Thu 4 Mar 2010
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: TRICK FOR TRICK (1933).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[4] Comments
TRICK FOR TRICK. Fox, 1933. Ralph Morgan, Victor Jory, Sally Blane, Tom Dugan, Clifford Jones, Luis Alberni, Edward Van Sloan, Willard Robertson, Dorothy Appleby. Photography: L. William O’Connell; art director: Duncan Cramer; technical effects: Wm. Cameron Menzies. Director: Hamilton McFadden. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.
Six months after the unsolved murder of a young woman who had been an assistant to magician Azrah (Morgan), Azrah arranges for a seance that will be attended by his former partner La Tour (Jory), as well by detectives and interested parties who may also be suspects.
The seance is abruptly ended when la Tour is murdered and general confusion and much activity inside and outside Azrah’s stone fortress, a veritable castle of magic, ensues until everything is sorted out and the culprit is revealed.
“Sorting out” is probably something of an exaggeration since the plot of this hokey Gothic melodrama is even more confusing than the plot of The Big Sleep
I had seen this film many years ago, probably at Cinevent, and had remembered it as an entertaining mystery, with its most striking feature the magician’s castle, a cornucopia of special effects engineered by film wizard William Cameron Menzies.
Those effects are still a treat, but the wildly improbable plot that brings in a sinister midget and his Chinese sidekick, a mad scientist wonderfully played by Luis Alberni in a style just the other side of manic, and the woeful relegation of Jory to what almost amounts to a cameo role, make this somewhat more animated than Sh! the Octopus but even more confusing.
Having said all that, I must still admit that I enjoyed the film, although I’ll not be teasing people, as I have for some years, with the admonition that this is a film “you just can’t miss.”
March 4th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Sounds as if this might be worth it just to see Ralph Morgan in a leading role, and Menzies camera effects are always worth a look. This sounds like a triumph of style over substance — which isn’t always a bad thing in a movie like this.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:32 am
Louis Alberni was always a delighht to watch, particularly when a director indulged him with a hammy part (as James Whale did in THE GREAT GARRICK.) This sounds worthwhile just for him.
March 29th, 2016 at 9:46 am
This screened at AFI Silver, (outside of Washington, DC) lastnight in a double feature with “The Spider,” and was well worth seeing. Definitely a triumph of style over substance, as someone noted earlier, but was nonetheless enjoyable. There was a tongue-in-cheek quality about the dialogue I enjoyed a lot. Every character was so eccentric, boyfriend in ridiculous fur coat, La Tour the magician, and the mad scientist was almost a movie unto himself. The fortress house (perched on a cliff above a river, no less) was one part Emerald City, one part Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and one part Frankenstein’s laboratory. It was a nice print with good sound quality. What a hoot!
April 5th, 2020 at 9:48 pm
[…] the Magician (1932), along with a third magic film, Trick or Treat [reviewed by Walter Albert here ] pulls out all the stops for the magic acts and sets, which along with Lowe are the chief […]