Product: Magic [VHS] (1978)
Rating: 5.0
Hopkins' Menacing Stage Act
For fans of Anthony Hopkins' intensity and versatility as an actor, this late-seventies thriller is a shining obscurity. Hopkins plays troubled loner Corky, his years of preparation as a slight-of-hand magician thrust back in his face by a drunk and distracted debut audience, who then redirects his efforts into a ventriloquism act with an engagingly demented dummy-sidekick, Fats. The resulting sudden thrust into national fame causes a very real split within Corky, who has given away far too much of his sublimated soul to his wooden partner, and then finds himself totally dominated by his own creation -- who, it turns out, doesn't draw the line at murder when threatened. Ann Margret plays Corky's now world-weary and vulnerable high school infatuation, and Burgess Meredith is the veteran agent who is the only one to recognize the truth about his client: "Ya ain't in control, kid!" Side note: Hopkins threw himself totally into his role--all of the ventriloquism and slight-of-hand are his own.