Black Magic (1949)

The Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (1743-1795) is a fascinating historical figure. An occultist, a Freemason, an accomplished charlatan, a swindler and adventurer, he was certainly no count and was probably born Giuseppe Balsamo. His colourful life naturally attracted the attention of writers of fiction. Alexandre Dumas, père featured Cagliostro in two of his novels in the 1840s and the 1949 Italian-US movie Black Magic takes Dumas’ stories as its starting point.

Cagliostro’s involvement in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a scandal which did much to damage the reputation of Queen Marie Antoinette and to set the stage for the French Revolution, provides the main thrust of Charles Bennett’s screenplay. The movie plays fast and loose with history although not having read Dumas’ novel I can’t say whether the historical inaccuracies were the fault of Dumas or Bennett. 

The movie begins with the execution of two gypsies for sorcery. Their son Joseph Balsamo witnesses their executions and is flogged. He was sentenced to be blinded as well but is rescued by the gypsies. Balsamo grows up determined to exact vengeance from the Viscount de Montagne, the man who ordered his parents’ execution.

Grown to manhood, Balsamo (Orson Welles) makes his living as a carnival illusionist and purveyor of patent medicines. Balsamo’s ability to convince a woman who is in great pain that she is actually experiencing no pain at all attracts the attention of Franz Anton Mesmer, the scientist who was the first to describe the the phenomenon of hypnosis (which he called animal magnetism). Mesmer realises that Balsamo has an extraordinary natural gift that could make him a great healer. Balsamo is more interested in using his gift to turn a profit for himself.

Before long Balsamo has metamorphosed into the Count di Cagliostro and has used his abilities to gain fame and fortune. A chance encounter with a young woman named Lorenza (Nancy Guild) will have fateful consequences. Lorenza just happens to be the spitting image of the Princess Marie Antoinette and this resemblance has attracted the notice of none other than Cagliostro’s old enemy the Viscount de Montagne who is involved in an elaborate plot with King Louis XV’s official mistress Madame du Barry (Margot Grahame) to discredit Marie Antoinette. Cagliostro senses the opportunity to enrich himself and to gain his revenge on the Viscount de Montagne. What he hasn’t counted on is falling in love with Lorenza, a love which becomes an obsession and a love which the lady most emphatically does not reciprocate. 

Cagliostro’s plottings rely on his ability to bend people to his will. Mesmer’s theories of animal magnetism were rather more occult than the modern science of hypnosis and the movie credits Cagliostro with powers that are closer to outright mind control than to modern notions of hypnosis. Cagliostro can force people to do just about anything, even things they very much do not wish to do.

It’s all very melodramatic and far-fetched but then the career of the real life Cagliostro was very melodramatic and far-fetched. Producer-director Gregory Ratoff handles the material with a certain amount of panache. This is one of the many movies in which Orson Welles is not credited as director but probably did have a hand in the directing and some of the more over-the-top sequences do seem to have a certain Wellesian touch to them.

The movie’s biggest asset though is Welles as actor, delivering a typically bravura performance that is enough to compensate for the movie’s occasional false steps. Nancy Guild was a competent actress but playing dual roles in a movie like this was probably a little outside of her range. She’s actually quite good as Marie Antoinette but as Lorenza she seems rather unsure of herself. In fairness to her the part of Lorenza is badly underwritten and would have given any actress very little to work with.

Akim Tamiroff has fun as Gitano, Cagliostro’s faithful gypsy side-kick. Valentina Cortese goes nicely over-the-top as Zoraida, the gypsy woman who loves Cagliostro. 

The best scene in the movie has Cagliostro very cleverly turning the tables on a cable of doctors trying to discredit him.

There’s also a scene in which Cagliostro fires at least three shots from a single-shot pistol without reloading and then tells his adversary he still has one bullet left. Now that’s real magic. 

This was probably not a very big-budget movie but it certainly looks lavish with some magnificent sets and some stunning costumes.

The Region 1 DVD from Henstooth Video is slightly problematical. There’s quite a bit of print damage although fortunately none it very serious and some scenes do look a bit washed-out. On the whole it’s an acceptable if less than stellar transfer but perhaps a little overpriced for what is clearly an unrestored print. 

Black Magic is silly spirited fun and Orson Welles as Cagliostro is more than sufficient reason for seeing this movie. Recommended.

The Hypnotic Eye (1960)

The Hypnotic Eye is both a crime mystery and a horror film which (within its B-movie limitations) straddles the two genres fairly well. And it’s a lot of fun.

A series of bizarre self-mutilations has terrorised an unnamed city. All the victims are women. One woman set her hair on fire, with fatal results. One woman slashed her face with a straight razor, thinking it was lipstick. Another stuck her face into an electric fan, thinking it was a vibrator. There have been in total eleven strange inexplicable self-mutilations.

Detective-Sergeant Dave Kennedy (Joe Patridge) has been assigned to the case. He’s a nice enough guy, but he’s clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Even when he and his girlfriend Marcia (Marcia Henderson) attend a performance by Desmond, The World’s Greatest Hypnotist (Jacques Bergerac), it doesn’t occur to Dave that maybe hypnotism has been involved (something the audience will take about 30 seconds to work out). This is in spite of the fact that he has a buddy who is a psychiatrist (Dr Philip Hecht, played by Guy Prescot) who uses hypnotism in his practice.

It’s only when Dave and Marcia’s friend Dodie, who also attended the performance, goes home and tries to wash her face in sulphuric acid that the penny finally starts to drop for Dave.

You see, Dave is a sceptic. Even though his psychiatrist buddy has told him how dangerous hypnotism can be in the wrong hands, Dave believes hypnotism is pure nonsense.

After Dodie’s disaster Dave in finally on the trail of Desmond. Marcia is way ahead of him. She’s attended another performance and has volunteered to be hypnotised by Desmond. But Marcia resists being hypnotised, and discovers the first of Desmond’s nasty little secrets. While on stage he secretly gives the most attractive of his female subjects a post-hypnotic suggestion to come and join him in his dressing room after the show. He then takes them out to dinner, and then back to his place to see his etchings.

Marcia thinks she can resist being hypnotised, but she doesn’t yet know about the Hypnotic Eye. No woman can resist the Hypnotic Eye. She also hasn’t yet figured out how Desmond’s little assignations tie in with the self-mutilations, although she soon will. But under the influence of the Hypnotic Eye, will she become the next victim? And will Dave finally put the pieces of the puzzle together in time to save her? The audience will certainly have solved the puzzle long before Dave does.

This movie attempted to use some William Castle-style gimmickry to whip up audience interest. In this case the gimmick was HypnoMagic. During a sequence in which Desmond hypnotises his entire audience, the movie audience can join in and become hypnotised as well!

By 1960 standards there are some reasonably horrific scenes. The self-mutilations are fairly graphic.

Jacques Bergerac was apparently a real magician. He certainly wasn’t a real actor but he chews the scenery with enough enthusiasm to make his performance work. Unfortunately not even HypnoMagic can make the performances of the other players interesting.

Despite some inadequate acting and a plot that wouldn’t challenge a five-year-old this is still an insanely entertaining little movie. Plus it has beatniks and beat poetry! Crazy, man, crazy. Another fun feature is the stern warning at the end to never, never allow yourself to be hypnotised by anyone who is not a medical doctor. It’s all great exploitation movie hokum.

Warner Brothers have presented this movie in a superb transfer in their Warner archive MOD series

An odd but thoroughly enjoyable B-movie romp that combines some delightfully campy hypnotism silliness with a serviceable if fairly obvious mystery plot. A worthy addition to the collection of any cult movie enthusiast.