houdini filmnotes
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PART ONE: THE MASTER MYSTERY
Many performers have enjoyed the luxury of becoming
film stars as a secondary career. But few made the transi-tion as effortlessly as Harry Houdini. While at the height of
his fame in the late 1910s, the jump to screen stardom was
not a difficult one to make. Once the decision had been
made, he simply waited for the right opportunity. He didn’t
aspire to be a matinee idol. He merely consented.
Beyond the worldwide recognition of his name, Houdini
was armed with a physical talent that audiences -- even
those who had seen him perform live -- were eager to
study up close. And it was a talent that would not be hin-
dered by the medium's lack of sound. The cinema was a
feather just waiting to be plucked by Houdini and placed inhis cap.
The greater challenge was sustaining his cinematic fame.
His first film would be virtually guaranteed to be a hit, but
could he forge a long-term career for himself in the film in-
dustry? As shrewd a businessman as he was flamboyant a
showman, Houdini sought to insure his success by involved
himself in every facet of filmmaking: acting, writing, direct-
ing, promoting.
This meant every film in which he starred bore his indeli-
ble signature but, as he was not an experienced filmmaker,
this was not always a blessing.
The first major vehicle to bear Houdini's name was The
Master Mystery , a fifteen-chapter serial that began unspool
ing the week of January 6, 1919. But this was not Houdini'sfirst exposure to motion pictures. He had already been en-
gaged in numerous filmic projects extending back to the in-
fancy of the medium.
If we date the origin of cinema to the Lumière Brothers
exhibition of the Cinématograph on December 28, 1895
the medium was only five years old when Houdini made his
"By the end of the war, Houdini had more serious competition to worry
about than 'frauds and cheapskates doing imitation handcuff acts'
...something had to be found to replace his vaudeville act not only as a
money-maker, but also to keep his torch of fame burning bright. And
in 1919 the answer was obvious -- he should become a movie star."
William Lindsay Gresham
Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls
1959
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screen acting debut. It was 1901, and Houdini was enjoying
a successful European tour when he appeared in a film en-
titled Merveil leux Exploits du Célèbre Houdini á Paris (Mar-
velous Exploits of the Famous Houdini in Paris), produced
by the Pathé Frères film company.
Walking along a Parisian street with his wife, Bess, Hou-
dini breaks up a melée between the police and a drunkard.
Houdini is taken off to prison and bound in a straitjacket.
He quickly slips out of the device, only to be locked in a se-ries of manacles, from which he also escapes. From his shoe
he takes a key, which he uses to escape the stone cell.
The next time Houdini appeared on film was May 6, 1907,
undressing, being bound in chains and climbing to the top of
the Weighlock Bridge in Rochester, New York. Houdini
commissioned the film as a visual record of his successful
leap and underwater escape. He would later screen this
footage (featured on disc 3 of this collection) as part of his
stage act -- a daring escape too enormous to fit into the
typical vaudeville house.
This second film was often shown alongside another
crude Houdini production. A revisitation of his Merveilleux
Exploits, the untitled two-minute fragment (featured on disc
3 of this collection) was shot on location on the streets of
Paris, in April 1909. Much more elaborate than the
Weighlock Bridge jump film, it is comprised of seven shots
(instead of two) and embellishes its stunt with a bit of dra-
matic intrigue.
In an undated article entitled “Handcuff King – Dives into
the Seine from Top of the Morgue,” an unidentified news-paper provided an account of the film itself, as well as the
making of the film:
The many idlers who were basking in the sunshineclose to the river noticed an automobile pull up at
the Morgue. A man clad in the briefest of bathing cos-tumes descended, to the wonderment of the specta-
tors. Two fellow passengers gripped the scantily-clad
man, secured his wrists with handcuffs and bound hisarms tightly. The crowd, believing it had to do with a
band of lunatics, shouted for police assistance.Four policemen, who had been dozing on duty at
the side of Notre Dame, suddenly woke up and rantowards the wildly gesticulating crowd. In the mean-
time, the principal lunatic, by the aid of a ladder, had climbed to the roof of the Morgue. He stood there for a moment with his enchained hands held above his
head, while the four policemen below looked help-lessly on: Come down, said one policeman, coaxingly.
The man's reply was to plunge headlong into the river.He is gone without a doubt, was the general com-
ment of the spectators of the incident.There was an immediate rush to the bank. Two
working men and a policeman flung off their coats
and plunged in, hoping to save the madman when hecame to the surface. He appeared presently with his
arms freed from the chains, and before the policecould reach him was rescued by a boat which put out
from the opposite bank. On reaching shore, he jumped into the motor, and was driven on.
The police, however, discovered Houdini's identity,and he is said to be prosecuted for being improperly dressed and for bathing in the Seine during prohibited
hours.
Apparently, Houdini suggested that the film was a care-
fully choreographed stunt performed without a break, with
out the authorities' permission, filmed as it happened. But
this is highly unlikely, since it would have required the in-
volvement of at least six cameras (and cameramen) strate-
gically placed to capture every angle of the action. More
than likely, he filmed with a single camera, with the usua
breaks between set-ups (which disproves the belief that thegendarmes were actually chasing him).
These early efforts may have been primitive, but they
planted the idea in Houdini’s mind that feats of escape could
make for exciting cinema, setting into motion the career of
Harry Houdini the actor.
Beyond expanding his popularity and increasing his
wealth, the cinema held another possibility for Houdini. It
would allow him to shape his own persona beyond that o
a clever illusionist. He fancied himself an inventor, patriot
humanitarian, and master criminologist, but these qualities
were not so easily conveyed in stage appearances and inter-views. The movies would allow Ehrich Weiss to be sure
that the public recognized Houdini as the physical and intel-
lectual superman he wanted to be. Thus did his protago
nists invent and operate a variety of high-tech devices
including a hidden microphone, a television camera, diving
suit, gas-powered bullets, a submarine, etc.
In 1917,The Moving Picture World announced that, “The fa
mous self-liberator has accepted the offer of the Williamson
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Brothers, and will be featured by them in an international
drama of thrills in the air, on land, and underwater, receiving
for his services the largest sum of money ever paid to any
one performer for a single motion picture.” The salient de-
tails were withheld, which is unfortunate, since the deal was
never consummated. The article continued, “An author
whose virile fiction marks him as one of the greatest men
of letters of the present day has been secured to prepare
the story for this super-picture in which Houdini will bestarred.” This suggests a writer of the ilk of Arthur Conan
Doyle, originator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle and Houdini
would become friends, but by most accounts, their corre-
spondence didn't begin until 1920, and even then they were
united not by the cinema, but by investigations into the
spirit world.
Liverpool-born John Ernest and George Maurice
Williamson are best known for pioneering the science of
underwater photography, as showcased in Stuart Paton's
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916). They were just com-
pleting The Submarine Eye (1917) when the Houdini project
was announced.The article explains that the film was to be shot “in the
clear waters of the West Indies,” where Houdini would es-
cape from the steel-and-glass tube integral to the
Williamsons' underwater photography. “If the test is suc-
cessful and Houdini performs the impossible, there will be
photographic evidence of it incorporated into the picture
of which he is the star.” Apparently, the challenge was never
conducted, and the film was never made, though his 1920
film Terror Island (written by Arthur Reeve and John Grey)
borrowed several elements from the aborted 1917 proj-
ect.
Undaunted by the collapse of the Williamson Brothers
deal, Houdini began pursuing an acting career in earnest.
According to biographer Kenneth Silverman, entrepreneur
Harry Grossman introduced Houdini to producer B.A.
Rolfe over lunch. Rolfe had made a number of melodramas
at Metro Pictures, including several directed by Tod Brown-
ing. Rolfe and Grossman suggested that Houdini capitalize
on his penchant for daring escapes by starring in a
cliffhanger-style serial.
Rather than put the project under studio control, they
opted to form their own company, the Octagon Film Corp.,
and produce it themselves. The film would then be sold viastates’ rights distribution, a model in which a small company
(without a large distribution/exhibition network) would
lease distribution rights to small companies in specific ter-
ritories. This system allowed for the producer to keep a
larger share of the box-office, but (as Houdini would later
discover) made it very difficult for them to get an accurate
accounting of the film’s actual earnings.
Though he was a notorious micro-manager, Houdini had
the good sense to rely upon experienced filmmakers to
craft this freshman effort. This would not always be the
case.
Arthur B. Reeve was the creator of “Craig Kennedy, Sci-
entific Detective,” an all-American super-sleuth whose ex
ploits began in the pages of Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1910
and continued through a variety of pulp magazines and
more than a dozen novels into the 1930s. In 1914, Reeve's
story The Exploits of Elaine (another Craig Kennedy adven-ture) became one of the earliest and most successful film
serials, in the tradition of The Perils of Pauline, released ear-
lier that year.
To Houdini, Reeve was the perfect candidate to craft his
onscreen persona. He (along with melodrama writer
Charles Logue) was engaged to write a treatment for a fif
teen-chapter serial, punctuated by daring escapes: from a
straitjacket, chains, a diving suit, a garrote, suspended over
a vat of acid, beneath a descending elevator, within a col-
lapsed cave, strapped to an electric chair, nailed inside a
packing crate dumped in a river. The movie would show
case Houdini's greatest escapes, reenacted within a melo
dramatic framework, stretched out over the course o
fifteen weeks.
The film was shot in and around Yonkers, New York.
The story follows the efforts of secret agent Quentin
Locke (Houdini) to expose an elaborate plot masterminded
by Herbert Balcom (Charles Graham) to corner the tech-
nology market buy buying patents and then suppressing the
inventions. In solving the mystery and winning the heart o
the beautiful Eva Brent (Marguerite Marsh), Locke escaped
a variety of tortures, repeatedly eluded the grasp of crimina
henchmen known as “emissaries,” and waged war against aseemingly indestructible robot: the automaton.
“As serials went, it was not very much worse than most,”
wrote biographer William Lindsay Gresham (author of
Nightmare Alley ). Entitled The Master Mystery , Houdini plays
not only a mechanical genius, but a man who fights for the
rights of other entrepreneurs. Gresham observed, “Teddy
Roosevelt had waged strenuous war against trusts which
stood in the way of progress and were suspected of buying
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up inventions and killing them; Houdini was a great admirer
of T.R. The ideology seems of clear derivation.”
Upon its original release, The Master Mystery ran slightly
longer than five-and-a-half hours. Several episodes are lost,
or only exist in fragmentary condition. Thus the Kino Inter-
national edition runs slightly less than four hours (238.5
min.) One fragment that exists in particularly poor quality
can be seen in “The Censor’s Report” (in which Houdini is
dangled over a vat of acid).
The first episode, “The Living Death,” premiered in NewYork the week of January 6, 1919. The Moving Picture World
reported, “To say that the opening was auspicious is to use
terms which do not adequately describe the facts. It was a
tremendous success." The film packed the three thousand-
seat Proctor's Theatre in Yonkers and another estimated
three thousand were turned away.
Billboard raved, “This cracker-jack production will thunder
down the ages to perpetuate the fame of this remarkable
genius whose unparalleled achievements have reached from
Aroostook, Maine, to Singapore, China, from Zululand to
the Bering Straits.”
The serial opened in sixteen theaters throughout NewYork state. Because the film was independently distributed,
box-office figures and details of its national exhibition are
limited. It proved so successful in New York that it was re-
released in 1924. By that time, a state censor board had
been established, and the film was subjected
to numerous cuts to soften its depiction of acts that were
deemed “inhuman” and might “tend to incite to crime.” (see
the Censor’s Report on disc 1).
The states’ rights distribution plan, as it often did, proved
to be a problem. “By [Houdini’s] arithmetic, the picture
grossed $225,000, with a net of $80,000, to half of which his
contract entitled him, atop his salary,” wrote Silverman
“When the money failed to come, he decided the partners
had squandered it and were ‘trying to cheat
me out of my 50% profit.’ He was forced to sue Octagon
for $43,000. As depositions and affidavits stacked up, the remaining partners sued one another over the sale of terri-
torial rights...the company, having produced one picture
went bankrupt.”
Rolfe gave up filmmaking to pursue a musical career as a
trumpet player and band leader. Houdini’s early romances
with the cinema had ended badly, but he was undaunted
Having gotten a taste of screen stardom, he knew he
wanted more.
PART TWO: THE GRIM GAME,
TERROR ISLAND, THE MAN FROM BEYOND
“I think the film profession is the greatest...
and that the moving picture is the most
wonderful thing in the world.”
– Harry Houdini
Motivated by the success of The Master Mystery , Houdin
announced that an independent company would be formed
headed by Christian Hemmick of Washington, D.C., “to
make feature films with the magician as star. Houdini wil
write his own stories and he will be directed by Burton
King.” (The Moving Picture World , March 8, 1919)This company would be formed, and King would, in fact
direct one of the films, but this wouldn’t happen for another
two years. Instead, Houdini suddenly abandoned the idea
and signed a deal with Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount-
Artcraft), and would begin filming a new project in Holly
wood on May 1. This news came just two weeks after the
announcement of the independent production company.
“Although the name of Mr. Houdini's director is not avail-
able at this time, it is said that the productions in which he
will appear will offer high-class mystery stories, especially
written for him and affording him the opportunity to prop
erly present his most startling feats.” (The Moving Picture
World , March 22, 1919)
Houdini departed for the West coast on April 16, 1919
His pay rate had escalated from $1,500 to $2,500 per
week. As hot a commodity as he was, Famous Players-Lasky
was reluctant to sign him to a long-term contract.
“Houdini’s original contract with Famous Players called
for only one picture, for although his ability in his particular
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line of work was acknowledged to be of the first order, its
potential value as screen entertainment was a more or less
uncertain quantity, especially so on account of the fact that
his picture experience had been limited to one serial.” (The
Moving Picture World , September 13, 1919)
Houdini’s first studio picture was The Grim Game. Based
again on a story by Reeve and Grey, and directed by Irving
WIllat, the film continued The Master Mystery ’s formula of
Houdini as a technical wizard with a knack for escaping anyform of bondage, only this time in a single feature rather
than a serial.
Houdini made it clear he would not deviate from his es-
tablished screen persona. And the characters he portrayed
would always be thinly-veiled versions of himself. Lest the
audience momentarily lose themselves in the drama, and
forget who was playing the role, his characters’ names
served as gentle reminders: Harry Harper, Howard Hillary,
Heath Haldane.
The following detailed plot synopsis appeared in the De-
cember 6, 1919 issue of The Moving Picture World :
Harvey Hanford, the part played by Houdini in The
Grim Game , is a special writer on The Call , who is
noted for his nerve and daring in gathering news. He
has an eccentric millionaire uncle who lives with his
ward, Mary, and will not let Harvey come near him.
The old man knows that his nephew and his ward are
in love with each other, and is opposed to the match.
He is also aware that he is surrounded by three men,
any one of whom would profit by his death. The first
is his lawyer, Richard Raver, who has misappropriated
some of the Cameron funds. The second is Dr. Tyson,
his physician, who expects to marry Mary, heiress to
the Cameron millions, when their owner dies. Clifton
Allison, owner and publisher of The Call , is heavily in
debt to Cameron, and the old man has threatened
several times to drive him to the wall.
A plan is hit upon by Harvey to work up a big sen-
sation for the paper by getting the old man away se-
cretly and then making it look as if he (Harvey) had
murdered his uncle. After he has been convicted of
the crime, Dudley Cameron will be brought back and
circumstantial evidence will be given a heavy blow.
The three men agree to this, but each one is deter-
mined that the old millionaire shall never return home
alive.The scheme is set in motion and Harvey is arrested
for the murder of his uncle. Then commences a series
of Houdini escapes, the last one being a genuine thrill
and the most dangerous of the Handcuff King's ca-
reer. While trying to change in midair from one flying
machine to another, the two airplanes crash into each
other. This, of course, is an accident, but the camera
caught it and also the dive to earth of the machines
which followed. None of the actors in the accident
were seriously hurt, and The Grim Game is able to
show on the screen an "escape" that is a thriller of
thrillers. The story is brought to a highly satisfactory
close, and Harvey and Mary are united.
This spectacular scene was indeed an unplanned accident
and the studio was sure to capitalize on it. For years, Hou-
dini took credit for the near-tragic wing-walk, but it was in
fact performed by Robert E. Kennedy. Looking at the film
today, one can easily distinguish between the actual collision
footage and the staged close-ups of Houdini, taken whilethe plane was safely moored to the ground. But, consider-
ing the range of hairbreadth escapes already performed by
the illusionist, it was not such a stretch to believe that he
was performing the stunt himself.
Exhibitor’s Trade Review wrote, “There are more spectac-
ular thrills in this five-reeler than are usually found in the av
erage death-defying, hair-raising serial, and the exciting
results thus gained are not due to trick photography, either
Take, for instance, the aeroplane chase in the grand climax
when Houdini, as the reporter hero, pursues the fleeing
murderer. The two machines crash together at an altitudeof 5,000 feet, and go whirling to earth and apparently cer-
tain destruction.”
“According to an address delivered by Houdini himself
when the picture was exhibited at the Broadway Theatre
New York, it was his intention to drop by means of a rope
into his antagonist's plane and capture him, but the two pro-
pellors became entangled.”
Houdini told Picture Show magazine, “I was dangling from
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the rope-end ready for the leap. Suddenly a strong wind
turned the lower plane upwards, the two machines crashed
together – nearly amputating my limbs.” The New York Times
reported that, at the New York premiere at the Broadway
Theatre, “Houdini appeared in person after the picture was
shown and declared that he would give anyone $1,000 who
could prove that the collision was not an authentic one. He
explained that a real accident had occurred, but that they
were saved only because the machines were 4,000 feet inthe air and were able to right themselves before they
reached the ground.”
Only a brief fragment of The Grim Game exists today.
Fortunately, it is the plane crash sequence, and it appears on
disc 3 of Kino’s collection.
The Grim Game was released on August 25, 1919, at a
running time of 53 minutes. Gresham cites domestic gross
receipts of $150,000, with an additional $50,000 from for-
eign markets.
Variety was less than thrilled with the film. “This feature
isn’t up to expectations. It has a very serious fault in edi-
torial construction, and, with one exception, Houdini’s
stunts do not seem more unusual than those given the
screen by serial stars such as Antonio Moreno and Charles
Hutchison. What really will get this feature by as something
more than a good program filler came about by chance...
the star’s muscle contracting stunts are not effective in pic-
tures for the reason no one is quite certain he is doing what
he seems to do.”
Houdini’s films are rousing entertainment, as long as he
is plying his trade. It’s only when the action slows that their
weaknesses become apparent.“As a motion-picture star, Houdini lacked one important
talent – acting ability,” Gresham wrote. “Audiences then,
as now, insisted on their adventure stories well-spiced with
romance and Houdini was much too bashful to kiss his var-
ious leading ladies without wincing, even with [wife] Bess
standing off camera and cheering him on. His embarrass-
ment was so evident that directors gave up on him. Ro-
mance before the camera was for Houdini a Grim Game
indeed.”
Biographer Kenneth Silverman concurs. Of The Maste
Mystery , he writes, “His ‘acting’ consists of three expressions
pucker-lipped flirtatiousness, open-eyed surprise, and brow
knitted distress.”
Although undeniably charismatic, Houdini never devel-
oped his dramatic skills. In a review of 1922’s The Man from
Beyond, The New York Times noted, “It shows practically no
acting at all. Its players merely register certain stereotypedexpressions.”
Because of the success of The Grim Game, Paramount
signed Houdini for another picture. Russell Holman was a
press agent for Famous Players-Lasky when Houdini signed
his new contract, and in 1953, recalled meeting Houdini
“Five minutes after Adolph Zukor signed the contract with
him, the famous Houdini walked alone into the publicity de-
partment and asked our boss for a meeting with the whole
staff. The first words he said were, ‘I regard you men as im-
portant as the people who make the picture, and I’ll work
as hard and as much for you as I do for the producer. I’m
at your service for anything, anywhere, any hour I’m notworking at the studio.’”
Produced under the title Salvage, Houdini’s second film
at Paramount was released as Terror Island , and is probably
Houdini's best film, certainly the most polished. Shot largely
on location on the island of Catalina, it has an epic scale
that perfectly suits Houdini’s hyperbolic personality. Reeve
and Grey’s story was directed by James Cruze, who would
find renown for his epics The Covered Wagon (1923) and Old
Ironsides (1926). Cruze was the most accomplished of the
Houdini directors, and his is the only film that has a life of
its own, and doesn't feel like an elaborate window-dressing
designed to showcase its star.
Location photography occurred on or around the island
of Catalina.
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Motion Picture News wrote, “The picture is nothing more
or less than a wild serial compressed into five reels... One
must accept it in a spirit of good nature and forget its im-
probabilities.” (May 8, 1920)
“It starts off with zip, and it is carried on with enthusiasm,
but Houdini is too intent on exploiting his tricks to realize
that, even in sensational melodrama, it is dangerous to
grossly falsify the admitted facts of nature,” wrote The Mov-
ing Picture World , “The spectator may concede much, but, for
the sake of good entertainment, the unplausible, the impos-sible, should not be thrust down his throat.”
“This Artcraft picture is less gruesome than its title might
convey. In the main, it is only an excuse for bringing Houdini
back to pictures to familiarize picture fans with the same ac-
complishments he has made equally familiar to vaudeville,”
wrote Variety 's critic.
Apparently the film was originally issued with a disclaimer
of sorts, which does not survive today. “As a matter of in-
terest, the introduction offers an apology for melodramatic
flavoring. In this respect, the authors do well to dictate
their opinion beforehand that present-day audiences may
have an aversion to it.” Variety reported, “But that scarcely
absolves them from an almost incredible incompetency in
providing a vehicle for Houdini which might prove less ex-
asperating.”
The film earned a modest $111,000 in the U.S., plus an-
other $54,000 overseas, according to Gresham, who added,
“The first-run gross of the average film with a popular star
was $375,000.” It was his last studio production.
After the release of Terror Island , Houdini spent some
time in England, performing feats of magic, and exploring
the possibility of psychic phenomena with acclaimed author
Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini had a mixed view of spiritu-
alism. On one hand, he took pleasure in exposing the
fraudulent workings of numerous mediums. Yet he exper-
imented with clairvoyance as a means of communicating
with his dead mother, and later encouraged his wife to at-
tempt psychic communication with him after his own de-mise.
The idea of life after death became the foundation o
Houdini’s next film, The Man from Beyond . But since Hou
dini’s belief in the supernatural was tentative, the film as-
sumes a confused, quasi-religious attitude toward
reincarnation.
The film was the first production of the newly formed
Houdini Picture Corporation, of which Houdini was presi-
dent. The company’s formation was announced in the
March 12, 1921 issue of The Moving Picture World : “The pur-
pose of the company is to make and release four feature
productions a year, in which Houdini will be the star. Thefirst release will be begun in a short time, the production
being chiefly ‘shot’ in the vicinity of New York City.”
According to Silverman, “the business was capitalized at
a half million dollars, offering fifty thousand shares of com-
mon stock at ten dollars each.” Houdini had toyed with
the idea of shooting adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo
or the works of Edgar Allan Poe, as well as a film about
counterfeiters, but only the last of these projects would
ever reach fruition (as Haldane of the Secret Service, in 1923)
The Man From Beyond debuted on April 2, 1922, at a
length of seven reels. Later that year, it was shortened to
six reels, and it is the shorter version that is preserved at
the Library of Congress in a 16mm print, and is featured in
this collection.
Burton King (The Master Mystery ) returned to the direc
tor's chair, but the story (by Houdini) and screenplay (by
Coolidge Streeter) afforded him no stalking robots and few
opportunities for dramatic escape. Reflecting Houdini's cu
riosity about the hereafter, the story is a melodramatic
meditation on reincarnation.
Proclaimed in its ads as “The Weirdest and Most Sensa-
tional Picture Ever Screened!,” the film follows the adven-
tures of Howard Hillary, who is discovered frozen in a blockof ice on board a derelict sailing ship in the Arctic. The ex
plorers chip Hillary out of the ice and reanimate him. He
is taken back to civilization, where he disrupts the wedding
of Felice Strange (Jane Connelly), who is identical in name
and appearance to Hillary’s 19th-century fiancée. Felice is
being married to the corrupt Dr. Gilbert Trent (Arthur
Maude), who has masterminded a plot to seize Felice’s in-
heritance by kidnapping her father (Albert Tavernier)
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Hillary is placed in an asylum and subjected to harsh pun-
ishment (see “The Censor’s Report” on this DVD for more
details). Hillary evades Trent’s henchmen, resists a seductive
vamp (Blood and Sand ’s Nita Naldi), and rescues Felice from
the rapids on the brink of Niagara Falls, bringing the film to
a suitably rousing climax.
Gresham suggests that the film was inspired by a case, re-
ported in The American Weekly , in which “the body of a
Viking, complete with winged helmet and flaxen beard...hadbeen discovered in the Arctic, perfectly preserved after a
thousand years.”
Today, The Man from Beyond is probably Houdini’s least
compelling film. But it was surprisingly well received in
1922. “A thrilling melodrama, fantastic of theme and highly
adventurous, has reached the screen in The Man from Be-
yond ,” gushed Motion Picture News. “It carries a climax which
reminds you of the one staged by Griffith in Way Down East.
That is its big punch scene, but this is not to say that the pic-
ture is deficient in thrills. Far from it. Indeed the feature de-
pends upon elemental action, for that is Houdini’s way.”
“It is an exciting moment and you are caught in a tightembrace of suspense. It is certain that the escape expert
risked his life in staging these scenes. But that is an old trick
to him. His power of bobbing up just a trifle the worse for
wear after a hazardous adventure is a tribute to his uncanny
ability to make his escape.” Houdini did, in fact, perform
his own feats of daring. In shooting the swim above Niagara
Falls, Houdini was attached to a steel cable to keep him
from being swept away.
The swim in the rapids was supposedly shot simultane-
ously by eight cameras—two on the Canadian side and six
on the American side. A photograph of Houdini and crew
overlooking the falls has five cameras in the shot, so the
claim of eight cameras may not have been a typical Houdini
exaggeration.
Houdini recycled his Grim Game publicity stunt and of-
fered a $5,000 reward “to any motion picture director or
producer who provides a greater thrill than is to be seen in
his special feature picture The Man from Beyond .” There
were no details as to how an ambitious director or pro-
ducer might accept the challenge.
The Arctic scenes were taken in Lake Placid, New York,
where Houdini braved the cold weather to romp through
the snow in little more than a swimsuit. Houdini hadtrained himself to endure frigid conditions in preparation
for his underwater escapes by immersing himself in a tub of
ice water—so this display of endurance was a relative cake-
walk.
According to the pressbook, an alternate ending was
filmed, “an entirely different finish to this picture than was
called for in the original script.” The unspecified ending was
supposedly shot in the event that Houdini died during the
performance of the stunts. “Houdini well realized the dan
ger that confronted him and knowing that he might not be
spared, he took no chances that his picture might never be
shown.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle provided Houdini with a testi-
monial, which appeared in the official pressbook:
Dear Mr. Houdini,
I have seen the Houdini picture The Man from Beyond
and it is difficult to find words to adequately express my en-
joyment and appreciation of it. I certainly have no hesita-
tion in saying it is the very best sensational picture I have
ever seen. It is a story striking in its novelty, picturized su-
perbly and punctuated with thrills that fairly make the hair
stand on end.
From the opening scene showing the actual chopping of
a frozen man from the center of a mass of ice and restoring
him to life, to the closing scenes of the sensational rescue o
the girl on the very brink of Niagara Falls, it holds onebreathless. I consider The Man from Beyond one of the re-
ally great contributions of the screen.
This letter was written just before Houdini and Doyle’s
friendship crumbled. While performing a séance, Lady
Doyle claimed to have reached the spirit of Houdini’s de-
ceased mother. Houdini publicly refuted this claim (basically
calling Lady Doyle a fake), which began a long-running feud
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between the two men.
Because the Houdini Picture Corporation couldn’t com-
pete with the distribution apparatus of, say, Paramount’s
Publix theatre chain, he sold the film to states’ rights distrib-
utors (in the same manner as The Master Mystery ). This
makes it nearly impossible to estimate the film’s total box-
office earnings, so we cannot gauge how successful the film
was in comparison to his earlier efforts.
From the beginning, Houdini planned to boost the film’spotential with personal appearances. An advertisement in
the trade publication Motion Picture News states, “HOUDINI
AGREES to make personal appearances in conjunction with
The Man from Beyond in a limited number of key cities.”
When The Man from Beyond played New York’s Times
Square Theater, he performed several of his signature acts
(such as the needle trick and a straitacket escape), as well
as a more elaborate illusion: his disappearing elephant act.
This form of misdirection did not cause every viewer to
ignore the film’s shortcomings. The Variety critic wrote, “It
is a five-reeler of about the grade of a serial built along lines
of candid melodrama, but aspiring to higher appeal throughits spiritual import, which deals in a rather stumbling way
with the problem of the hereafter. The two things don’t go
together.”
The New York Times concurred, “It is a stunt picture, but
the trouble is it is not all stunts. It tries to be a dramatic
composition and doesn’t succeed.”
As much as he enjoyed being a film star, Houdini no doubt
realized the new career path was fraught with challenges
and had not been an unqualified success. But he was no
quitter, and was already devising new ways to exploit his
fame and realize the cinema’s earning potential.
PART THREE:
HALDANE OF THE SECRET SERVICE
For years, the motion picture industry had attracted
Houdini’s interest. Cinema was a means of achieving
greater fame, assuring himself of some form of immortality.
Even when he invested in a film processing lab in 1916,
ego was to some degree at play. Houdini yearned to be an
inventor, a desire that is reflected in the plots of his films.
He filed patents for his inventions, including his milk can es-cape and a diving suit designed to permit easy underwater
removal. In the 1914 audio recording featured on this DVD,
one hears Houdini refer to his water torture cell as his “in-
vention.”
The Film Developing Company appealed to Houdini be-
cause it was founded upon a novel invention: a method of
automated film processing, developed by Gustav Dietz. Of-
fices were opened on Broadway, and a factory in Hoboken,
New Jersey. Houdini’s initial investment was $4,900 but the
company was never able to turn a profit. In April, 1918
Houdini fired Dietz and attempted to improve upon the
mechanism himself, assigning his brother, Theodore W
Hardeen, to run the company, all to no avail.
In October, 1920, Houdini wrote to a friend, “I have over
100,000 dollars invested in the F.D.C. but have never re-
ceived a penny from same. This does not include the many
weary months I spent in and around the place trying tomake a success of what an ordinary man in the business
would have known was a failure. My education is certainly
costing me a high price.” (Houdini to Harry Kellar, quoted
in William Kalush and Larry Sloman’s The Secret Life of Houdini).
Houdini to Kellar, October, 1921: “It will be a Godsend
for all of us if we get away from it [F.D.C.] in a legitimate
manner. The only good of the whole thing is that it was the
cause of my going into pictures. Let us hope that I have no
made a serious mistake.”
It seemed only natural that, owning a film processing
company, he should make his own films, rather than relyingon the resources and expertise of a motion picture studio
He formed the Houdini Picture Corporation and produced
The Man from Beyond (featured on DVD 2 of this collec-
tion).
Even though The Moving Picture World had announced that
the H.P.C. would produce “four feature productions a year
in which Houdini will be the star,” the filmmakers must have
quickly realized how impossible it would be to live up to
this ambition. So, Houdini sought other ways to keep the
Film Developing Company busy, and to shore up his film-
making empire.
During his tours through Europe, he had discovered that
there were many high-quality films there that might never
be exported to the U.S. What they lacked in popular Amer-
ican stars, they made up for in production values. Thus did
Houdini become the figurehead of yet another company
the Mystery Pictures Corporation, formed on December
27, 1921. Harry Houdini was the president. Hardeen was
vice president and Harry H. Poppe served as secretary.
Some Houdini filmographies erroneously list a 1921 fea-
ture, directed by and starring Houdini, entitledThe Soul oBronze. This is, in reality, a French film which he imported
for distribution. Directed by Henry Roussel in 1918, L’Âmedu bronze starred Harry Baur and Gaston Rieffler.
Because the Mystery Pictures Corporation was short-
lived and not very successful, it is unclear how many films
they actually imported and modified for American distribu
tion. Papers in the company’s files include numerous clip
pings about Viktor Tourjansky’s Pathécolor spectacle LesContes de mille et une nuits ( A Thousand and One Nights)which Houdini was also interested in releasing stateside.
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The company’s most bizarre acquisition was Aldo Moli-
nari’s Il mistero di Osiris (1919), produced by the Vera Film
company, in Rome, Italy. Details are sketchy but it appears
that Houdini obtained the film when he purchased two
boxes of films at an auction of unclaimed goods from Cus-
toms Service’s Seizure Room on October 26, 1921.
It seems unfathomable that Houdini would acquire a
print of the film, almost by chance, and then release it in
the U.S. without permission of its creators but—from the
surviving documents among the Houdini papers at the
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin—it appears as though that is precisely
what he did.
Houdini translated the film into English and had new in-tertitles created, renaming the film Ashes of Passion. He also
translated the novella that was published upon the original
Italian release, entitling it Il Mistero di Osiris or The Mystery of
the Jewel (Talisman). Houdini removed the original photo-
graph from the cover and replaced it with a portrait of him-
self.
Reading the introductory passage of the pamphlet, one
can easily see what attracted Houdini to the film:
Many centuries before Christ, Egypt believed in the
immortality of the soul and in this faith found the key
to eternity. This great thought grew out of the Metempsicosi, the transmigrator of the souls; they
(the souls) reincarnate themselves according to their
destiny of good or bad. Thus it represents the har-
mony of the universe, and for it nothing in the world
becomes lost. Out of this faith logically was born the
legend of Carma, the legend of vendetta. Each fault
is punished through centuries in successive reincarna-
tions until justice is done.
The heart loves many times, but the soul only once;
and loving, sacrifices all. Misunderstood it comforts it-
self in the reigns of Crisis–the fountain of light, of
knowledge–of the universal equilibrium; the eternity
and the divine inspirations are for her and she shall
return to this earth forced by her destiny to punish
the bad and revindicate the rights of purity. Thus is
the philosophic salvation of the human vindicated.
The themes of eternal life and reincarnation in Il Misterodi Osiris coalesce beautifully with the subject matter of The
Man from Beyond , which was in production at the same time
Houdini was at work on the Italian film.
Beyond such metaphysical concerns, the film was also a
lavish costume spectacle, in keeping with the great Italian
epics of the 1910s. Houdini’s business secretary, Harry H
Poppe, submitted frames of the film to the Library of Con-
gress to secure its American copyright (in Houdini’s name
with Giovanni Deodata credited as author) on Novembe
12, 1921.
Very little is known about the release of Ashes of Passion
or The Soul of Bronze. For that matter, we don’t know much
about the fate of The Man from Beyond , since it was distrib-
uted in the states rights model (in which regional compa-
nies licensed the rights to specific territories). From wha
we can tell, the film does not appear to have been as suc-
cessful as his first commercial effort (The Master Mystery ) o
his two films at Paramount (The Grim Game and Terror Is
land ).
Much to his chagrin, Houdini’s independent film compa-
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nies appeared to have followed the path of the ill-fated Film
Developing Company.
Back when the Houdini Pictures Corp. was first unveiled
in 1921, press reports declared that, “On his last tour of
England and France, Houdini had a cameraman with him
and many ‘shots’ were made... Some show him entering
and emerging from noted prisons, landing from aeroplanes
on foreign fields, a jam with the French police and several
good scenes in London.“This was all made with a view to utilizing the material
in the forthcoming releases, and will serve to give an au-
thentic foreign flavor to those scenes in which the action
takes place abroad.”
This might seem like a clever way of injecting location fla-
vor into a film, but without benefit of a script, such stock
footage would function as little more than a gritty trave-
logue.
Much of this footage did eventually appear, clumsily in-
serted into a film called Haldane of the Secret Service. As ex-
pected, it amounts to various shots of Houdini walking
through various cityscapes looking concerned with someyet-to-be-scripted mystery. We see him aboard a double-
decker bus in Glasgow, on the streets of Hull, England,
posed in front of Westminster Abbey, and slipping into a
kiosk at the base of the Eiffel Tower.
Haldane was the last project the Houdini Picture Cor-
poration would ever undertake, released by the low-budget
Film Booking Offices (F.B.O., which would later evolve into
R.K.O.) on September 30, 1923. As if cutting every con-
ceivable corner, Houdini not only wrote and produced and
starred in the film, he also directed it.
With or without the location footage, the film is a rather
stiff pot-boiler about a government agent’s pursuit of coun-
terfeiters. The name of the primary character was most
likely a tribute to Viscount Richard Haldane, who was afriend of Houdini’s and Britain’s Secretary of State for War
and who was instrumental in the creation of the British Se-
cret Service.
It seems as though the film was actually shot concurrent
with The Man from Beyond , but had sat on a shelf for two
years. This is suggested by a letter from Houdini to Kellar
in late 1921, in which he writes, “My two pictures are fin-
ished. Now I must put them on the market and see how
good they are.”
The market was not favorable. Biographer William Lind-
say Gresham observed, “While the critics were good to him
in Beyond , what happened to Haldane shouldn’t happen toa dog show.”
“Perhaps the renown of Houdini is fading, or more prob-
ably the Broadway managers were wise to how bad a film
this one is,” Variety wrote, “There is only one [escape], and
that is a poorly staged affair showing the star free himsel
from a giant water mill.. With all due respect to his famed
ability for escapes, the only asset he has in the acting line is
his ability to look alert.”
The film was sold on the value of Houdini’s name, and lit
tle else.
Realizing that producing his own features (as the Houdin
Picture Corporation) and acquiring foreign films for distri-
bution (as the Mystery Pictures Corporation) were losing
propositions, Houdini finally brought his commercial film
career to a close.
But he did not stop making films. He utilized the H.P.C
cameras to shoot 35mm motion picture footage of himsel
performing public escapes staged across the country (al
most always in front of local newspaper buildings) to pro-
mote his stage appearances. An assortment of these filmed
records appear in the “Harry Houdini Archival Footage”
section of this DVD.
Had he not met his untimely death on October 31, 1926Houdini might have continued to dabble in filmmaking, and
may have even undertaken another feature project. As it
was, the cinema was a world of opportunity that never paid
off for him.
Kalush and Sloman wrote:
In retrospect, Houdini’s involvement in movies, fi-
nancially speaking, was a nightmare...He wound up
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in litigation over his fifty percent share of the profits
for the hugely successful Master Mystery. When he
branched out on his own and took charge of the pro-
ductions, his quirky sensibility and attempt to run
away from the elements that made him successful on-
stage doomed their success. The only positives from
Houdini’s involvement in motion pictures were that it
spread his fame worldwide and greatly increased his
vaudeville salary, ironically at a time when he had no
real interest in performing again.
Some of Houdini’s films (such as the filmed escapes) are
remarkably well preserved, while others either exist in frag-
mentary form or in poor-quality 16mm prints (The Man
from Beyond ). In some cases, it is due to the lack of consid-
eration the major studios paid silent films once sound rev-
olutionized the industry, allowing (neither of the films
Houdini made for Paramount exist in their entirety). An-
other reason is that, as a short-lived independent company,
the Houdini Picture Corporation had no facilities to pre-
serve the original film elements.
In Kenneth Silverman’s biography, Houdini’s niece, MarieHinson Blood recalls the fate of some of these archive
prints.
One day the fire inspector came on a routine inspection
trip, and my father took him all over the house. When they
got to the storage room, he asked my father what the metal
cases contained. My father very proudly said, “I am Harry
Houdini’s brother-in-law and these are all the movies he
made.” They were old 35mm film and my father opened
one up and showed the inspector. The inspector said, “I am
canceling all of your insurance. You could blow up this
whole block as these films are very combustible. You must
get rid of all of them immediately.”
My father was aghast at the whole thing. His beautifu
home without insurance—these wonderful movies. With-out discussing it with anyone else, other than my mother
who was just as heartbroken, during the night they took
every one of the containers of film and put them in cartons
in front of the house and stood there as the rubbish men
hauled a fortune in Houdini films.”
Special Thanks to Felicia Feaster, Renata Gibson, Renée
Rodriguez Gresham, Brian Shirey, Rob Sweeney, Rick Watson;
The Performing Arts Collection at the Harry Ransom Re-
search Center of the University of Texas at Austin, The New
York Public Library for the Performing Arts at LincolnCenter, The New York State Archives, a program of the State
Education Department
Additional research and editing: Sarah Callahan, Daniela
Currò, Vincent Pirozzi, Inés Toharia Terán, Ishumael Zinyen-
gere, students of the Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preser
vation at George Eastman House.
Houdini and crew at Niagara Falls, shooting The Man From Beyond.
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