In retrospect, one of MGM Studio's chief executives, Dore Schary, ranked the best silent movie directors in order: D. W. Griffith, Rex Ingram, Cecil B. DeMille and Erich von Stroheim. Ingram was a major influence in director David Lean's outlook on film while future director Michael Powell worked with Ingram when Rex was in France producing movies for MGM.
As Ingram's career transitioned to Europe soon after his arrival in 1923, the director of 1921's "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" began to focus his subject matter more on the grotesque and spiritual world. His October 1926 "The Magician" is a prime example of the direction Ingram was steering towards. He adapted his script from the 1908 W. Somerset Maugham novel of the same name, which deals with a doctor who claims he can create life as long as he is able to secure the "heart blood of a Maiden." Ingram's wife, Alice Terry, plays the potential victim who's hypnotically drawn to the doctor, Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener). She ends up finding herself on the surgical table in Haddo's laboratory in his castle high up on a hill.
If this sounds like the makings of a Frankenstein movie, the assumptions are correct. Director James Whale said he was heavily influenced by "The Magician" in its aesthetics, especially in the concluding castle sequences where he copied Ingram for his 1931 movie about the man-made monster.
"The Magician" also garners its spookiness from the actor playing Haddo, Germany's Wegener. His appearance introduced to the American public the actor whose presence in that country's "Golem" series sent shivers down the spines of European theater-goers. This was Wegener's only Hollywood movie. Meanwhile, Alice Terry was Ingram's go-to female lead in this as well as a number of his films. Theirs was a rocky relationship soon after the couple's relocation to Nice, France. Her roles in several movies at the time playing opposite romantic lovers didn't sit well with the jealous Rex. But the couple did stay together for the remainder of Ingram's life.
As Ingram's career transitioned to Europe soon after his arrival in 1923, the director of 1921's "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" began to focus his subject matter more on the grotesque and spiritual world. His October 1926 "The Magician" is a prime example of the direction Ingram was steering towards. He adapted his script from the 1908 W. Somerset Maugham novel of the same name, which deals with a doctor who claims he can create life as long as he is able to secure the "heart blood of a Maiden." Ingram's wife, Alice Terry, plays the potential victim who's hypnotically drawn to the doctor, Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener). She ends up finding herself on the surgical table in Haddo's laboratory in his castle high up on a hill.
If this sounds like the makings of a Frankenstein movie, the assumptions are correct. Director James Whale said he was heavily influenced by "The Magician" in its aesthetics, especially in the concluding castle sequences where he copied Ingram for his 1931 movie about the man-made monster.
"The Magician" also garners its spookiness from the actor playing Haddo, Germany's Wegener. His appearance introduced to the American public the actor whose presence in that country's "Golem" series sent shivers down the spines of European theater-goers. This was Wegener's only Hollywood movie. Meanwhile, Alice Terry was Ingram's go-to female lead in this as well as a number of his films. Theirs was a rocky relationship soon after the couple's relocation to Nice, France. Her roles in several movies at the time playing opposite romantic lovers didn't sit well with the jealous Rex. But the couple did stay together for the remainder of Ingram's life.