Synopsis
This was an HBO special, a filmed performance of Jay's Broadway show, directed by his friend, David Mamet. It is literate, intelligent, and better than any magic performance you have ever seen.
Where to watch
Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants
1996 Directed by David Mamet
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Popular reviews
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I will always regret not going out of my way to see Ricky Jay perform while he was still alive. He definitely did at least one show Off-Broadway while I’ve been living in New York. And I kept saying “Oh I should go...” and then I didn’t. Great job, dummy! You blew it.
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hooting and hollering as Ricky calmly explains all the variants of riffle shuffling
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HBO Max if you think you’re so great put out a remaster of this legendary show
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Genuine sustained astonishment. I could have watched a ten-hour version of this. RIP to a legend.
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Such a joy to be transported to Ricky Jay's magical world of unfathomable skill and pure entertainment amid this sad time of pandemic isolation and algorithmically generated content. As far as I'm concerned this may as well be the supernatural kind of magic – Jay's sleight-of-hand tricks are so seamlessly executed and show-stoppingly performed it'll take your breath away. Big rec!
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I very sincerely doubt we’ll ever see someone like Ricky Jay again, a master practitioner of magic and trickery that also happened to be a walking encyclopedia of magic and trickery, and I’m truly glad we got this hour-long presentation of Jay pulling out some of his longest-standing sleights of hand in front of an adoring audience. Mamet directs it in a very simple manner (almost like Kevin Smith directed it), but it’s a documenting of a dude doing magic onstage, that’s entirely fine. What makes the special, though, is Jay’s remarkable patter and ability to conjure up both remarkable figures centuries dead and some pretty nifty jokes, a necessary ingredient in any good magician’s act. The whole special is on YouTube, so do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Shout out to the watermelon’s pachydermal hyde.
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This is the type of mature, elegant show with a bit of wit I thought my parents were attending anytime they had "a night out" turns out they were going to Leno tapings to get Leno'd.
You've been Leno'd! Be sure to Leno two more people!
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Knew nothing about Ricky Jay going on but was left awestruck and amazed by the conclusion, totally enraptured by his storytelling ability and his fiendishly clever slight of hand. My family couldn't look away and neither could I. He reminded me of watching Peter Greenaway as I got a similar feel of being in the company of someone much smarter than me and being totally engaged throughout, even if there is an underlying (and slightly winning) pomposity. The astrology trick is hilarious but also very cleverly demonstrates the difference between random chance and skill. To say more would be to spoil the act, but I hugely recommend this. Thanks to Lucinda and Kai Perrignon for putting this on my radar!
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“Who killed Laura Palmer?”
This special is many things: literate, eloquent, playful, educational, deconstructionist, hilarious, and completely absurd. But mostly, it’s truly, unequivocally mind-blowing. One of the best hours of television you’ll ever see.
You can watch the whole thing here.
In my Must See Movies You Might Have Missed list.
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Jay quietly redefines our notions of showmanship and the laws of reality before a bad audience who alternate between bored and bawdy. Obviously the tricks do too, but what surprised me was that this is one of Mamet's more verbose films; an element the crowd clearly had no interest in but which I would lovingly have listened too as an ongoing show unto itself.