The Mad Magician

In this follow up to the successful House of Wax, Price plays a deranged magician who kills off his rivals, then uses life-like masks to imitate them. The turn-of-the-century period settings and illusions is what makes the film fun to watch, but story is typical Price. Originally shown in 3-D. Earns 2 1/2 stars.

source: The Mad Magician

Trailer—The Mad Magician

The Mad Magician

Don Gallico (Vincent Price) is the long-suffering prop-master who aspires to be magician Gallico the Great on a Broadway stage. He is set to perform his newest creation when his boss Ross Ormond shows up to stop him. According to his contract, Ross owns every one of his work and gives the trick to rival The Great Rinaldi. Don suffers one too many indignities and exacts his revenge. I like the outlandish premise up to a point. I'm a Vincent Price fan but his performances can sometimes come off as cheesy. The problem with his performance here is that he's doing his standard operatic villainy. What it requires is an interior intensity. He needs to be overwhelmed with anger and fear. In the end, his performance comes off as high price cheese but this is still a grade A B-movie.

A quickie follow-up to 'House of Wax' without the colour but with a very cool title, which like the original occasionally pauses to repeat the inevitable 3D gimmicks like the ping-pong ball aimed at the viewers' nose - only here it's a yo-yo. Whenever one of the guests in 'Mission Impossible' wore heavy makeup you knew he was the one who was going to be impersonated by Martin Landau during the course of the episode. This film quickly establishes a still young and dashing Vincent Price is a master of disguise so when his conniving boss looks similarly made up you know that he'll soon undergo a similar substitution; after which the miscreant is disposed as Linda Darnell was in the same director's 'Hangover Square'. During the film that follows Vincent repeats the trick with bizarre results that anticipate 'The List of Adrian Messenger'. While it may be the first film I've seen in which a character uses karate.

The line went all the way around the Elm Theater in Elmwood, Ct., when this was shown in 1954.It wasn't screened in 3-D, but still scared me silly! I now own a film print of it, as well as a 35mm 3-D print of House Of Wax. Wax had bigger budget, stereo sound called WarnerPhonic if I recall. Both are excellent, and the two together are definitely my choices for Price's best, followed by SHOCK and DRAGONWYCK. I know many will like his later films, which have many great titles also; House of Usher, Comedy of Terrors, The Raven, Theater of Blood,.....I could go on and on. And I should have included THE TINGLER and HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL in my favorites....especially THE TINGLER, which also had a color partial scene in it, and was definitely equal to WAX and MAGICIAN in its terror.Gotta love VP for being so "swarmy"!!!!

A magician (Vincent Price) is screwed out of money by a business partner (Donald Randolph) who owns the rights to his stunts. This does not sit well, and soon a murderous streak begins... I had never heard of this film before, and none of my horror references books mention it. Not the general reference ones or the ones covering the period. How it got overlooked, especially starring Vincent Price, is beyond me. This is a great story, with good magic tricks and a phenomenally amazing performance from Price. Eva Gabor also appears, and there is hardly a dull moment. The makeup and costumes department, as well as those who built the contraptions, really deserve to be honored for this one. To my knowledge, this has not been properly released on DVD... except in Germany. Sony now offers the film as part of its "choice" collection, but there are no special features and the disc is a DVD-R, so it is not intended for serious collectors.

There were and are not many gods that walk among us mortals - Vincent Price was for sure one of those titans. The Mad Magician is just one movie more that proofs that those horror classics of Vincent Price's legacy will stay forever young (no matter the nostalgic looks and flavor) and are a feast for generations of horror addicts still to come, and old-school hounds like me.

I just recently watched this 1954 movie starring Vincent Price for the first time on Turner Classic Movies. Price portrays Don Gallico, a magician/inventor who is driven to murder when his boss steals several of his magical inventions (and also his wife, portrayed in a brief role by the lovely Eva Gabor). Even though Price is a murderer, I actually found myself rooting for him, he is a sympathetic character who is driven mad by the greedy people around him who keep taking advantage of him. Although this movie doesn't have the "horror" factor of some of his more famous roles (such as my favorite, "House of Wax") it nonetheless has enough going for it to keep the viewers interest. This is a must for Vincent Price fans.