Speculation that Houdini worked as a spy is presented here as fact, and the showman is seen predicting the Russian Revolution (one of several winking, and mostly unnecessary, historical additions). The miniseries also touches briefly on his shows in Europe - alongside right-hand man Jim Collins ( Evan Jones) - during which he meets Kaiser Wilhelm II ( Gyula Mesterhazy) and Tsar Nicholas Romanov II ( Simon Nader). Punctuating those tricks are ups and downs in his marriage to wife, Bess (a lovely Kristen Connolly), and episodes that illustrate his dependence on his mother, Cecilia ( Eszter Onodi). Many of his most well-known stunts are shown, including the Vanishing Elephant and the Chinese Water Torture Cell, which Brody acts out with infectious zest, fully embracing the part of showman. Under the direction of Uli Edel (who made 2008 foreign-language Oscar nominee The Baader Meinhof Complex), that voiceover ties together what is otherwise a fast-paced, somewhat scattered storytelling showcase of Houdini’s evolving tricks and trade, as the magician improves his act and grows ever more daring. Meyer), the miniseries also embraces the fictional by having Houdini narrate via a voiceover that features knowing eye-rollers like: “I would come home but, I’m all tied up.” While it aired on television that year, it has yet to appear on any home format.Adapted by Nicholas Meyer from the 1976 book Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait (written by his father, Bernard C. In 2015, Houdini best lost film, The Grim Game, was restored by TCM. Today most of Houdini's movies are available on DVD and streaming. Beatrice Houdini appeared as herself in a 1938 film called Religious Racketeers. Houdini's brother Theo Hardeen starred in a 1937 Vitaphone short called Medium Well Done. This was later released on its own as Velvet Fingers in 1926 (the year Houdini died). But he would make one more film appearance doing card magic in a Marvels of Motion short for Max Fleischer. Houdini folded his motion picture businesses in the mid 1920s. The FDC also proved to be a costly failure. While Houdini's early films did respectable business, his later films did not. One of these films, The Soul of Bronze, is sometime mistakenly listed among movies starring Houdini. He also ran his own film laboratory business called the Film Developing Corporation ( FDC), and a specialty distribution arm, Mystery Pictures Corporation, which acquired foreign films for U.S. He made two films, The Man from Beyond and Haldane of the Secret Service, for which he was the producer, writer and star. In 1920 Houdini formed his own motion picture company, The Houdini Picture Corporation. The serial did good business and led to Houdini making two feature films in Hollywood for Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount, The Grim Game and Terror Island. In 1918 he starred in a 15-part serial for Octagon Films called The Master Mystery. The movie showcased several escapes as well as his handcuffed leap from the roof of the Paris morgue into the Seine.Īs movies grew in popularity and began to supplant vaudeville, Houdini decided to enter the business in a more substantial way. His earliest surviving narrative film is Les merveilleux exploits de Houdini à Paris made in 1909 for Film Lux. Houdini's first exhibited film appears to have been a short called Houdini Defeats Hackenschmidt. The film played in England in 1905 and Boston in 1906, but is now lost. Seeing Houdini usually meant also seeing a movie. Starting in 1906, he filmed many of his outdoor escapes and showed them at the start of his vaudeville act. Houdini was involved in cinema almost from the start of the medium and his own career.
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