Review of Magic (1978) by Stuart K — 29 Mar 2014

Directed by Richard Attenborough, this was his first Hollywood film written by William Goldman, (adapted from his own 1976 novel). This psychological horror film owes a lot to a segment in the British horror anthology film Dead of Night (1945), but it manages to have an eerie and creepy mood which is very unsettling.

It just shows how creepy ventriloquist's dummies can be. Charles "Corky" Withers (Anthony Hopkins) is trying to get into doing professional magic shows, but is struggling badly, however he finally hits the big time when he includes a foul mouthed dummy called Fats into his act, which is a huge success.

His agent Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith) is on the verge of getting Corky his own TV show on NBC, but Corky chickens out at the last minute, claiming he's "afraid of success". He hops into a taxi, and drives into the Catskill Mountains, and hides at the home of his old high school crush Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret), and they begin an affair, but Fats seems to have take on a personality of his own, or has he?? It's a very creepy film, and it's a shame Attenborough didn't attempt more films like this, as he was a dab hand at creating a tense mood here, (one reason he made this film was so he could get money to make Gandhi (1982)), but even he did "sell out" with this film, the final result is one of his best films.