Shock-horror. The Great Gallico (Vincent Price) has almost made it as a top illusionist in the gaslit music hall. Then his ex-boss, Ormond, turns up - and impounds all Gallico's best tricks, saying he holds the copyright for the basic ideas. This makes the magician mad... very mad...
For his title role as the a vengeful illusionist in this 1954 Grand Guignol chiller, Vincent Price swotted up on a dozen real magician's tricks, and became quite accomplished at such things as making a stream of water run out of a sword, producing a girl from a flower pot and making a man vanish through a wall.
Originally filmed in 3-D, which accounts for all those bits and pieces thrown at the camera, it's not a magic patch on Price's big 3-D hit of the previous year, House of Wax, but in its own cheerfully lurid way it does the trick. Patrick O'Neal, later briefly to rival Price in the chillmaker field, makes his film debut as the goodie… Watch it now…
The Mad Magician (1954) by MargaliMorwentari
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