Welles Conjures Up A Starring Lead
That Old Black Magic (1949) Comes Back
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| Shot For Spectacle, Sold For Spooky |
posted by John McElwee at 7:30 AM
Monday, August 29, 2016
That Old Black Magic (1949) Comes Back
That Old Black Magic (1949) Comes Back
6 Comments:
So happy to see something on Black Magic – it is one of my favorite films, and something of an unrecognized classic, I think.
While not a swashbuckler per se, it somehow taps into the emotional tenor of Dumas’ work better than more ambitious productions. With its mesmerism, midnight gravesite visits, court intrigue … it somehow gets at the very heart of Romanticism. (I’ve written about it here, if you are interested: http://thejadesphinx.blogspot.com/2011/06/that-old-black-magic.html)
Odd that more modest costume pictures sometimes catch the tone better than more elaborate, bigger-budgeted films. Son of Monte Cristo and Whale’s Man in the Iron Mask have moments bordering on profundity, a quality missing from, say, MGM’s Three Musketeers.
Welles, in particular, is in fine form here. I didn’t see the Barrymore vibe until you mentioned it, but of course I do now that you have. (Welles admired JB immoderately, and thought he was the finest Hamlet he had ever seen.)
I have no idea why this film isn’t better known, but I love every minute of it. Sorry I missed it on TCM -- I have a very poor DVD for which I paid through the nose years ago, simply to have it.
Panther Women of the world Unite? How many are there??
My heart sank when I saw Ratoff had directed. I made it through about 20 minutes of the TCM showing. Guess I should give it another try.
Craig Reardon looks back on "Black Magic" (Part One):
Hi John,
And I guess you know what THAT'S from! So pleased to see you doing one of your typically thorough overlooks of "Black Magic", one of my favorites; or shall we say, one of my "guilty pleasures", the get-out-of-jail term for movie fans. I'm aware that Welles conveniently dissed this one late in life, claiming to have wanted to do the story of Cagliostro himself, but fate intervening and handing him this highly compromised opportunity only. I won't say, "Boo-hoo!", just because I wanted a lot more than I got, too, as a makeup artist in my own salad days. (A good sword 'n' sorcery item, anything in that genre, for instance---but, nope; or, even a run-of-the-mill werewolf picture! Nope.) Not only I in my own calico career, but certainly Welles, with the permanent cachet of having directed at least one of the greatest movies ever made (you-know-what), do not come off well bitching about the things we were NOT able to do...however tempting. Of course we can infer what he meant, but the colossal irony, which you touch upon, is that ALL of his Shakespearean adaptations followed a production template very much like "Black Magic", and may even have taken their inspiration from it, as far as 'how to get it done' on small change. Most of "Black Magic" is tedious and stagy, without question, but within that term 'stagy' (or, should I say 'stagey'?) is encapsulated the element of theatricality that also makes a lot of it so much fun. The opening, with Barry Kroeger eating up the set as Dumas pere (to a relatively restrained Raymond Burr as Dumas fils) is a kind of hors de ouevre for the Welles variety to follow shortly. And, heck, the movie starts OUT with a terrific image, with a kind of keyhole matte that creates a triangle in a field of black as 'Cagliostro' (whether Welles, or probably a stand-in for him) descends an endless stairway while Paul Sawtelle's score (likely a community effort, as many of his; as Bernard Herrmann said contemptuously of 'ghost writing' in Hollywood, in music at least: "It's the great unsung profession!") drones out a marvelously creepy theme augmented by the increasingly de rigueur Theremin.
Part Two from Craig Reardon:
This is a hell of an effective theme, even if beaten half to death throughout the film, especially when Welles/Cagliostro is skewered atop the domed roof of some grand Italian pile at the end, and gasps out "Lorenza!!", the name of the woman he's idealized and loved "but could not possess!", and of course plunges to his doom. All that stuff's great, especially if you're a pre-teen, as I was when I first saw it on TV. Funny how often this set of circumstances seems to determine what movies we are faithful to in our affection even when relative maturity and no more rose colored glasses (more effective than 3-D glasses in transforming dogs into lions!) should have dictated otherwise.
As for the proposed Universal Karloff version, isn't the story that they converted it, in effect, into "The Mummy"? I'd say nothing was lost and a lot gained in that particular transition!
Part Three from Craig Reardon:
I saw "Black Magic" screened at a marvelous and inclusive festival of films on Welles at the Los Angeles Museum of Art in their movie-purposed Bing Theater in the mid-to-later '80s, while still curated by the late, terrific (I'll give "great" a rest) Ron Haver. He frequently extended invitations into the L.A. community to people who'd had ANYTHING to do with movies, and Nancy Guild evidently responded to one for this screening---or, perhaps had come on her own steam and Haver found out, for he introduced her from the the stage before the screening. She was a lot heftier, and accompanied by her adult daughter, but received a very nice ovation, and good for her. She's excellent in the movie, and succeeds where many another would have failed in convincing me at least that although visually identical (as she should be, she's the same actress in both roles!--and, this 'uncanny resemblance' is key to the plot), 'they' are actually two distinctly-different people. In fact, I've wondered at times if it's really her own voice in both parts, as these two are quite different; but, I think it's at least possible it IS her own voice, and that it's the manner in which she used it, playing the virtuous girl (Lorenza) vs. the evil Marie Antoinette (oh, brother....what a plot, eh? But, Dumas MIGHT have written it, for all I know!)
The scene in which Cagliostro is set up to be humiliated at the court of the king of France and instead turns the tables on the process, using his prowess as a 'Mesmer-izer' (named after Franz Anton Mesmer, beautifully played in the movie by one Charles Goldner, who can match Welles mad stare for stare!) to reduce the assumed 'cripple' he's just cured with Christlike pretense, who's then mocked him by a dainty dance, into a paralyzed, crawling wretch again, via mind control. It's a great piece of melodrama and Welles was usually better at melodrama, and I think preferred it, than what we normally consider drama, something with some limits and a sense of naturalism. I don't mind the fact that Welles spent his life wire walking between melodrama and nice, respectable drama. On many occasions he proved he could be perfectly effective playing a scene naturalistically...but so could a lot of other fine actors. There were very few, ever, who could pull out all the stops in such a great organ of a voice and truly mesmerize all of us with something much bigger and more thrilling and just plain fun than that. It's no wonder that Welles was pals with John Barrymore. They both seemed to have a grand, private concept of life shared by few others, whatever their misdemeanors.
Thanks for this look at "Black Magic"! In its own limited ways, it still is black magic. There's a very good-looking DVD of it still available online, I believe; but with luck perhaps one of the several companies specializing in finding and reissuing oddball and legitimate classics on Blu-ray will seize upon the HD transfer of "Black Magic" you have seen streaming.
Craig
An issue of the Superman comic featured Welles in what was basically the "boy who cried wolf" story (Orson gets kidnapped by Martians who plan to invade Earth), and "Black Magic" is plugged throughout.
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