal people for doing crazy stuff for money. This movie is a pretty obvious case of punching down. It's kind of okay when they're making fun of the rich people, but the random people they victimize in the movie... it's basically making fun of poor people for being willing to do really degrading stuff to get money they may very well need. The movie never seems to consider that maybe people need 20 quid to buy fever-reducing meds for themselves, or new shoes for their growing child, etc. It's just "Ha ha, people are so greedy that they'll do anything for money!" Desperate people don't do crazy things for money just because they like having money- usually they actually need that money. The whole movie has this attitude that most people are stupid and horrible, and it's personally hard for me to laugh when it's clear that the makers lacked empathy. What's more, it seems pretty obvious that a guy who gives his money to people for doing terrible things instead of the obvious thing, which is giving to actual charities, is a terrible person, but we're supposed to root for him. I hated this movie.

If you don't get this movie, it's probably because you are living in the year 2011, possibly the lowest point in the consciousness of the human race. It's been all downhill since 1969. I have never seen such an unhip (clueless) generation as the people sleepwalking the Planet Earth today. The Magic Christian is all about greed, and the world today is all about greed, though not exactly in the same way. The people who are having all their money and dignity taken away from them today don't seem to think there's anything wrong with it, because they accept the premise, spread by the propaganda arm of Greed, Inc., that greed is good, and if they are poor it must be because they are bad. So, of course, they wouldn't get a movie that is about taking away the dignity of those whose every waking moment is ruled by greed and lust; these days, that seems perfectly normal.Maybe one day people will again get this movie, but I wouldn't hold my breath because, frankly, I don't think the Planet Earth will be around that long. The greedmeisters are running things, and they would sooner see the Earth burned to a cinder by global warming than accept an infinitesimal reduction in the rate of their every increasing share of the wealth of this planet. And it will be, sooner than you think. Maybe then people will find this movie funny again, because all the billions of dollars the rich will have hoarded away will be a bitter harvest in a world where people will be dying of starvation by the billions. Your money, status, power are an illusion of vanity, party favors for people of withered egos and lost souls.

There was once a television show called 'Wudja? Cudja?' in which presenters paid members of the public to do outrageous things, such as stripping naked on beaches where no nudity was allowed. Whether by accident or design it echoed the main theme of this 1969 film, based on Terry Southern's novel. Peter Sellers plays 'Sir Guy Grand', an eccentric billionaire ( with more than a passing resemblance to ex-P.M. Harold Macmillan ) who adopts a homeless young man ( Ringo Starr ) and renames him 'Youngman Grand'. Sir Guy then gives his new son a master class in human greed, proving that each man and woman has their price. On a train, for example, he tries to buy a hot-dog from a platform vendor ( Victor Maddern ), but has no change. Not wanting to lose the sale, the vendor runs after the departing train, eventually falling off the platform. A grouse shooting session turns weird when tanks are brought into it. Crufts is disrupted by an African dog which eats the other entrants. At a posh restaurant, Grand puts on a seat-belt, and shocks patrons by smearing caviar all over his face. Grand has the great Laurence Harvey do a striptease whilst reciting the famous 'To Be Or Not To Be' soliloquy from 'Hamlet'. My favourite scene, though, is when Spike Milligan's over-efficient traffic warden is paid £500 to eat the ticket he has just planted on Grand's rolls.There is no plot as such, just Grand playing one daft prank after another. John Cleese and Graham Chapman were brought in after the script had been through ten drafts, but their work was ultimately rejected. Bits and pieces made it into the finished movie though ( others wound up in 'Monty Python' ), and both men appeared on screen. Cleese said later the movie finished up as a series of celebrity walk-on's ( Michael Aspel and Alan Whicker pop up as themselves ), and blamed director, Joseph McGrath, for not understanding comedy structure. McGrath had worked on the 1967 'Casino Royale' spoof, and it shows. Like that earlier picture, much of 'Magic Christian' is shapeless and undisciplined. The title refers to the luxury ocean liner that sets off from London for New York. Some nice digs at '60's celebrity culture here ( John Lennon and Yoko Ono are seen boarding, along with Aristotle and Jackie Onassis ). The voyage goes horribly wrong; a vampire ( Christopher Lee ) is stalking females, graffiti appears on the walls, and the Captain ( Wilfrid Hyde-White ) is attacked by would-be hijackers. Raquel Welch plays a whip-cracking priestess in charge of topless female galley slaves. As pandemonium erupts, the passengers escape, only to discover that they never left London. Sir Guy has pulled off his biggest prank ever!It is a wildly uneven picture, sometimes funny, but not the great anti-capitalistic satire it thinks it is ( its more like a ruder version of Michael Bentine's 'The Sandwich Man' ). Paul Merton liked it enough to include in his 'Big Night In' on B.B.C.-2 a few years back. Perhaps it might have been funnier if the pranks had been played on real people rather than fictional characters. Still, you have to admire its nerve. Where else would you see Yul Brynner in drag singing Noel Coward's 'Mad About The Boy' to Roman Polanski's lone drinker? The catchy title theme - 'Come & Get It' - was by Paul McCartney and performed by 'Badfinger'.

After years of reading about this movie and seeing clips on YouTube, I finally got to see The Magic Christian. The funniest parts were the before auction scene where Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr puts one over on John Cleese and the auction scene itself. I also liked the dog show scene with that black man bringing a black panther and that "Black and White" scene of two Mr. Universes really offending a racist homophobic. And how about Raquel Welch as the head of a boat load of slave girls? Or Yul Brynner as...Oh, just watch the movie. And there's a couple of familiar co-stars of Peter Sellers that are worth watching for. But not everything works and I don't think this is a masterpiece or even very good. Still, it's worth a look for those interested in '60s British humor or good music like Badfinger's "Come and Get It" (written by Paul McCartney) and Thunderclap Newman's "Something In the Air". There's also an interesting animated sequence in the boardroom scene.