The Magic Christian

One thing is for certain: Ringo has always surrounded himself with beautiful women in every single movie he was in. See above photo of him with sultry Raquel Welch for proof. And the females seem to be as smitten with him as he is with them. Can't really blame them, can you?

The Magic Christian is the sort of movie that was being made in the late 60's in England and, as such, it represented a very different view on the whole Psychedelic generation, which means, less flower power and more tea and whimsy instead. To say that Lewis Carroll's influence was at its strongest at this place in time is not an overstatement. British surrealism (sometimes mistaken by sheer eccentricity) was felt throughout all of the arts and even encouraged which resulted in some very powerful works, be it in the music scene (with the Zombies, Pink Floyd, a lot of folk acts too and even our own Beatles) or in Cinema, as well (Wonderwall and other quirky cinematic offerings come to mind).

So it's no suprise that by the end of The Magic Christian you will be left wondering what the heck have you just been watching. Yes, because the last part of the movie is particularly inventive and it literally throws everything out of the window including the kitchen sink! I'm refering to the scene shot at the proverbial Magic Christian, a boat for the rich and wealthy that is just being inaugurated by the richest man alive, a character played by Peter Sellers.

Ringo's part is of a down on his luck fellow that one day hits the jackpot when he is befriended and later adopted by Mr. Sellers himself. All sorts of mad situations and crazy settings dutefully ensue, as it should, anyway. And that's for the benefit of the movie, too.

Definitely not one for everyone but if you fancy watching Yul Brynner in drag, this is the movie for you! Oh, and I almost forgot: this movie was adapted from a book by Terry Southern, the one that also wrote another movie Ringo Starr-ed in: Candy. Now you really want to see it, don't you?

Candy

The movie Ringo co-STARRed in that I'm going to write some words about today is readily available on DVD for quite a long time (though now currently Out of Print in the US but not in the UK), so if by the end of this post, you feel interested in checking it out, that particular task won't be as hard as the previously mentioned films in this little blog of ours.

It's called Candy, as you can see by the original theatrical poster on the left, and it was made in 1968 by frenchman Christian Marquand at the height of the hippie movement. And boy, does it show! Adapted from the novel by Terry Southern by the same name, it tells the story of a young ingénue named, you guessed it, Candy and her many adventures in search of... well, something. I've watched the movie quite a few times (rewatched it in fact just this weekend to prepare myself for these words) and I am still not sure what the movie is about.

Just so you can get a better picture of it, it involves a constantly wind-swept poet, a mexican gardener who's studying to become a priest (our own Ringo Starr, no less!), false indian gurus, homicidal surgeons, underground temples, members of the U. S. Army, a flying hunchback and the Mob! To confuse matters even more, apparently Southern's novel was loosely basen on literary classic Candide, by Voltaire, also the story of a naif character (a man, this time around) in search of Optimism. Sounds too erudite to you? Well, it should: it was written by a philosopher, if you're still wondering who Voltaire was.

With this sort of material, it should've been easy to make a fantastic movie, right? Right. But not in this case, though. Candy is yet another glorious cinematic mess that leaves you dumbfounded at the end and viewing it 40 years on, I'm quite sure that even the hippie crowd (clearly the target audience this movie was fabricated for) had a hard time figuring it all out. Nevertheless, it features some amazing cinematography by Fellini regular, Giuseppe Rotunno which achieves the impossible: to keep us glued to the screen for its whole two hours. No mean feat, I tell you.

And what about Ringo's part in it? Well, let's just say that his mexican accent sounds too liverpudlian to be believable but to see him on the big screen is always a pleasure (for me, at least). He seemed to enjoy it too, judging by the picture below with newcomer Ewa Aulin...