The Magus

Sir Michael Caine lists The Magus alongside The Swarm (1978) and Ashanti (1979) as one of the worst films he has ever made. The main reason, he says, is that nobody, especially audiences, knew what it was about.

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

The Magus was a critical and commercial disaster. Screenwriter John Fowles placed most of the blame on director Guy Green, even though Fowles himself had written the screenplay. He vowed never to write another screenplay (and he never did). The only later adaptation of any of his works was Harold Pinter's script for Karel Reisz's The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981).

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

John Lennon claimed that reading John Fowles's book changed his life.

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More than a decade after making the film, Candice Bergen told a British interviewer that the novel was her favourite book and that John Fowles's screenplay was excellent, one of the two best scripts she had ever read. She also claimed that during shooting it was extensively rewritten by various hacks, and that the result, in her words, was "swill".

BEHIND THE SCENES · SOURCED

The film was not released on DVD until 2006.

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This was French actress Anna Karina's (Anne) first English-language theatrical film.

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Although the film was shot in Greece, a large part of it was filmed in Majorca, Spain.

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After filming ended, local residents named the bay where much of the film takes place Cala El Mago (The Magus bay).

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John Fowles insisted on writing the screenplay himself because he had been greatly disappointed by William Wyler's adaptation of his novel The Collector (1965). He later expressed even greater disappointment with this adaptation of The Magus, calling it the worst film ever made. Years later he received a postcard from the writer Colin Wilson, who told him he had done worse: Lifeforce (1985), the film adaptation of Wilson's novel The Space Vampires.

PRODUCTION STORY · SOURCED

This was the only screenplay John Fowles wrote, though it was in fact extensively rewritten by others during shooting. Fowles subsequently turned down all offers of screenwriting work, claiming he could not work out how to do it properly.

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The train seen passing beneath the hotel window at night is said to be in Athens, but it is actually the train from Palma to Soller in Majorca/Mallorca.

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This was George Pastell's (Andreas-Priest) last cinema film.

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The film was shot in the Majorcan location of Andritx, not far from Calvià and close enough to Portals. Because of the shoot, the beach is still called "El Mago" today.

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Conchis's house by the sea was built for the production and demolished after filming.

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Rex Reed slammed Michael Caine's "dreary, sloth-eyed, totally insincere work" in the film and also asked: "Why is it that men with the worst physiques in films always seem to wear little more than a smile? Mr. Caine should insist on a clause in every contract protecting them from taking off their clothes. Male nudity is hardly likely to upset female moviegoers. Quite the opposite. But I can't imagine a woman preferring her film's hero with a blowout in the middle. Things are hard enough at home."

INTERESTING FACTS · SOURCED

Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn star in the film. Both men have been nominated for many Oscars, but each has won twice and only in the Best Supporting Actor category — Quinn for Viva Zapata! and Lust for Life, and Caine for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules. The two men later appeared together in The Destructors (1974).

CAREER & AWARDS · SOURCED

Anthony Quinn appeared on Variety's list of the Top Ten Box Office Stars of 1968.

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This was the second film shot with Candice Bergen on a Greek island within two years, following Michael Cacoyannis's The Day the Fish Came Out (1967).

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The film was released three years after the publication of the novel it was based on.

DEEPER MEANING · SOURCED

The Greek island in the Mediterranean where the film is set is named "Phraxos".

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John Fowles was unhappy with the filmed versions of his novels "The Collector" (1963) and "The Magus" (1965). Both of these works were adapted before the publication of Fowles's third novel, "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1969), and he insisted on choosing the director of The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), with Karel Reisz as his first choice.

CHARACTERS & CAST · SOURCED