Source: TV (Channel TCM)
Grade: A
Well first off i`d like to apologize for my long absence in postings, the reason being was I was in Washington DC for the past week were I neither had the time nor ability to write reviews. But i`m back and this month my reviews should be a lot more frequent, now that i`m not busy out of my mind training for that Marine Core Marathon that I did on Halloween, being a captain of my schools Cross Country team, as well as juggling in all the other things we all have to do.
So anyways to the movie, this was one of Vincent Prices first Horror movies, it was a direct follow up to his 1953 masterpiece "House Of Wax" and well the similarities in this movies story to "House of Wax" are bit more then coincidental. "The Mad Magician" borrows rather heavily from "House of Wax" in story style in particular. Like this movies plot is about a really sympathetic magician character who's played by Price of course who's pushed over the edge when evil big show business guys strip him of literally everything and expect him in return to continue inventing tricks foe other magicians. They were really able to make Prices character quite sympathetic I felt much more sorry for him then any of the people he took revenge on. But when all is said and done I feel the main reason "The Mad Magician" was made was so it could cash off the huge success of "House of Wax", the plot similarities are just too frequent to be unnoticed.
Though on a brighter note, Vincent Price once again put on a splendid performance making the character he portrayed even better. Which is another thing his character was pretty cool, the way he would kill people would be through his magic tricks like for example the table saw trick in these he actually cut someone up. Then he was also a master of disguise he would make costumes to replicate other people so well no one would know the difference. Other then Prices main character the rest are a bit same ole -same ole characters you would expect to find in a 50s Horror movie, but i`m not saying that's bad.
The direction style was pretty good, black and white style was pretty fitting considering I was expecting it to be in color like "House of Wax". The setting was a good choice it was a 1880s America setting, so you got some unique point of views from that setting. But overall 1954s "The Mad Magician" was a nice early 50s Price film, though sadly I defiantly would not rank it up as one of Prices all time best movies. But by all means check it out its not a bad movie at all.
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