THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN has a handful of laughs in an otherwise smug and sloppy 92 minutes. Satire ala 1969, intended to rip holes in the gas balloon of society’s pomposity—Britain’s, anyway, representing the ‘civilized world’—mainly serves as a star-studded loaded showcase for how potent drugs were at the time, particularly for those who could afford them in quantities great enough to waste on a spite dump like this. I remember dutifully trekking to see it with a crew of stoned pals, guffawing as if Beatle-programmed at the ‘daring’ take-down of what we were assured was the status quo. Har har: the joke was on us: it’s really just one group of rich, spoiled, connected swells wanking on another.

Terribly directed by Joseph McGrath (he helped ruin 1967’s Casino Royale), who co-wrote/co-opted the script with counter-culturist Terry Southern, updating & continent-shifting Southern’s 1959 novel. Injections issued from John Cleese, Graham Chapman and leading man Peter Sellers. Sellers and co-star Ringo Starr seem to be enjoying themselves.

On hand to show squares how uncool they were is an assortment of Brit supporting players, with some international/Hollywood’y names as poster bait. A few are funny (Wilfrid Hyde-White the best), some are embarrassing (Yul Brynner, Laurence Harvey, Roman Polanski), others adrift (Richard Attenborough, Christopher Lee); the biggest half-dressed draw (Raquel Welch) is on screen for about as much time as it takes to read this paragraph.

Creep alert

With Leonard Frey, Spike Milligan, Roland Culver, Edward Underdown, Cleese & Chapman, Ferdy Mayne, Graham Stark, Victor Maddern, Isabel Jeans, John Le Mesurier and Rita Webb. Paul McCartney’s “Come And Get It” is performed by Badfinger: a relic, by relics, for relics.

Critics were not impressed, and boxoffice was sad, $2,000,000 in the Nam-mired States placing 97th in ’69. Way too clumsy and self-satisfied to score with much beyond sophomoric scorn for everyone not ‘groovy’ enough to be ‘with it’. “Far out.” Pretend it’s way-back, you’re fifteen and pot’s ten bucks a bag: you’ll think it hilarious and ‘deep’.

Subtle with a capital-ism S–t