The Magic Christian (1970)

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'.

"The Magic Christian" may have the finest cast ever assembled. If you know anything about the history of post-war British cinema, television and radio, you can see for yourself that this flick has an extremely impressive turn-out. And it is headed by no less than Peter Sellers and the Beatles' own Ringo Starr, who were both on top of the world in the late 1960s. Even some extremely well-known American stars fall into the mix. Unfortunately, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.Ostensibly about a father and son who try to show everyone has their price, the movie is comprised of various hit-and-miss skits that fall (broadly) under that rubric.Instead, "The Magic Christian" is a crass and repugnant study of two grown men with more money than sense. Bored out of their skulls, they make everyone else dance on their strings. They are not people you want to know, unless you sell out easily. The sketches are only loosely sewn together by the presence of Sellers, Starr, or Sellers and Starr, who are nearly always shown giving the lead actor in the sketch his pay-off.Some of the sketches work well. Laurence Harvey is delightful in his "Hamlet" take-off. An extremely young John Cleese neatly steals the show from Sellers and Starr put together. Patrick Cargill's turn as the Sotheby's auctioneer is a masterpiece of understatement. In an extraordinarily short -- and unnecessary -- bit of nonsense, Raquel Welch appears to extremely good effect (it was impossible for her to look bad on-camera in those days) Others do not fare so well. Since the writing and direction and editing are more to blame than the game performances, we will pass over them in silence. Let's just say most of the sketches lay an egg, and not a fresh one.A few name actors have so little to do their parts might have been played by anybody -- or nobody. Richard Attenborough falls into this category. (Raquel Welch does not; only she could have played that small part -- if "small" is the operative word -- though Ursula Andress might have given it a damn good try) The film builds toward the maiden voyage to America of "The Magic Christian" (captained by Wilfred Hyde-White, doing the shtick he could perform in his sleep -- and probably did in this case). All the sketches prior to the ship are self-contained, with their own points -- usually. Actually, it would be more correct to say "The Magic Christian" repeatedly makes the same point in various, if not varied, ways.During the voyage, the film becomes increasingly disjointed until pandemonium breaks loose. A lot of big stars run around doing silly things. This isn't normally bad. Some of my favorite movies have big stars running around doing silly things. But these things are not particularly funny, and many of them appear utterly utterly pointless. The film reaches a satisfying (and not unwelcome) conclusion immediately after the voyage. Then it inexplicably lapses into an unfortunate denouement that hammers in its point, just in case we were too stupid to get it after ninety minutes of having it shouted at us. This movie is a model for talking down to its audience. The makers of this film realize that they are oh, so much smarter than the poor, dumb, uneducated dolts, they (1) gave us a movie that requires no attention span and then (2) hammers the same point home until it's pounded all the way through the wood to penetrate our simple brains. "The Magic Christian" is worth a peek for Sellers fans (where I fall), or anyone else who wants to see a favorite actor doing a bit that would have died in Vaudeville.If you want a better movie starring really good actors in disjointed sketches that make various points, try "The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins" (directed by Graham Stark, who has an infinitesimal part in "The Magic Christian").