Paul McCartney joins party to celebrate the completion of “The Magic Christian” film

About

On this day, Paul and Linda McCartney joined a party to celebrate the completion of the filming of “The Magic Christian“, featuring Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers. Among the other attendees were John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Maureen Starr, Richard Harris, Sean Connery, Stanley Baker, Spike Milligan, George Peppard, Roger Moore and Christopher Lee.

The party was filmed by the producers of “The Magic Christian” and 41 seconds of it appeared in a BBC documentary, produced by Dennis O’Dell and directed by Tony Palmer, named “Will The Real Mr. Sellers…” and broadcast in December 1969. We can see Peter Sellers talking to John Lennon, and also a brief interview where Paul McCartney denies his wife Linda is pregnant (even if their daughter Mary was born four months after).

From Wikipedia:

The Magic Christian is a 1969 British satirical black comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath and starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, with appearances by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough and Roman Polanski. It was loosely adapted from the 1959 comic novel The Magic Christian by the American author Terry Southern, who co-wrote the screenplay adaptation with McGrath. The film also features pre-Monty Python appearances of John Cleese (credited) and an uncredited Graham Chapman, who had jointly written an earlier version of the film script.

Songs by Badfinger, including “Come and Get It” written by Paul McCartney, were used on the soundtrack. The official soundtrack album had other music as well as dialogue from the film. Badfinger released an album, Magic Christian Music, containing their songs for the film.

The film received mostly negative reviews on release, citing its unrelenting and heavy-handed satire of capitalism, greed and human vanities.

Last updated on December 7, 2021