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MAGIC CIRCLE

MetadataFramesRelated records
Metadata

WORK ID: NEFA 21633 (Master Record)

TitleYearDate
MAGIC CIRCLE1964 1964-01-01
Details Original Format: Standard 8
Colour: Colour
Sound: Silent
Duration: 5 mins 46 secs
Credits: Organisation: Cleveland Cine Club Betty Cook
Genre: Amateur

Subject: Women



Summary
An amateur film made by Betty Cook of the Cleveland Cine Club showing members of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians performing magic tricks for each others. One of the magicians featured is Paul Daniels, born Newton Edward Daniels in South Bank, Middlesbrough. The film also features a woman magician, his wife at the time, Jackie Daniels, working the act together with her husband and separately.
Description
An amateur film made by Betty Cook of the Cleveland Cine Club showing members of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians performing magic tricks for each others. One of the magicians featured is Paul Daniels, born Newton Edward Daniels in South Bank, Middlesbrough. The film also features a woman magician, his wife at the time, Jackie Daniels, working the act together with her husband and separately. The film opens on the emblem of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magic hanging on a wall. A group...
An amateur film made by Betty Cook of the Cleveland Cine Club showing members of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians performing magic tricks for each others. One of the magicians featured is Paul Daniels, born Newton Edward Daniels in South Bank, Middlesbrough. The film also features a woman magician, his wife at the time, Jackie Daniels, working the act together with her husband and separately. The film opens on the emblem of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magic hanging on a wall. A group of male magicians sit around a table watching Paul Daniels perform for them. A pair of hands shuffles a deck of cards. Another man at the table strokes a fake mouse that then appears to jump around him. Sitting in front of a small staging area, members of Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians, including a young woman (Jackie Daniels), watch a series of tricks being performed presumably by other members of the club. After two men perform their tricks using silks (scarves), the woman seen previously performs a trick using a deck of cards. The film cuts to show Jackie Daniels performing a synchronised card routine with Paul Daniels. Now on his own, Paul performs another trick using a handkerchief and a set of small red balls which he magically makes appear and disappear. Jackie Daniels sits on a table nearby watching. Jackie Daniels performs a trick solo using a set of enlarged playing cards and a number of coloured handkerchiefs. Now performing beside Paul Daniels, the two hold in the air a tube from which a long handkerchief pours. Together they collect the cloth from the floor and she walks away. Paul begins a new trick involving a golden ball that sits on a table that he covers with a cloth and appears to make levitate and dance. The film ends with another male magician performing a trick in which he takes two pieces of rope and ties them together to form one.
Context
A grandmaster magician from South Bank Spellbindingly rare film of a young Paul Daniels, performing with his first wife and a sprinkling of South Bank stardust at the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians. With his sharp Teesside wit and extraordinary sleight-of-hand tricks, Paul Daniels mesmerised the nation in the 1980s with his Saturday night TV magic show. As a young man, this master illusionist (then called Ted) performed in glitzy silver with his wife Jackie as the exotic-sounding...
A grandmaster magician from South Bank

Spellbindingly rare film of a young Paul Daniels, performing with his first wife and a sprinkling of South Bank stardust at the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians.

With his sharp Teesside wit and extraordinary sleight-of-hand tricks, Paul Daniels mesmerised the nation in the 1980s with his Saturday night TV magic show. As a young man, this master illusionist (then called Ted) performed in glitzy silver with his wife Jackie as the exotic-sounding Eldanis, in a stage act choreographed to Shadows music. This rare cine club film records the two as they perfect their skills with fellow members of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians.

Regarded as one of the greatest British stage magicians, Paul Daniels, born Newton Edward in 1938, grew up poor in sight of the Dorman Long steelworks and notorious slag heaps of South Bank, Middlesbrough, which earned the area its nickname, Slaggy Island. His obsession with magic tricks began on a wet North Yorkshire holiday aged eleven. Three years later, he held his first magic show at a Middlesbrough Methodist Youth Club, performing a multiplying balls trick, goal fish swallowing and card tricks. By 1964, the young ‘Ted’ Daniels and wife Jackie were both members of the Middlesbrough Circle of Magicians and that year won the club’s Will Fleet Trophy for excellence in all categories of magic. 
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