-Magic (1978): 8/10
-The Silence Of The Lambs (1991): 10/10
A double-dose of Anthony Hopkins insanity today. 1978’s Magic was billed as “A Terrifying Love Story”, and stars Hopkins as an aspiring magician, Corky Withers, who has little luck on the amateur circuit with the usual card tricks…until he introduces “Fats” into his act, a Howdy Doody-style puppet who engages him on the stage in frequently profane patter. Corky’s agent, Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith), is thrilled with how many sold-out shows he’s been getting, and wants to sign him onto a lucrative network contract…but Corky balks at the required physical examination, and retreats to his childhood home town in a fit of panic, renting a cabin from his unrequited childhood crush, Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret) and wooing her with the help of his bag tricks. But Corky isn’t well, and “Fats” keeps insinuating himself into Corky’s life and mind, twisting it into fits of mania…and possibly murder. Directed by Richard Attenborough and adapted from his own novel by screenwriter William Goldman, Magic is a superior psychological thriller, with Hopkins doing a superb double act as the meek, hesitant Corky and as the jovial and sinister “Fats” and with composer Jerry Goldsmith providing one of his classiest scores (including an incredibly disturbing use of a harmonica).
And as for The Silence Of The Lambs…what else could be written about it at this point? One of the greatest and most iconic thrillers ever made, Director Jonathan Demme keeps the tension at full-throttle throughout in this adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel. Both Jodie Foster and Hopkins won well-deserved Oscars for their portrayals of rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling and imprisoned madman Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, respectfully, in this wildly suspenseful account of the hunt for a serial killer, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), and how Starling elicits Lecter’s assistance from inside his maximum security cell in sussing out the killer’s true nature and motivations before he strikes again. The film has its share of ghoulish shocks, and yet it’s the mind games between Foster (with her woeful physical delicacy and shining inner strength) and Hopkins (all feral, grinning intelligence) that linger the longest in the viewer’s imagination. Set to a mournful , powerful score by Howard Shore, Silence remains the high water mark in Demme’s career (earning huge box office and the Best Picture award at the Oscars, back in the day when commerce and quality could walk hand-in-hand), and not even the franchise-ization of the Lecter character (leading to an awful 2001 sequel, Hannibal, a so-so 2002 prequel, Red Dragon – both with Hopkins reprising his role to diminishing returns -- and the surprisingly excellent NBC series Hannibal, with a suave Mads Mikkelsen making the role of Lecter his own) can diminish this film’s power to unsettle and disturb. Enjoy with a plate of fava beans and a nice chianti.
). It’s a shame, because with a stronger finale, this could have been a very, very good addition to the Body Snatcher canon. Still, it’s far better than the clumsy, badly-reshot 2007 film The Invasion (if they make a fifth version, I’m sure it will be titled Of The), and the three films form a “franchise” that will no doubt be revisited for many decades to come in one guise or another. And remember…they get you when you sleep.
