Label: Second Sight Films
Region Code: B
Rating: Cert.15
Duration: 107 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 1.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith
Charles "Corky" Withers (Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs) is a down on his luck magician based in New York City. He's a painfully shy sort that lacks the charisma necassary to capture the imagination of an audience, but when he brings in a foul-mouthed ventriloquist dummy named "Fats" into the act, based on a recommendation from his mentor Merlin (E. J. André, Evil Town), things really start to heat up. As the comedy/magic act grows in popularity on the local comedy circuit he catches the eye of a big-name talent agent named Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith, Torture Garden) who pitches the kid's act to the networks, and just when it looks like he's about to break into the big leagues with a lucrative network TV contract Corky begins behaving irrationally when he's told the contract stipulates a full medical exam, fearing the exam will reveal that he's suffering from some undiagnosed mental illness.
Hiding from Greene he flees the city and heads back to his hometown somewhere in the rural Catskills area of Upstate New York. it's here that he begins an affair with his highschool crush Peggy (Ann-Maraget, Bye Bye Birdie). The problem is that Peggy is married to her highschool boyfriend Duke (Ed Lauter, Cujo) in a seemingly loveless marriage. Duke quickly gets wise to his wife's cheating ways, while at the same time the talent agent tracks Corky down, all of this contributing to a deteriorating sense of reality, with the puppeteer becoming the puppet, giving in to his alter-ego Fats' increasingly aggressive desires.
Magic (1978) is a film that I first saw on TV when I was a kid in the single-digits, and it absolutely terrified me. I had seen the TV spots on the tube and the image creepy dummy and screechy voice scared me real bad. It was a great little ad campaign and it definitely got right under my skin. Since I was in kindergarten at the time I didn't quite understand the psychological underpinnings of it the film, I am pretty sure I thought there was more of a supernatural element to it, and that's probably because the film absolutely makes that play, and while the ending is a bit on the ambiguous side it definitely steers towards a non-supernatural, but it leaves a small opening for another interpretation .
I had completely forgotten that it was Sir Anthony Hopkins that played Corky, he was far less famous in the late-70s when I first saw this and I was so young at the time I wouldn't have known anyway. Hopkins is solid, playing the cracked ventriloquist as sweetly sympathetic but deeply disturbed, channeling his manic side through the foul-mouthed ventriloquist, and I thought the ventriloquist scenes were very well done. I do sort of wish they'd gone into Corky's backstory a bit more, delving into when the mental illness first start manifesting itself, but then again I don't want a Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007) situation where they over-explain it either.
It was great to see Burgess Meredith (Burnt Offerings) here as the kind-hearted talent agent, chomping on a cigar with a mischievous grin that brought to mind his Penguin character from the campy Adam West Batman TV series. I found Ann-Margaret as the love-interest just fine, she's always has a bit of crazy in here eyes in all her roles I think, and it bleeds through here too, but she's sympathetic and I was rooting for her and Corky to run-off together in the end.
The real star of this psycho-thriller is wooden-headed Fats the ventriloquist dummy, with a creepy looking face that has always reminded me of Dick Sargent from the Bewitched TV series. The dummy was voiced by Hopkins, a fun foul-mouthed sidekick that begins to steal the show, not-so-slowly becoming the dominant personality that Corky can no longer suppress, ending with violent and tragic results.
Watching it now the film still holds up, it's a minor classic, even though a lot of what I thought I saw when I was six-years old isn't actually in the film. There's an attack in the woods at a certain point, it's brutal, but I was certain that it was so much more violent, but that's the magic of watching a frightening film as a kid, you're mind just goes nuts filling in the blanks with minute details that just aren't there. It's got a solid psychological underpinning that's fascinating if slightly under explored, and I like that you're sort of rooting for the bad-guy, because you want him to find love, but he just cannot escape himself.
Audio/Video: Magic (1978) arrives on region-B locked Blu-ray from Second Sight Films in 1080p HD framed in the original theatrical exhibition aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen. To my eyes this looks to be the same scan as the U.S. release from Dark Sky Films, the framing is identical with very similar grain, depth and clarity, and the colors are a smidgen more robust. There are some other minor differences as well, the skin tones look a blush warmer on the Second Sight release, it's also a bit darker, which smooths some of the courser grain in the darker scenes. It's the more technically solid transfer, but I would be hard-pressed to say it merits a double-dip if you own the previous Blu-ray. At the bottom of the review there are screenshots comparing the Dark Sky and Second Sight Blu-ray releases.
Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 1.0 with optional English subtitles. It's a well-balanced mono presentation, it's shows it's vintage but it's well-balanced and crisp. The tense Jerry Goldsmith (The Omen) score sounds fantastic, optional English subtitles are provided.
Looking at the extras it's hard not to be disappointed that what we get are the same extras from the Dark Sky Films release that came out a decade ago. That's not to say they aren't great, we get a 26-min featurette, 'Fats and Friends: A History of Ventriloquism' with ventriloquist Daniel Alwood who was not only the consultant on the film but also created the Fats dummy used in the film.
Cinematographer Victor J. Kemper (Audrey Rose) talks for about 12-min about he technical side of shooting the film, how they achieved certain shots and how the cinematography creates the atmosphere. Star Anthony Hopkins is represented in a pair of archival interviews, we get a 6-min TV interview from a Spanish TV show from the looks of it, and a 3-min radio interview that plays over some b-roll footage, in which he talks about working with the dummy and how he prepared for the role.
Screenwriter William Goldman shows up for a 16-min interview in 'Screenwriting for Dummies' touching on the development of the film and some of the original casting in the film. Extras are buttoned up with a minute's worth of silent footage of Ann-Margaret's make-up tests, a theatrical trailer and three TV spots and three radio spots for the film. Not a bad set of extras but I would have appreciated something new, a featurette or audio commentary from British author Kim Newman would have made this well-worth a double-dip for those who already own the U.S. release, or a CD soundtrack of the Jerry Goldsmith score, just something.
The single-disc release comes housed in a oversized black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring a offset variation on the original movie poster image, the disc inside features an excerpt of the same artwork.
Special Features:
- Screenwriting for Dummies: Interview with Screenwriter William Goldman (15 min)
- Archival Interview with Anthony Hopkins (6 min)
- Interview with Cinematographer Victor Kemper (11 min)
- Ann-Margret Make-up Test (1 min)
- Fats and Friends: A History of Ventriloquism with the Film’s Consultant (26 min)
- Archival Radio Interview with Anthony Hopkins (3 min)
- Trailer (2 min)
Director: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith
Charles "Corky" Withers (Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs) is a down on his luck magician based in New York City. He's a painfully shy sort that lacks the charisma necassary to capture the imagination of an audience, but when he brings in a foul-mouthed ventriloquist dummy named "Fats" into the act, based on a recommendation from his mentor Merlin (E. J. André, Evil Town), things really start to heat up. As the comedy/magic act grows in popularity on the local comedy circuit he catches the eye of a big-name talent agent named Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith, Torture Garden) who pitches the kid's act to the networks, and just when it looks like he's about to break into the big leagues with a lucrative network TV contract Corky begins behaving irrationally when he's told the contract stipulates a full medical exam, fearing the exam will reveal that he's suffering from some undiagnosed mental illness.
Hiding from Greene he flees the city and heads back to his hometown somewhere in the rural Catskills area of Upstate New York. it's here that he begins an affair with his highschool crush Peggy (Ann-Maraget, Bye Bye Birdie). The problem is that Peggy is married to her highschool boyfriend Duke (Ed Lauter, Cujo) in a seemingly loveless marriage. Duke quickly gets wise to his wife's cheating ways, while at the same time the talent agent tracks Corky down, all of this contributing to a deteriorating sense of reality, with the puppeteer becoming the puppet, giving in to his alter-ego Fats' increasingly aggressive desires.
Magic (1978) is a film that I first saw on TV when I was a kid in the single-digits, and it absolutely terrified me. I had seen the TV spots on the tube and the image creepy dummy and screechy voice scared me real bad. It was a great little ad campaign and it definitely got right under my skin. Since I was in kindergarten at the time I didn't quite understand the psychological underpinnings of it the film, I am pretty sure I thought there was more of a supernatural element to it, and that's probably because the film absolutely makes that play, and while the ending is a bit on the ambiguous side it definitely steers towards a non-supernatural, but it leaves a small opening for another interpretation .
I had completely forgotten that it was Sir Anthony Hopkins that played Corky, he was far less famous in the late-70s when I first saw this and I was so young at the time I wouldn't have known anyway. Hopkins is solid, playing the cracked ventriloquist as sweetly sympathetic but deeply disturbed, channeling his manic side through the foul-mouthed ventriloquist, and I thought the ventriloquist scenes were very well done. I do sort of wish they'd gone into Corky's backstory a bit more, delving into when the mental illness first start manifesting itself, but then again I don't want a Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007) situation where they over-explain it either.
It was great to see Burgess Meredith (Burnt Offerings) here as the kind-hearted talent agent, chomping on a cigar with a mischievous grin that brought to mind his Penguin character from the campy Adam West Batman TV series. I found Ann-Margaret as the love-interest just fine, she's always has a bit of crazy in here eyes in all her roles I think, and it bleeds through here too, but she's sympathetic and I was rooting for her and Corky to run-off together in the end.
The real star of this psycho-thriller is wooden-headed Fats the ventriloquist dummy, with a creepy looking face that has always reminded me of Dick Sargent from the Bewitched TV series. The dummy was voiced by Hopkins, a fun foul-mouthed sidekick that begins to steal the show, not-so-slowly becoming the dominant personality that Corky can no longer suppress, ending with violent and tragic results.
Watching it now the film still holds up, it's a minor classic, even though a lot of what I thought I saw when I was six-years old isn't actually in the film. There's an attack in the woods at a certain point, it's brutal, but I was certain that it was so much more violent, but that's the magic of watching a frightening film as a kid, you're mind just goes nuts filling in the blanks with minute details that just aren't there. It's got a solid psychological underpinning that's fascinating if slightly under explored, and I like that you're sort of rooting for the bad-guy, because you want him to find love, but he just cannot escape himself.
Audio/Video: Magic (1978) arrives on region-B locked Blu-ray from Second Sight Films in 1080p HD framed in the original theatrical exhibition aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen. To my eyes this looks to be the same scan as the U.S. release from Dark Sky Films, the framing is identical with very similar grain, depth and clarity, and the colors are a smidgen more robust. There are some other minor differences as well, the skin tones look a blush warmer on the Second Sight release, it's also a bit darker, which smooths some of the courser grain in the darker scenes. It's the more technically solid transfer, but I would be hard-pressed to say it merits a double-dip if you own the previous Blu-ray. At the bottom of the review there are screenshots comparing the Dark Sky and Second Sight Blu-ray releases.
Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 1.0 with optional English subtitles. It's a well-balanced mono presentation, it's shows it's vintage but it's well-balanced and crisp. The tense Jerry Goldsmith (The Omen) score sounds fantastic, optional English subtitles are provided.
Looking at the extras it's hard not to be disappointed that what we get are the same extras from the Dark Sky Films release that came out a decade ago. That's not to say they aren't great, we get a 26-min featurette, 'Fats and Friends: A History of Ventriloquism' with ventriloquist Daniel Alwood who was not only the consultant on the film but also created the Fats dummy used in the film.
Cinematographer Victor J. Kemper (Audrey Rose) talks for about 12-min about he technical side of shooting the film, how they achieved certain shots and how the cinematography creates the atmosphere. Star Anthony Hopkins is represented in a pair of archival interviews, we get a 6-min TV interview from a Spanish TV show from the looks of it, and a 3-min radio interview that plays over some b-roll footage, in which he talks about working with the dummy and how he prepared for the role.
Screenwriter William Goldman shows up for a 16-min interview in 'Screenwriting for Dummies' touching on the development of the film and some of the original casting in the film. Extras are buttoned up with a minute's worth of silent footage of Ann-Margaret's make-up tests, a theatrical trailer and three TV spots and three radio spots for the film. Not a bad set of extras but I would have appreciated something new, a featurette or audio commentary from British author Kim Newman would have made this well-worth a double-dip for those who already own the U.S. release, or a CD soundtrack of the Jerry Goldsmith score, just something.
The single-disc release comes housed in a oversized black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring a offset variation on the original movie poster image, the disc inside features an excerpt of the same artwork.
Special Features:
- Screenwriting for Dummies: Interview with Screenwriter William Goldman (15 min)
- Archival Interview with Anthony Hopkins (6 min)
- Interview with Cinematographer Victor Kemper (11 min)
- Ann-Margret Make-up Test (1 min)
- Fats and Friends: A History of Ventriloquism with the Film’s Consultant (26 min)
- Archival Radio Interview with Anthony Hopkins (3 min)
- Trailer (2 min)
- TV Spots (2 min)
- Radio Spots (2 min)
Blu-ray Screenshot Comparison:
Top: Second Sight Films Blu-ray (2020)
Bottom: Dark Sky Films Blu-ray (2010)
