Rough Magic

A cack-handed venture into Romancing the Stone territory (from the James Hadley Chase novel Miss Shumway Waves a Wand), miscast, racist, old-fashioned, and all in all not much fun. Nice scenery, though. As a magician's assistant who takes off for Mexico to consult a shamen, Fonda lacks the charisma to hold this ramshackle lark together, while Peploe's duff special effects aren't exactly magical. The funniest sequence is also the most offensive: a comic-relief Mexican heavy is transformed into a fat sausage, and promptly eaten by a dog. Oh yes, and Bridget lays an egg.