Something to watch tonight: Thursday 20 March

Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants (Mamet, 1996)

Through the 90s and early 2000s, if you saw this face in a movie you knew it was going to be an interesting one. He was, essentially, discovered by David Mamet and made three films in a row for him from 1987 to 1991: House of Games Things Change and Homicide. He then went on to make dozens of appearances on screen (including narrating Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and acting in 10 episodes of Deadwood where he fit right in) until he passed away in 2018.

But he wasn’t an actor. At least, that wasn’t his profession.

Ricky Jay was an illusionist, a card manipulator, a sleight of hand artist, a prestidigitator. In addition, he was a raconteur and an aficionado of card culture and a collector of relics. He was an expert at close magic and – while his live performances were legendary – television is where his skills could shine. In close-up – with sleeves always rolled up – there is nowhere to hide. Let David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, he can have it. I’ll watch Ricky Jay shuffle a deck of cards any day of the week.

There’s a brilliant documentary about Ricky Jay called Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay (2012) which tells the story of the great man’s life, professional relationships and cultural influences but it is unavailable in Aotearoa. DocPlay really need to get their hands on it.

In the 1990s, Ricky Jay made three specials for HBO that were based on his stage act. All have disappeared from legitimate view – perhaps that NTSC video aesthetic wasn’t a persuasive justification for restoration.

A few weeks ago, I read this article about an enthusiast for saving old VHS tapes discovering a first generation HBO dub of Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants in a thrift store. It wasn’t a master tape but it was as close as we are likely get outside of the Warner Bros. vault (and we know what a terrible attitude they can have about their heritage).

This chap digitised it using the finest VHS technology still available and uploaded it to the Internet Archive. I can be a bit dubious about archive.org as a lot of what they have online can’t really be described as ‘orphaned’ but it is absolutely where this film belongs – it is a museum of video ephemera and 52 Assistants is a tribute to a lost era of showbiz, as well as street cons like ‘Find the Lady’ which is given an immaculate treatment.

I love closeup magic demonstrations on TV and there is no better exemplar than Ricky Jay. It’s extraordinary to think that you are being bamboozled just as effectively from thousands of kilometres and nearly 30 years away as the audience in the room.

52 Assistants was directed by David Mamet and I should address that particular elephant in the room. For a long time, Mamet was catnip for actors. I saw friends perform A Life in the Theatre back in the late 80s and worked on a production of Glengarry Glen Ross at Downstage in Wellington in the mid-90s. I still have his short book, On Directing Film. That run of feature films from House of Games to The Spanish Prisoner were amazing. Intelligent, brilliantly constructed and unlike anything else being made at the time. He wrote the screenplays for Wag the Dog and that crazy Alaskan bear movie The Edge which was directed by Lee Tamahori.

Then 9/11 happened and, like a few people, Mamet appeared to lose his mind. He became increasingly conservative in his politics and more strident in his art. I lost interest, sadly, as did a lot of people in Hollywood, which only served to reinforce his martyr syndrome.

But don’t let that get in the way of appreciating the great Ricky Jay. You won’t regret it.

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Where to watch Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants