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Released By: Kino Lorber
Released On: August 23, 2016
Director: William Cameron
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Edmund Lowe, Irene Ware
Year: 1932
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The Movie:
Based on the popular 1930's radio serial, Chandu the Magician tells the story of Frank Chandler (Edmund Lowe), a very White man who travels to India to study the mystic arts with the local yogis. After an undisclosed amount of time, Chandler emerges...in a turban...as Chandu The Magician, powerful in the ways of hypnosis, illusion, and other unbelievable mental feats. After demonstrating his skills by making his eyes go really wide and levitating, disappearing, transporting himself out of his own body, firewalking, and making a rope go up in the air and disappear, Chandu is accepted as one among the yogis, and praised by the local shaman.
His majesty is short-lived, however, as the shaman gives Chandu his new purpose in life; to travel to Cairo and defeat the evil Roxor (Bela Lugosi), a sadistic madman bent on world domination. As the shaman points out, Chandu must take on this new task, as the unseen forces of the universe have dragged Chandu's family into danger to spur him into action. Indeed, Chandu's brother-in-law Robert has been kidnapped, along with his latest invention...a work-in-progress fricken DEATH RAY that can destroy entire cities. Though Robert had originally planned to utilize the DEATH RAY for good deeds (chortle), Roxor obviously wants it for evil...in this case, threatening the beautiful Princess Nadji's people with death by DEATH RAY if they don't recognize him as the new Pharaoh.
After a fiery rescue of the Princess, Chandu uses his mystical powers to take on the enemy, and for awhile, looks like he may be successful in defeating Roxor and rekindling his long-ago romance with Nadji, but Roxor has a few more tricks up his evil sleeve, kidnapping Chandu's sister and auctioning her off as a slave to the highest bidder! Will this be the final straw that convinces Robert to complete the DEATH RAY for Roxor? Will Chandu's sister spend the rest of her life in bondage? Will Roxor's henchman get the best of the magician? When the world's most powerful magician goes up against the world's most diabolical monster, only 71 minutes of celluloid will hold the answer!
Heavy on what we can now regard as cheese, Chandu the Magician still offers a lot in the casting department...even if that lot is really down to one person. Though Edmund Lowe is, in my opinion, a bit of a weak link with his classic good-looking guy partial smile, the type later parodied by the Marx brothers, Bela Lugosi, at the absolute peak of his powers, is WONDERFUL here, exuding menace, mayhem, and the amazing presence that made him synonymous with horror. There are a couple of other standout performances as well, with the hallucinating comic relief bringing a bit of humour with a fairly straight delivery, and even some standout bad in a good way performances, with a number of bad dudes overstating their badness in an entertaining way.
While Chandu may have been a wonder of its time, however, viewers not impressed with the nostalgia-filled reminders of how basic special effects were way back when are probably going to feel a little let down by this one. Chandu doesn't have a stellar plot of clever writing to drive it along, it's a simple take on a radio serial, obviously relying heavily on photographic trickery to wow audiences. While nostalgia can certainly be a wonderful thing, Chandu the Magician, despite the presence of the amazing Lugosi, doesn't hold up as well as other genre films of the era, such as the Universal catalogue titles.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Kino brings Chandu the Magician to Blu-ray utilizing the 2008 restored version of the film found on the Fox Horror Classics Volume 2 DVD collection, presented here in an AVC-encoded 1.33:1 transfer. The film looks pretty fantastic for being birthed in 1932, though it should be noted that this is not the pristine, mind-blowing picture that many of us have come to expect from the high definition format. Blacks are good, but not definitive, and there is a fairly healthy amount of visual distraction caused by scratches, dirt, and debris. Still, Chandu looks the best it ever has in home video and is not disappointing in the least.
An English DTS-HD MA stereo track carries the audio for the film, and aside from sounding...well, old, to put it bluntly, with a little distortion here and there, it sounds okay. Curiously, I noticed audio missing from one section, where Princess Nadji is obviously speaking, but there is no sound, but this is the only obvious flaw. Otherwise, the soundtrack is perfectly fitted to the film, that is older and obviously not as robust as we can expect in recent years, but still perfectly serviceable.
No subtitles are provided for the film.
First up in the supplements found on the disc is the 2008 Restoration Comparison (1:19), a variety of split-screen scenes from the film that show the film transfer and the restoration side by side. This is the second Kino disc I've seen this on so far, and it's curious as to why it's included, as there are no mind-blowing differences showcased here. Feel free to skip it.
Second up is Masters of Magic: The World of Chandu (15:17), ported over from the Fox DVD and featuring such talents as Author Stephen Jones and Special Effects Superman Ray Harryhausen, discussing the importance and popularity of radio serials (from which Chandu was spawned), the casting of the film, and why Fox chose to option it for film, as well as a number of other topics.
A feature-length commentary with Bela Lugosi biographer Gregory William Mank has also been ported over, and though Mank is obviously reading from a script, causing the commentary to sound slightly stilted, his extensive knowledge of everyone involved from the lead actors to the bit parts and cinematographer James Wong Howe means that this wordy addition to the disc will pummel you with information. Why was Chandu regarded as a financially sound venture? How are camel's eyelids constructed? How do death rays figure into 20th century cinema? Mank covers all of that and more, even reading from the script and breaking down a few of the many special effects in the film.
Trailers for White Zombie and Black Sleep are also included.
The Final Word:
It won't be for everyone, but Chandu The Magician is a welcome addition to blu-ray for fans of classic science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Kino's Blu-ray brings new life to a film approaching it's ninth decade in existence, with previous extras ported over.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
