The Magic Christian (novel) The Magic Christian (novel) The Magic Christian is a 1959 comic novel by American author Terry Southern (1924–1995) about an odd billionaire who spends most of his time playing elaborate practical jokes on people. It is known for bringing Southern to the attention of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, who had received a copy as a gift from Peter Sellers, and subsequently hired him as co-writer for "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) when Kubrick decided to make that film a black comedy/satire, rather than a straightforward thriller. In 1969, "The Magic Christian" was made into a film starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr; the
The Magic Christian (film) film features the unsuccessful transplant of a black person's head onto a white person's body. Passengers start noticing, through the ship's closed-circuit television, that their captain (Wilfrid Hyde-White) is in a drunken stupor and gets carted off by a gorilla. In a crescendo of panic, the guests try to abandon ship. A group of them, shown the way by Youngman Grand, instead reach the machine-room. There, the Priestess of the Whip (Raquel Welch), assisted by two topless drummers, commands more than a hundred slave girls. They are naked except for loincloths. Rowing five to an oar, their wrists are manacled