The Magic Christian
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movie poster
- For the Austrian magician, see Magic Christian (magician)
- a comic novel (1959) by U.S. author Terry Southern; and
- a film (Joseph McGrath; UK, 1969) loosely based on Southern's book, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr.
In one case, Guy Grand pays an actor, playing a surgeon in a live television soap opera, to deviate from the script, comment in drastic terms on the bad quality of the show, and walk off the set. In another episode, he secretly buys a respectable New York advertising agency, installs a pygmy as its president and has him 'scurry about the offices like a squirrel and chatter raucously in his native tongue' in front of all the top executive staff and their prominent clients. In a third, he buys a cosmetics company and launches a big promotional campaign for a new shampoo which, as it turns out in the end, has a very detrimental effect on those who happen to use it. He also shows up at a safari in Africa with three natives carrying a howitzer. Grand's final adventure takes place on board the S.S. Magic Christian.
McGrath's film adaptation differs considerably in content from Southern's novel. Relocated to 60s London, it also introduces an orphan (played by Starr) whom Grand picks up in a park and whom, on a whim, he decides to adopt. (The role was written with Starr in mind.) The movie is usually remembered for its soundtrack by Badfinger, a British rock band promoted by Paul McCartney, who also wrote "Come And Get It", the film's most popular song - performed by Badfinger - whose lyrics refer to Guy Grand's schemes of handing out money to strangers—if they do as he pleases ('If you want it, here it is, come and get it'). A host of British and American actors (Wilfred Hyde-White, Laurence Harvey, Isabel Jeans, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough, Yul Brynner, Raquel Welch) have brief roles in the movie, many playing against type.
Extremely notable are the appearances of pre-Monty Python John Cleese and Graham Chapman. (They had written an earlier version of the film script, of which very little survived except for the scenes they appear in.) Cleese is extremely funny as a Sotheby's art dealer named Mr. Dugdale, who watches Sellers and Starr butcher a painting with scissors after paying £30,000 for it. Chapman plays a member of the Oxford rowing team, who Guy Grand bribes to throw the race.
In with the style of the movie - and only shown by a close reading of the credits- is the casting of a lookalike to play John Lennon with long hair, beard and specs; which then serves to distract the viewers attention from Lennon himself, in short wig, false nose and no specs, playing a member of a hunting party, and playing the role not only straight, but as an underplayed cameo.
Spike Milligan (writer and former star of The Goon Show, with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe) also appears as a traffic warden who is bribed to not only take back a parking ticket, but also to eat it.
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