When and how did you first see Magic?

First saw this in the early '80s. It was on tv late one night around Christmas.


You can't palm off a second-rater on me. You gotta remember I was in the pink!

Early 80's on cable. I was 5 or 6.

I first watched sometime in the early 1980s, one of my earliest uses of my VHS recorder. I just had 3 movies on tape, this, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother and The Blues Brothers and most nights me and my drunken friends would watch these. (Somehow they always seemed fresh and new, not my friends, the movies) We were crazy (in those distant days) and just loved the expression, "They're gonna put you somewhere deep and LONE(echo)-ly". Oh, I watched it again a week ago on DVD. I'm older now...but a lot more stupid.
Great stuff, although I'm still worried about Tony Hopkins's arm action when he tries to make stones skim, he looks very awkward in his woolly jumper.

I saw it in its 1978 theatrical release.
I'm a huge film buff. At the time, I saw everything. I saw La Cage au Folles in its US release. I was a big art house guy. Magic was sort of a cross breed. Ann Margret was huge still. Hopkins hadn't hit his stride. Critics liked him more than I. I recall , in the film, they said Corky had a British father (because of Hopkin's inability to maintain a US accent. Sort of like his Nixon. Shoulda gone with Sam Neill). William Goldman's name alone sold properties. Marathon Man.

It was good. I've never seen it again.

Carpe Noctem!

I remember the commercials on TV when it was in theaters (I would have been 8 or 9,) and I was always kinda curious to see it, but I never did until a couple of weeks ago. I was browsing Amazon and happened to notice that it was on blu-ray, so I grabbed a copy. It was a little more pedestrian than I expected... though I'm honestly not sure what I expected. Overall I enjoyed it well enough. Biggest thing that stood out was how weird it was to see Anthony Hopkins so young.