"For admirers of Orson Welles, this flamboyant biopic of the eighteenth-century charlatan Cagliostro is essential viewing. After a rather dull opening sequence set in the nineteenth century, in which Alexandre Dumas pere effuses over Cagliostro's appeal to his fils (Raymond Burr!), the film leaps to life with Welles' entrance as the gypsy Joseph Balsamo, soon to take the name Cagliostro and dazzle the courts of Europe. As yet another megalomaniac and magician, Cagliostro is in the spirit of all Welles' greatest roles and, indeed, in the spirit of his public image as magisterial fake which Welles increasingly enjoyed purveying. It is true that the actors surrounding him in Black Magic look shellshocked, as well they might in this silly plotline (never mind its basis in fact) about a woman who doubles for Marie Antoinette. But Welles is in his element, clearly having a grand time, and it's impossible to imagine any other actor bringing this off. In fact, he is reported to have taken over the direction of some scenes. One might have guessed as much from the on-screen evidence-elaborate tracking shots and vertiginous noir angles. Filmed in and around Rome, the locations are used spectacularly and seen to advantage in this Library of Congress print." Scott Simmon