Magic City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_City_(TV_series)

I’ve been watching this new show on the Starz cable channel called “Magic City.”  It’s set in a fancy hotel in Miami in the late 1950s and I didn’t know what to make of it at first.  I liked it but I was a little put off by it.

The hotel owner is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan who looks a bit like Dean Martin in his prime.  He has people like Sinatra playing his hotel and the Kennedy’s stopping by for luncheons, and also allows backroom gambling and has hookers on site.  As a result, he deals with the local mob boss played by Danny Huston.  Huston may be a boyhood friend, but he’s also a moral-less crime lord who comes off a bit crazy, a bit insane. 

To demonstrate.  There’s a bar in the hotel with windows that look out under a pool.  Danny Huston’s character Ben "The Butcher" Diamond says things like, “You should put mermaids in that pool.  No one wants to watch fat kids swim.”  Ike (Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character) says, “I have girls in there too Ben, you’ve seen them.”  “No, mermaids I said.  Mermaids.” 

How do you answer crazy?

It’s also a lurid program.  Lots of death and Showtime-caliber sex.  I have the past three or four episodes on the TiVo, meaning I’ve been letting them pile up because I didn’t know if I was into the show or not.  It’s not Melanie’s kind of thing so I haven’t been getting around to watching them.

I just finished watching two of the recent episodes and then it hit me.  This show is Mickey Spillane without the censorship.  It’s a pulp novel crime thriller come to life with real tits and ass.  There are no cutaways to trains going into tunnels.  When the guy and the girl hit the sack, you see it in all its cable glory.

I didn’t mention an interesting twist.  The hotel owner is Jewish as is Ben “The Butcher” Diamond.  You don’t see that too often, usually the mob guys are Italian, even though there has always been an active Jewish mob too.  On the other hand, it’s almost not noteworthy because in the end, criminals are criminals.  I never thought of crime as an equal opportunity employer, but there you go.

I’m getting into the look and feel of the show.  The sets and costumes are fantastic, and the cars, amazing.  Even the color palette is like old color Kodaks or postcards.  Everyone drinks and smokes and it makes me wish I lived in a time when smoking was still OK for you.

I think I’ll watch the remaining episodes pretty quickly now.


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