A professional magician has retired from active stage performance. Instead he designs clever tricks and illusions which he later sells to other magicians. Meanwhile he still finds time in which to debunk "mediums" and "mystics", since he dislikes the thought of people growing happy and fat on the misery of others. An encounter with a ravishing young woman will immerse him in a world of murder and mayhem. Will it also cause him to re-adjust his worldview with regard to the uncanny and the supernatural ?
"Miracles for sale" is a mystery thriller set in the colourful world of professional illusionists and magicians. The criminal intrigue is interesting, but I get the idea that the book (which, sadly, I've never read) may have been better. As it is, the idea of a murder or even several murders committed under seemingly impossible circumstances is neither exploited nor explained to the full. And now that I've started criticising the movie I might as well continue by remarking that some of the "laughs" promised on the billboard are pretty dire, to the point where one suspects that the whole might have been better if all attempts at comic relief had been cut.
However, "Miracles" will be of great interest to anyone interested in the art of magic and its history. Whole segments of this particular branch of entertainment, warts and all, revive before our very eyes. (Here it should be noted that the first five minutes or so describe an act so completely twisted and so resolutely tasteless that it is capable of making one's jaw drop to the floor - at least this is what happened to my jaw. "Bonkers" is too kind an expression.)
The more thoughtful kind of viewer will notice little has changed when it comes to the various looks, environments and costumes used by those who wish to bamboozle the public by claiming psychic or supernatural powers.
"Miracles for sale" is a mystery thriller set in the colourful world of professional illusionists and magicians. The criminal intrigue is interesting, but I get the idea that the book (which, sadly, I've never read) may have been better. As it is, the idea of a murder or even several murders committed under seemingly impossible circumstances is neither exploited nor explained to the full. And now that I've started criticising the movie I might as well continue by remarking that some of the "laughs" promised on the billboard are pretty dire, to the point where one suspects that the whole might have been better if all attempts at comic relief had been cut.
However, "Miracles" will be of great interest to anyone interested in the art of magic and its history. Whole segments of this particular branch of entertainment, warts and all, revive before our very eyes. (Here it should be noted that the first five minutes or so describe an act so completely twisted and so resolutely tasteless that it is capable of making one's jaw drop to the floor - at least this is what happened to my jaw. "Bonkers" is too kind an expression.)
The more thoughtful kind of viewer will notice little has changed when it comes to the various looks, environments and costumes used by those who wish to bamboozle the public by claiming psychic or supernatural powers.