The Magician 

The cases of a stage magician/escape artist who moonlights as an amateur crimefighter.

Creator:

Bruce Lansbury

Stars:

Bill Bixby, Julian Christopher, Keene Curtis

Cast

Complete series cast summary:
Bill Bixby	...	Anthony Blake / ... 22 episodes, 1973-1974
Julian Christopher	...	Jerry Anderson / ... 22 episodes, 1973-1974
Keene Curtis	...	Max Pomeroy 12 episodes, 1973-1974
Joseph Sirola	...	Dominick 11 episodes, 1974
Cami Sebring	...	Kathy / ... 11 episodes, 1973-1974

Storyline

Anthony Blake is a very compassionate and wealthy magician, who uses his talents as an illusionist and escape artist to help people in trouble. Max Pomeroy, a friend who is a syndicated columnist, describes him as "One of the few individuals in this age of numbness, who can still regard the suffering of a fellow human being as his own." He is motivated to help because he had been falsely imprisoned in South America for espionage.

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Plot Keywords:

stage magician | escape artist | magic | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 March 1973 (USA)

Also Known As:

El mago

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

B&B Productions,Paramount Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min (24 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the Quantum Leap Episode "The Great Spontini: " Sam Beckett (Scott Backula) jumps into a magician in 1974 who plans on auditioning for Bill Bixby's The Magician. Sam mistakenly thinks he's going to try out for The Incredible Hulk, to which his young companion says "Harry, I don't think a great actor like Bill Bixby, a magician, is going to play a green comic book character."

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Connections

Referenced in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Castle of Fu Manchu (1992)

User Reviews

Some notes about the DVD

This series was released on DVD in 2017. The episodes seem to be complete, except for episode 12, "The Illusion of the Curious Counterfeit" part 2, which is missing the recap of part 1 (episode 11). That recap - which can be seen on YouTube - runs only 02:45, yet the episode runs 05:35 shorter than the rest. I've compared the DVD to an old tape from the SciFi Channel. Besides the recap, SciFi had nothing that isn't in the DVD version. It's possible that the episode actually ran 3 minutes short when it originally aired.

I've also compared the pilot movie to the SciFi channel version. At 20:05, SciFi goes to a commercial. A :05 second shot of the Spirit airplane flying off has been trimmed; on the DVD, it cuts directly to a similar (not identical) shot which occurs after the commercial. The missing shot is insignificant, and the edit actually improves the flow, by eliminating the commercial fade-out / fade-in.

Also in the pilot, at 34:15, Max asks Mrs. Coogan (Kim Hunter) if she's ever read "The Count of Monte Cristo". I distinctly remember from an older tape I used to have that she responds "No" then pauses a moment before saying "I've seen the movie." On both the DVD and the SciFi channel versions, the "No" and pause is cut. This makes me wonder if anything else has been cut from the DVD (the SciFi version has nothing else that's missing from the DVD).

One more note ... episode 14, The Illusion of The Queen's Gambit, has the second style of credits, but still lists Keene Curtis as co-star. It seems to be the first Magic Castle episode, with Joseph Sirola listed as a guest star. This presumably belongs before episode 11.