1954’s The Mad
Magician is another in Vincent Price’s homicidally tortured artist pictures
that kicked off with House of Wax the
previous year. A bit slight in comparison to other such movies like Wax or Theatre of Blood, The Mad
Magician is almost singlehandedly distinguished by Price, though Lenita
Lane certainly deserves credit for adding quite a bit of supporting color as
the amateur sleuth who suspects there’s something fishy about our magician (she’d
be even more wonderful playing alongside Price in 1959’s The Bat).
Despite his own rep for making moody murder mysteries such
as The Lodger and Hangover Square, director John Brahm
basically stays out of Price’s way to allow the star to chew the scenery in his
delightfully inimitable way. Price also gets to play it more subtly with some
impressive vocal disguises (George Bau and Gustaf Norin’s makeup disguises are
equally impressive). Presumably, even the film’s 3D is unostentatious. There’s
certainly no excess of magic wands or fingers poking at the camera.
Nevertheless, Twilight Time still presents its new Blu-ray
edition of The Mad Magician in 3D. Since
I’m not equipped for that, I could only watch it in two measly dimensions. Fortunately,
I never missed the poking fingers since it is still a handsome, widescreen
presentation with organic texture and no trace of scratches, squiggles, or
blemishes (which might have been pretty psychedelic in 3D!).
A 20-minute, making-of doc leads a neat selection of extras.
Two 3-D Three Stooges shorts maintain the multi-dimensional theme and deliver
on the poking things missing from the main feature. There’s also an audio
commentary between film historian Steve Peros and Price historian/master
raconteur David Del Valle that is almost as amusing as the feature.
