Ben Winters, ‘Magic Fire’: A Wagner Film with a Difference

The 1955 Republic Pictures film Magic Fire, which was based on Bertita Harding’s novel of the same name and starred Alan Badel as the composer, is usually given rather short shrift by critics. Criticised for its shoddy acting and its use of the cheap ‘Trucolor’ colour process, it is admittedly an easy film to overlook. Yet, for all its faults, it nonetheless offers us a chance to see and hear Wagner through the eyes and ears of a composer who brought together the worlds of opera and the movie theatre in provocative ways: Erich Korngold.