THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN

Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr

THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN  (1969). Director: Joseph McGrath.

Wealthy Sir Guy Grand (Peter Sellers) has no son and heir, so he picks up a tramp he calls Youngman (Ringo Starr) and adopts him. Grand and son enjoy seeing how much people will do for money, and it turns out to be quite a lot. The last third of the film takes place on the title ocean liner, where there are riotous -- but, unfortunately, not very funny -- proceedings on board. The climax has Guy putting cash in a pool of literal crap and watching men dive for the loot while Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" plays over the action. Meant to tackle sacred cows of the period, The Magic Christian is merely awful and tedious, although there are times when you just can't turn your eyes away. The picture has the distinction of being the one Peter Sellers movie in which he clowns around but just isn't funny, and Starr, while adequate, is just along for the ride. There's a lot of homo-eroticism in the picture -- such as two dancing gay bodybuilders, and two boxers who begin making out instead of punching one another (for such a "daring" movie it's strange the way the camera cuts away before they actually kiss) -- and, alas, Leonard Frey of The Boys in the Band is forced to play a character named Laurence Faggot (pronounced Fag- go). What's meant to be shocking and sarcastic is just silly and asinine. Wilfrid Hyde-White [The Browning Version] is fine as the captain of the Magic Christian; Laurence Harvey [Life at the Top] seems to be having fun doing what might be called a Shakespearean striptease; Raquel Welch wields a mean whip in a galley scene; and Patrick Cargill and John Cleese are somewhat amusing as discombobulated employees of Sotheby's. Christopher Lee even shows up wearing his Dracula teeth and threatening to put the bite on a lady passenger. But the best cameo hands-down goes to Yul Brynner [Westworld], who is frankly astonishing as a somewhat odd-looking songstress warbling Noel Coward's "Mad About the Boy" in a cocktail lounge. Otherwise, this is a criminal waste of time! The whole film looks as if everyone involved was completely stoned all during filming.

Verdict: One of the worst movies ever made -- aside from a "fabulous" Brynner. *.

THE QUEENS

Raquel Welch and Jean Sorel

THE QUEENS (aka Le fate/1966.) Various directors.

This Italian anthology film dealing with comedic relationships between men and women has a large cast and different directors and features such weak screenplays it's a wonder it was even made. The first story is a silly concoction in which a man saves a strange woman (Monica Vitti of Modesty Blaise) from assault. The second is a weird, confusing trifle with a police officer dealing with an even stranger woman (Claudia Cardinale), who has an adorable baby, and lives in a very odd apartment overhanging a gallery thronging with people -- only there doesn't appear to be any wall, just a big open space over the gallery. The third story stars Jean Sorel [A View from the Bridge] and Raquel Welch [One Million Years B.C.] as neighbors who are married to others. Sorel wonders if his wife is carrying on with another man the way he is carrying on with Welch. This segment is the shortest and leads to nowhere, completely wasting the two sexy leads. The fourth story, which had possibilities, deals with a waiter, Giovanni (Alberto Sordi), who is importuned to sleep with a guest, a countess (Capucine), during a party. When he is hired as a chauffeur, his new employer's wife turns out to be ... the countess. She only recognizes and lusts after him when she's drunk. This segment has an especially flat ending. Vitti and Sordi give the most memorable performances.

Verdict: An intriguing idea betrayed by very poor and ill-conceived screenplays. *1/2.

ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.

Tumak (John Richardson) kills an allosaurus

ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966). Director: Don Chaffey.

In this color remake of One Million B.C., which uses the same story more or less, Tumak (John Richardson) is thrown out of his prehistoric rock tribe and wanders around until he encounters Loana (Raquel Welch) and her tribe, the shell people. The shell people are a kinder, gentler tribe who could teach the rock people a thing or two, which they try to do with Tumak when they all go fishing with spears. The first "dinosaur" we encounter is a positively gargantuan real-life lizard who tries to make a snack out of Tumak, and then there's a giant stop-motion turtle that fails to impress. But FX wizard Ray Harryhausen really gets into his stuff with an attack on the shell people's camp by a hungry allosaurus, a marvelous sequence, as well as a battle between a T-rex (or ceratosaurus, which it resembles) and a triceratops, not to mention the pterodactyl that snatches Welch off of the beach and tries to feed her to the flying monster's young'uns. Despite the big improvement in special effects work since the 1940 version, this is not as compelling as the original, with Harryhausen's stop-motion effects work being virtually the only point of interest. Martine Beswick [From Russia with Love] has a lively "cat fight" with Welch. Mario Nascimbene's "epic" if sleepy score doesn't really do that much for the movie. Photographed by Wilkie Cooper. As the lovers, Richardson [She] and Welch [Fantastic Voyage] do what they can. A Hammer-7 Arts production.

NOTE: On the imdb.com page for this movie it is listed as a "goof" that a ceratosaurus fights a triceratops when these creatures lived in different eras of the prehistoric world. Considering this movie illogically puts human beings and dinosaurs in the same time period -- not to mention Raquel Welch as a cavewoman -- that hardly seems like a legitimate complaint!

Verdict: Some lively monsters in a disappointing remake. **1/2.

HOLLYWOOD SCREEN TESTS

HOLLYWOOD SCREEN TESTS: Take One (1999 TV special). Director: Edith Becker.

Narrated by Robert Culp, AMC presented this first of two specials showing and commenting on various Hollywood screen tests. The tests are interesting, even if some of them go on a little too long. We see tests for Candice Bergen, Ann-Margret, Mitzi Gaynor, Barbara Eden and Andy Williams doing a scene for State Fair, and Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls, among others. (How anyone could have given the role in the movie to Duke after seeing how horrible she was in the screen test is beyond me!) Singer Marni Nixon, who dubbed Audrey Hepburn and many others, is tested for the lead in The Sound of Music, but wound up playing Sister Sophia. Dustin Hoffman does a "personality" test and obviously passes it, and there's also Raquel Welch, Marlon Brando, and several big names doing tests after they were already established stars.

Verdict: Fun. ***.

THE LAST OF SHEILA

THE LAST OF SHEILA (1973). Director: Herbert Ross. Screenplay by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim.

Producer Clinton Green (James Coburn) gathers together a group of people on his yacht for a party of games and murder, as he believes one member of the collection was responsible for the death of his wife, Sheila, in a hit and run. The suspects include writer Tom (Richard Benjamin) and his wife, Lee (Joan Hackett); director Philip (James Mason); actresses Christine (Dyan Cannon) and Alice (Raquel Welch); and Anthony (Ian McShane) to round out the group. These self-absorbed show biz folk are given cards assigning them a particular "vice" as well as clues telling them where to look for more information in the mystery game Clinton insists they all play. But then someone gets murdered for real ... The movie holds the attention and the actors are all good, with James Mason taking top honors, but screenwriters Perkins and Sondheim don't provide fully dimensional characters and are too clever for their own good. As one character says: it "doesn't quite add up -- it leaves you with too many questions." The sexual ambiguity of more than one character only adds to a generally dated quality, with sexual orientations seemingly [and improbably] changing at the drop of a hat [not surprising, considering Tony Perkins worked on the script!]. There's some amusing dialogue and interesting observations at times.

Verdict: Reasonably entertaining, but in the end it adds up to very little. **1/2.

FANTASTIC VOYAGE

FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966). Director: Richard Fleischer.

Improbable but highly enjoyable tale of a research team that is shrunken down to microscopic size and injected into the body of a scientist with a tumor that can only be operated on from inside the brain. Once you suspend disbelief, this picture just grabs hold of you and never lets go, with actors who do a nice job of suggesting the disquiet they must be feeling (in reality, hardly anyone would sign up for this assignment!) Nearly forty years after its release the special effects still hold up and aren't a bit cheesy. [A planned remake of this film never materialized; maybe because wiser heads realized it didn't need to be remade.] Exciting scenes include the race through the heart, which has been temporarily stopped so as not to shatter the undersea vehicle which the scientists are traveling in; the attack of the antibodies that cover Raquel Welch's shapely form from head to toe; the white corpuscle that eats Donald Pleasance; and so on. Stephen Boyd, as the agent who reluctantly goes along on the voyage, functions as the audience surrogate, hardly believing what he's living through but living through it all the same. Pleasance is in the hammy-horror-movie mode that dominated his screen persona in later years [for a look at Pleasance the fine actor instead of the freak, check out the old Twilight Zone episode entitled "Changing of the Guard,” in which Pleasance – yes, Donald Pleasance – gives a sensitive and excellent performance.] Arthur Kennedy, Edmond O'Brian, and other old pros have no problem handling material which isn't exactly a challenge for them (the movie has a great idea, not great characters). What Fantastic Voyage does have is some superlative sets which help create a whole, new, eerie and compelling universe to explore, and the picture is rich in atmosphere. The blue screen process which blends actors with the backgrounds of arterial and fluid landscapes is handled adroitly. Leonard Rosenman's quirky score, which at times sounds almost atonal, is the perfect background for this kind of movie. The movie won deserved Oscars for special effects, set direction, and art direction. It absolutely MUST be seen in letterbox for the whole Cinemascope effect. NOTE: In his novelization of the screenplay, Isaac Asimov made a couple of corrections. Apparently the filmmakers didn't realize that the shrunken sub wouldn't be able to take air directly from the lungs because the air molecules would be too big, so Asimov added a portable miniaturizer to the sub. They also assumed that the white corpuscle would completely absorb Pleasance and the wrecked submarine so that they could not grow large again and burst out of comatose scientist's body; Asimov has the surviving scientists wisely take the sub and Pleasance out of the body with them.

Verdict: Great science fiction. ***1/2.