I just saw this brilliant horror/thriller with Anthony Hopkins on tv again (I saw it on video the first time in the 80’s)
I think this movie is a very intense and interesting… and Anthony was great as always
did anyone else like this movie ?
From the plot summary:
*Magician’s assistant Corky performs disastrously at his first solo appearance. He is given a ventriloquist dummy called Fats to improve his act and within a few years Corky is at the height of fame. However, Fats has developed a mind of his own and wants to control his master. *
I love this movie! For some reason, what amazes me is Fats’ voice. Have you ever read the book by William Goldman? It’s built so that, at first, you think Fats is just another (human) friend or companion of Corky because it begins with a diary “written” by Fats, talking about how his friend Corky is going crazy.
It explains it better in the book—Corky added onto Fats so that he could hold things and have wider facial expressions, in essence to make him more human. Corky was hiding behind a curtin or something which was behind the chair Fats was sitting in when Fats killed Duke.
My brother had a ventriloquist’s dummy that, prior to the movie, we used to play with.
After we saw the movie (a couple of years after its release on late-night TV, IIRC), we bound it with an old jump rope, put it in its box, then tied the box shut, placed it in the back of our closet, and stacked heavy boxes on top of it.
We obviously never played with it again, except to check on it every now and then to make sure that he hadn’t “escaped”.
I read Magic when I was in high school, so I didn’t see the movie. The nightmares subsided over time, but I’m not planning to push my luck by seeing what kind of images a director came up with.
I haven’t seen Misery either, for the same reason.
I haven’t read the book but I do remember the movie. It’s good. For ultra-buffs, there is one small detail about it which makes it almost (but not quite) unique.
At one point in the movie, Hopkins performs a card trick in which two chosen cards match. It’s a real card trick, performed correctly, using the correct ‘magician’ method. The method is not explained in the movie, but Hopkins is presenting the trick correctly.
Given that in a movie, with actors and a script, you can make up any magic trick you want and have it appear to ‘work’, movie makers usually don’t bother to get the details right or to employ accurate methods. This movie made a nice change. There are just a few other movies where the actor has learned to perform a legit magic trick, but most movies get the details woefully wrong.
I read a biography on Hopkins which said he trained with a magician and with a ventriloquist. Fats weighed 16 pounds, and Hopkins modeled the voice after Don Rickles, saying high nasal voices work better and are easier to do.
I agree, it is a great movie. I saw it and then read the book and I think the book was better, but the movie was very good. It lists high on my favorite movies.
As someone posted above… it was written by William Goldman, who, of course, wrote one of the best stories of all time: The Princess Bride. But we don’t need to start rehashing quotes from that movie, so ‘get used to disappointment’.
I saw the movie when it came out… how creepy. I was 16 or 17 at the time. I didn’t read the book until about six months ago when I was in a local haunt of mine… the used book store, and was looking for other books written by William Goldman, because he wrote the aforementioned Princess Bride, and also The Marathon Man (made into a movie with Dustin Hoffman). Two of my faves. (Number one spot still being occupied by The Godfather)
The book also gets furthur into how Corky would perform magic tricks for women to get them to sleep with him, which Fats told Peggy towards the end of the movie.
I like the scene in the boat, where Corky thinks Duke is pulling the body out of the water but it’s a log. Another good part is where Ben Greene tells Corky to quit making Fats talk for five minutes and he can’t do it.
So, does Corky have split personality or something? Or is he schizophrenic?
IIRC, it was Hopkins’s first starring role (at least, that was how it was promoted at the time) in an American film; he had played small roles and was well-known in Britain but not the U.S.
I never read the book, but the movie seemed to hint that Corky was cracking up. Fats was never shown to be moving on his own, for one thing, except for one short shot in which there was a slight movement that easily could be explained by gravity.