If you go to http://usimdb.com and look up
The Magic Christian, the average rating it gets
from users is 5.5 out of 10. That makes it sound like a
mediocre movie, but upon reading the
reviews, one will discover that it got a 5 primarily because the reviewers either loved the
movie or hated it. This comment by
Cliff Sloane of
Seattle, WA sums it up best:
******
Reading the other comments convinces me that we have become the society this film satirizes. No
current filmmaker comes close to this level of insight or provocative innovation. Maybe I'm just
being nostalgic for a most irreverent time, but nothing going on today is even close to being as
subversive as this. The film is a series of unconnected sketches, so don't look for plot.
The point is to set up a series of darkly funny attacks on British bourgeois society, so don't
look for good acting (except of course for Peter Sellers). Instead, look for one savage
critique after another, with biting dialog and absurd situations. I loved it!
******
In other words, you probably have to have a really twisted sense of humor to enjoy it. I have
not yet see this movie, BUT: Pre-Monty Python actors? Christopher Lee as The Ship's Vampire?
Yul Brynner in drag? Created by Terry Southern, the same guy who brought us Dr.
Strangelove? Everyone who watches it either loves it or hates it? I'm there!