The Magic Toyshop

This is movie is based on a novel by Angela Carter made soon after the renown British author had collaborated with Neil Jordan on the cult horror/fantasy film "The Company of Wolves". This movie does not benefit from the directorial talent of someone like Neil Jordan, but it is still a pretty interesting film about a privileged adolescent girl who becomes orphaned and has to move with her younger siblings to the dreary London home of her tyrannical toy-maker/puppeteer uncle, his mute wife, and the wife's wild Irish brothers, one of whom she develops an attraction to.

Angela Carter basically writes fairy tales for adolescents, but not really fairy tales in the present-day sense. Today "fairy tales" are associated with Disney and Pixar and other saccharine kiddie films. You could also consider comic-book movies and "Star Wars" reboots to be "fairy tales" for older children and teens, Hollywood rom-coms as "fairy tales" for adult women, and perhaps even porno movies could be thought of as "fairy tales" for male adults. All of these are alike in that they're ALL really escapist fantasy. But Carter's fairy tales mine the older, more literary fairy tale tradition of the Grimm Brother or Hans Christian Anderson and have a darker, more disturbing and much less escapist tone to them (and certainly more literary gravitas). But Carter also adds an element of more overt coming-of-age female sexuality. The fifteen-year-old heroine here (played by a twenty-something Caroline Milmoe) is first seen admiring her own full-frontal nakedness in a full-length mirror before trying on her mother's wedding dress. Later when her uncle tries to turn into a living puppet in one of his bizarre puppet shows, he--perhaps not coincidentally--has her play "Leda" a wood nymph who in Greek mythology who is raped by the god Zeus in the form of a swan. And there is an intimation (made much more clear in the book) that he actually wants his young brother-in-law to deflower his orphaned niece in order to degrade her.

Not that this movie is in any way graphic or that it ever entirely leaves the realm of fairy tale and metaphor. There have been plenty of "adult" fairy tale movies (ACTUAL porn adaptations of things like Cinderella or Snow White) over the years, but that is not anything that has ever interested Carter. Her work is probably closest to the tradition of "magical realism" that is popular in certain kinds of literature, but is very difficult to translate into cinema. But even so, she brings a more adolescent, more female perspective that is uniquely all her own.

The main problem with this movie is it simply can't compare with the book (and it is certainly less successful in that respect than "Company of Wolves"), but I still think it compares pretty well to most movies.

I'm trying to collate the recorded works of erstwhile treble singer James Rainbird and have arrived at this particular credit. But the plot thickens! In the rolling credits there appears 'Peter Roberts, boy soprano' – no mention of James Rainbird who was at his brief recording zenith at the time.

There was no such reticence when putting out the contemporaneous 33rpm LP record; the sleeve is prominently annotated on the face with "Featuring JONATHAN'S SONG sung by James Rainbird" – and no mention of any 'Peter Roberts'. According to the British Library this LP is an 'Original 1987 film soundtrack recording'.

So who the hell is Peter Roberts? There is one of that name on Yahoo! Movies with a media career - but the dates don't tally. He is credited to The Magic Toyshop as 'Music Performer (boy soprano)' but was purportedly a location manager and production scout at the same time! Improbable to say the least. IMDb credits show neither Rainbird nor Roberts.

Could 'Peter Roberts' be a disassociating pseudonym dreamed up for the same reasons quoted by sheepfarmer-2 above? Followed by a re-think for the LP? Incidentally the other juvenile contributions on the LP are cited as "St Catherine's Roman Catholic School Choir" and "Manchester Boy's Choir". I suspect the latter might be a portmanteau title chosen for the same reasons cited by sheepfarmer-2.

Can anyone unravel this one?

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Since transmitting the above I Googled 'Manchester Boys' Choir' - oh what a can of worms that was! No further comment.

I saw this film on the A&E Channel in 1991 and have bitterly regretted not taping it then. The late Angela Carter herself wrote the screenplay and included elements of magical realism not present in her novel, which made it even more intriguing and absorbing. The cast includes the great Tom Bell as Uncle Philip and the terrific Irish actors Kilian McKenna and Lorcan Cranitch (of "Cracker" fame) as Finn and Francie. It is a fantastic adaptation of a difficult, strange and wonderful book, and I wish SOMEONE at Granada or the BBC or wherever would release it on all regions DVD already!

Other users here at IMDb seem to have a hard time locating this film, leading to talk of it having been suppressed. The reason The Magic Toyshop has become (unfairly) obscure is simply because it was screened on British television before having any major theatrical release. Technically it's a TV movie, made by the Granada network (not the BBC), and it has suffered the same fate as many British television movies of the 70's and 80's. Thankfully this film was released by Palace video in the UK - I located a copy and have now archived mine to DVD.

Caroline Milmoe was not underage when the film was made - she was 23 years old, playing a 15 year old. It is true that the nude scenes present a minor through a grown woman, and that is one of the central themes of the film - the sexual element itself is disturbingly grim.

The whole film has a unworldly sheen and inhabits magical realism long before it became fashionably known as such. Watch the camera track the parrot's gaze to get an idea of the sheer level of invention and ingenuity. And Milmoe really knows how to torment those braids...

This is one of the best films of the 1980's, and certainly the best film I have ever seen about childhood's end. I don't mind it being obscure because that lends it cult status, but I feel unhappy for the cast, particularly Caroline Milmoe, as this film is the top of their art and that deserves a wider audience.

Brilliant.

Like "blackriverfalls" in Leeds, England, I, too, have been in search of a copy of The Magic Toyshop for the past 15 years. The movie, back in 1987, had a run in a tiny, now-defunct art-house cinema just off the University of California campus in Berkeley. I remember the movie receiving glowing reviews in the local free alternative presses.

The Magic Toyshop has left an indelible impression in my brain. Yes, the story is bizarre, disturbing, perverse, and sexually discomfiting; but that is the nature of Angela Carter's artistry. Her's is a world in which mythology, fairy tale, and childhood innocence meld and clash with the sometimes magical, sometimes perversely ugly reality of adult consciousness. The Magic Toyshop encapsulates the violence inherent in the confrontation of the adults' and children's worlds into a succinct cinematic package. Scene upon surrealistic scene vividly and lushly convey the romantic dreaminess of childhood and the tight rigidity of contrived adulthood.

A few years after its brief visit to the Bay Area, The Magic Toyshop was in rotation on the Bravo arts cable channel. I managed to make a VHS recording of The Magic Toyshop. The quality is poor, but luckily this was recorded before Bravo had to fall to running commercials, so my copy of the movie has no breaks. I hope I still have my VHS copy, because it seems that, despite the death of Angela Carter and the continued interest in her literary work, the movie The Magic Toyshop may exist as ephemerally as the memory of a persons's first cherished toy.