THE ESCAPE ARTIST (1982)

Considering her regrettably short C.V. (just six features), you’d imagine there’d be plenty of interest in any screenplay from Melissa Mathison, especially one released between her first & third scripts: THE BLACK STALLION/’79 and E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL/’89.  Yet this often beautifully caught, if admittedly uneven, YA fable about a kid Harry Houdini wannabe has become as invisible as a magician’s grand finale.  The problem’s easy enough to spot, the second storyline, a doozy about our junior magician stumbling into a city corruption scandal, becomes the narrative motor when what we need to follow is the coming-of-age of our teenage illusionist as he attempts to match the skill set of his late father, in his day the one true rival to Harry Houdini.  (Also, the storyline yells period piece which isn’t followed up on at all.)  Griffin O’Neal (lookalike brother to Tatum, son of Ryan) is the preternaturally gifted prestidigitator (impressively demonstrating real close-work magic) who lives with his Aunt & Uncle, third-rate nightclub magicians and longs to ‘get in the act,’ but winds up in the middle of a family feud between Mayor Desi Arnaz, spiteful looney-tunes son Raul Julia, and a purloined wallet that’s the key to exposing a financial scandal.  Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope company produced and may be responsible for much of the wrong path plotting, but the parts of the film that show O’Neal coming to terms with his past and his talent are too good, too uncommonly individual to miss.  Best set piece is the extended jail break, beautifully timed, loaded with suspense & comic bits (watch for a jail trustee with a food cart), ending with a father & son wish-fulfillment dream that, if not real magic, is something nearly as rare, real magical filmmaking.  The great cinematographer Caleb Deschanel debuted (and pretty much ended) his directing days here.  A huge pity.  So too Mathison’s tiny output.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  As mentioned, THE BLACK STALLION.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-black-stallion-1979.html