For many decades, the second of legendary director Rex Ingram’s two 1926 films, The Magician, was considered lost. But like many films declared lost, it eventually resurfaced. It was screened at some film festivals from 1993 onwards, and TCM later began showing it. In 2011, it was finally released on DVD.
Upon its original 24 October 1926 release, it got a mixed bag of reviews. While some reviewers uniformly praised the entire picture, others only selectively lauded it; e.g., they loved some individual performances but felt the story itself was slow, or praising Ingram’s directorial prowess while not thinking much of the overall product.
The film is based on W. Somerset Maugham’s 1908 novel of the same name. Title character Oliver Haddo is a caricature of Aleister Crowley, who later wrote a scathing critique under the pseudonym Oliver Haddo and accused Mr. Maugham of plagiarism. Most critics believe the five works he was accused of stealing were mere jumping-off points of inspiration and that Crowley was just acting out of bitterness and malice.
In the Latin Quarter of Paris, Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry, Rex Ingram’s wife) works as a sculptor. Tragedy strikes when the immense statue she’s working on cracks and a huge piece breaks off, falling on her and crushing her. Dr. Porhoët (Firmin Gémier), her uncle and guardian, begs Dr. Arthur Burdon (Serbian actor Ivan Petrovich) to operate on her injured spine, since he just had a similar case last week. Arthur agrees, and all of the Parisian medical world turns out to watch this surgical miracle.
One of the people in attendance is Oliver Haddo (German actor Paul Wegener), a magician, hypnotist, and med student. He takes great offence when a fellow standing next to him tells another guy Arthur’s nothing short of a magician, and says that’s nonsense. Saving human life is comparatively simple compared to the scientific creation of life, which indeed calls for a magician’s powers.
The surgery is a success, and Dr. Porhoët deeply thanks Arthur, who in turn says Margaret is the most beautiful patient he’s ever had.
We then shift to the Arsenal Library, where many secrets of ancient Magic are stored in musty, nearly-forgotten books. Oliver’s been going there for months, searching for a formula by an ancient magician believed to have the secret of creating human life. Oliver is thrilled to finally stumble across this promised formula, which claims the ingredients should be stored at 115ºF (46ºC) and be mixed with a maiden’s heart blood. He rips the page out of the book and sneaks home with it.
Also in the library is Dr. Porhoët, to whom Oliver hands the book and says it’s the magic volume he’s been seeking. However, the formula he wants is missing.
As Margaret recovers, she and Arthur develop a romantic relationship. While they’re on a date at a park, they meet Oliver, who picks a rose for Margaret and then walks off. Margaret marvels at his odd outfit, which makes him look like he stepped from a melodrama.
They meet again at the Lion de Belfort Fair, when Oliver shows Margaret a silhouette just created of him by an artist and properly introduces himself. He goes with Arthur, Margaret, and Dr. Porhoët to a snake charmer’s tent. Oliver says the snakes are venomous, but that he can make them harmless through magic. Everyone observes bite marks on his hand, which he presently makes vanish. Then a young lady in the act is bitten and passes out, and Arthur takes her to hospital. Dr. Porhoët says Oliver’s foolishness may result in her death.
The next day, Margaret can’t stop thinking about the mysterious Oliver’s hypnotic eyes and memories of the snake charmer’s tent. She’s alarmed to turn around and see him standing in her apartment. Though he apologises for what he did last night, Margaret orders him out. However, his hypnotic eyes soon bring her under his spell.
Margaret’s roommate Susie (Gladys Hamer), who went to meet another friend, runs across Arthur, who gamely agrees to give her a ride. Now Oliver has free rein to fully work his magic on Margaret. He says he has the power to show her strange things if she wishes to see them, and proceeds to cast a spell doing just that. Oliver conjures a faun sitting on a rock and playing the pipes as a wild bacchanal unfolds below.
Before he takes his leave, Oliver gives Margaret his business card. When Arthur returns, Margaret begs him to stay near her and take care of her, but says she can’t explain why.
That night on their way home from dinner, Margaret says she wishes they could be married now and that she doesn’t want to wait. Arthur says it’ll only be two more days, but she’s nevertheless very agitated about what might happen when he’s not there to protect her. Margaret comes home to a note from Oliver, asking her to visit at 10:30 next morning for a matter of great importance.
Margaret is on the verge of walking away when she arrives at the appointed time, but Oliver uses his hypnotic powers to compel her into the house. Shortly before she comes inside, he reviews his magical formula, which says the heart blood subject must be a maiden with fair skin, golden hair, and blue or grey eyes. (Alice Terry was brunette in real life, but she wore a blonde wig in all her films.) Margaret asks why he made her come and won’t leave her alone.
The revelation that Oliver wants to marry her leaves her in a state of total defeat and depression.
The next morning, Susie gives Arthur a note from Margaret, saying she was married to Oliver that morning, on the day of what was supposed to be their own wedding. Dr. Porhoët says Margaret couldn’t have married Oliver of her own free will, and that she’s being held under hypnotic influence. Arthur proceeds to track Margaret and Oliver to the Riviera, where the trail grows cold.
They turn up in Monte Carlo, where they’re making a killing in gambling winnings. Oliver stands behind Margaret and instructs her in the moves to make through hypnotism. Arthur is undeterred when they brush him off after his attempted confrontation in the casino, and presently gets a note from Margaret. She says she couldn’t respond to his own note while Oliver was there, and reports he left for his lab in Latourette that morning, begging Arthur to come to her at once.
Margaret says she wasn’t the one really doing all those things to hurt him, and that she’s under Oliver’s total control. Arthur says he knows she’s innocent and doesn’t blame her. She also says she’s Oliver’s wife in name only (i.e., still a virgin). Despite not being sure exactly what he wants with her, Margaret firmly believes Oliver intends to use her for some kind of experiment.
Though Arthur begs her to come with him and says a divorce will be easy in her circumstances, she feels it’s impossible and that Oliver will find her somehow. Nevertheless, she agrees to escape, and Dr. Porhoët puts her in a sanitarium in Nice, where she starts recovering and feeling like Oliver was but a mad dream.
Dr. Porhoët gets a telegram saying Oliver has been traced to the ancient sorcerer’s tower on a cliff behind Monte Carlo, in the mountain village of Latourette. Damningly, an investigation has discovered he was in a loonybin.
Back at the sanitarium, a nurse says Margaret mysteriously vanished and hands Arthur a note found on her pillow. That note is from Oliver, saying it’s dangerous to meddle in his affairs.
Arthur and Dr. Porhoët immediately hie it out of there, determined to rescue Margaret no matter how difficult it is to reach this tower so off the beaten path. Meanwhile, Oliver is just as determined to keep his claws firmly in Margaret and use her blood for his experiment.
Who will be successful in this horrific battle between good and evil?
