The Magus (1968)

 

Glasses: No

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for Whole Film?: No

Hair: No

Does He Point At Someone?: Yes

Best Line: "And you're the director....."

The Magus........now this one carries a rep, hated by all who made it, all who saw it, and just about everyone. "If I lived my life again, I'd do everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus." once said Woody Allen some years back. Although, I expect if you asked him today, he'd probably revise that statement.

Somewhat of a companion piece to Deadfall - another med vibin', Caine regretting, 68 film of low repute, I can confirm that on the second watch of this, its not good. Its not good at all. I've read The Magus, and I quite liked it, but this film makes me look over towards my copy of the highly regarded Fowles novel and think "is it actually that good?", such is the effect this film has on the plot contained within.

Plot - well, its batshit, isn't it? Utterly bizarre, random, madness of a page turner......CAINEOLOGY NECTAR, frankly.

Sort summary, thus, Caine plays a bored listless chap, who throws it in with his previous life and runs away to Greece to become an English teacher on a small island, where he encounters a strange older gentleman who really enjoys playing mind game and slowly draws Caine into his web, whereupon the blurring of reality, unreality, life and past life becomes mixed and enmeshed in a series of ever increasingly odd events. Is this real, or is it fake? Did this happen, or is it staged? Are they who they say they are, or are they acting? 

Now, in the novel, you just don't know, and as the pages turn, so does the twists. In the film, this manifests itself rather poorly, I'm afraid, where if you were to take things at face value, you'd end up laughing, were it not so achingly plodding and dull throughout.

Caine..........well, he's not having a good time in this and seems to wear the same face throughout. I suppose he's playing jaded, but its not good. Which is a handy one line summary of the film......

The ending cuts off in a different place too? Maybe because I've read the revised version, which did have a cracker of an ending, but the film just..............stops.

Shame, as it could have been so good. The Italians would have made a much better job of this.

SO.......

1. It dawned on me that this could be read as an Alfie 2 - think about it, at the end of Alfie, we're left with the lad himself, pondering his life and loves, along with what to do next. Roll on to The Magus and we're back with Alfie, who's lucked out and living with a French air hostess, but still disturbed by his recent experiences. He then decides to leave it all and head to Greece for an escape, where, being Alfie, he can't help following the birds and being who he is. All it needs is some fourth wall addresses and we'd be there!

 

2. Some schoolboys playing football in the playground, as schoolboys will do. 

Ball bounces over to Caine.

What does he do?

Sky it over the wall. 

Arsehole.

3. As all wargamers know, NEVER EVER THINK "anything but a one". 

(you fail your break test, Mr Urfe)

Caine, clearly not a wargamer.

4. TRIGGER!!

5. Finally, some Caine action we can get behind. During an Ipcress-esque "dream" sequence, the chap runs up and starts trashing about a bull whip, destroying some voyeur footage of his current love.

Wonderful, but alas too little, too late. That expression is the same one he wears for the WHOLE FILM.

Best Dressed - Black rollneck, sharp jacket, putting the moves on Anna Karina. Nice.

Whats it all about?

Deadfall (1968)

Glasses: No

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for whole film?: No

Hair: No

Does he point at someone?: Yes


Best Line: "He doesn't have to like it, he's a philosopher"

Deadfall........a long remembered film for us at Caineology, mainly due to strong memory of having it recorded on a video many years ago and the tape running out about an hour in, post heist. Yes, kids, this used to happen all of the time.  You had to work for your film viewings back then - especially if the film was due to be shown after the late night golf and ended up being cancelled due to the golf overrunning. I mean, what is more important - seeing the finale to the golf being played out or my being able to watch Horror Hospital at 11.55 on a Saturday night on BBC2?  Purest white heat outrage when they did that, I tell you. I think my splenetic ravings awoke Mrs Caineology in the next room. But I digress.


Now, in our minds, Deadfall was a great heist film full of sunny med vibes, a languid atmosphere and cool 68 threads. And it is, lets not get that wrong, but then we watched the other hour of the film........


Our Man plays a brilliant cat burglar, currently working on a big job by getting himself into a boozers drying out clinic and becoming friendly with a member of the local super rich. Whilst there, an approach is made from a seductive wife of another, older, jewel thief proposing a partnership/proxy job.


After some deliberation between parties, they agree to work together and pull a warm up job before the main act, played out in a rather fantastic 20 mins of live concert (John Barry conducting! I think he still had the same suit on when I saw him conduct at the South Bank around ten years ago) intercut with the robbery being carried out, scored by the music shown on screen. Superb cinema and certainly our strongest memory of the film that carried across the years. Lets leave aside the slightly absurd method of getting on that windowsill, the "Deadfall" itself, which would either:


1 - Tear your arms from your sockets, or.........
2 - Leave you in a broken legged sobbing mess waiting for the security to arrive, or.......
3 - both of the above.


Great - and then onto the second hour, which manages to highlight why having a strong sequence like this in the middle of a heist film isn't always the best idea as the film runs flat almost straight afterwards and turns into a domestic drama/sordid secrets/mind games film, but a really bloody tedious one.


By god it needed something in the second half. Something. I can take slow film, I can take vibin' over action, I'm really quite happy to let lush scenery and fashion wash over me........but this one was really testing my patience - and we rarely, if ever, switch a film off halfway through. We've never sit through half this crap on our boys CV if we did.


So - watch the first hour, pretend the film finishes there. Maybe prior to the old boy turning up at the beach house. Thats about 75 mins worth of decent film right there.




Minutae


1 - Whats with all the seagulls? Solarised ones, cuts to them at random moments, shots of them screeching about the place. Maybe they mean something? Symbolism, man, symbolism.


2 - This film was apparently a £1,000,000 job but ended up looking about as costly as an episode of The Persuaders. Actually, I could see our Roger doing this one.


3 - Michael Caine dressed as a matador attempting to seduce a woman whilst holding a sausage on a stick.

4 - Strikingly, this film seems to share a lot with Caines other 1968 entry "The Magus" which I actually prefer of the two. And going by the rep that one has, that should tell you something. It seems as though they were done under contract to 20th Century Fox - but the boy had no memory of signing the contract and nor did his agent. The swinging sixties to blame there, I think. Perhaps that explains his general somnambulistic approach to the proceedings in both?


5 - Its night. Its dark. You are about to scale and burgle an enormous house next to a main road and a seemingly busy river. What do you choose to wear for this?

 Beige turtleneck, beige slacks, beige shoes.

Blending with the sandstone building, I suppose? Theres a reason ninjas wear black, mate, theres a reason. But then the classic burglar top is breton stripes, so who knows?

Speaking of which

5 - you've taken the time to sneak into the place, drug the dogs and carefully plan it for when the owners are out and the security is eating their dinner. At night. In silence.

So what do you do when the safe proves awkward?

 

Get a hammer and chisel.

Beat the utter shit out of the wall.

 

Remove safe and lug it across the courtyard.


How much noise did that make?


I mean, 10/10 for effort, Mike, but 1/10 for the victims not realising they've been turned over and allowing clear getaway, fencing the goods and erasing suspicion time.




Outfit of the film: Plenty of sharp suits in great colours and cuts. So much to choose from, so lets go for this casual light lunch ensemble