The Magician is a 1926 American silent fantasy horror film directed by Rex Ingram about a magician's efforts to acquire the blood of a maiden for his experiments to create life. It was adapted by Ingram from the 1908 novel The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham. It stars Alice Terry, Paul Wegener and Iván Petrovich. Critic Carlos Clarens wrote that it was "perhaps the most elusive of lost films." However, since the time Clarens wrote this, various prints of the film have surfaced. Some have screened at independent movie festivals from 1993 onwards, and the film has also been shown on Turner Classic Movies. It remained commercially unavailable until being released on DVD in the Warner Brothers Archive Collection in 2011.
Original movie poster
Rex Ingram was an Irish film director, producer, writer, and actor. Director Erich von Stroheim once called him "the world's greatest director".
Ingram, c. 1920
Ingram at work with Ralph Lewis, Rudolph Valentino, and his wife, Alice Terry, on the set of The Conquering Power
Ingram working on the set of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse