| Houdini - The Movie From the collection of Shep Hyken |
Home About the Movie Posters Photos (Movie stills and more) Other Stuff (Lots of interesting stuff) The Store (Items For Sale or Trade) Shep Hyken shep@hyken.com www.houdini-movie.com (314) 692-2200 Houdini The Movie Website Copyright © 2005 by Shep Hyken |
About the Movie
A magician once said, “Houdini didn’t die in the Water Torture Cell. Tony
Curtis did.”
Houdini is undoubtedly the most recognized name in magic. He was a legend
in his own time, and that continues to this day, long after his death on October
31, 1926.
Numerous books, documentaries and movies have been done on the life of
Harry Houdini. Fifty years ago, on July 3, 1953, Houdini, the movie produced
by George Pal, premiered in New York City. This was a time when movie
releases were major glamour events and not just announcements. Two stars
in the motion picture business, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, starred in what
may be the greatest Houdini film ever produced.
Of all of the films about the life of Houdini, George Pal’s may be one of the
most colorful, while arguably one of the least factual, of them all. The film had
mystery, action and, most important to the film-going public, a fiery romance.
In this version of Houdini’s life, Houdini meets Bess at the Schultz’s Dime
Museum where he is working as a “wild man” and magician. After several
other meetings, he sweeps Bess off of her feet and they are married.
Bess works as Houdini’s ever-faithful assistant through some difficult shows.
Bess is so fed up with life on the road that she convinces Houdini to quit. He
goes to work in a lock factory and is obviously frustrated, bored and
unhappy. One Halloween night, Houdini takes Bess to a magicians’
convention and wins a contest by escaping from a straight jacket. The prize is
a roundtrip ticket to Europe, but at Bess’s urging, he agrees to stay home.
Eventually Bess’s attitude changes, and the couple heads off to Europe in
search of a German magician, the Great Von Schweiger, who Houdini
believes has the secrets that he needs to be successful.
They finally find Von Schweiger but are too late, as he dies just the day
before they arrive. Von Schweiger’s assistant, Otto, becomes Houdini’s
assistant. More magic and escapes ensue as they tour Europe.
Eventually, they return to America and Houdini’s magic is met with great
success. On the day of his famed Detroit River escape, where he is locked in
a box and dropped through a hole in the frozen river, his mother passes
away. Coincidently this day happens to be October 31, Halloween, a day,
Houdini claims, when strange things seem to usually happen to him. Houdini
becomes obsessed with contacting his mother and spends two years
searching for a medium that can bring her back from the dead, exposing all of
the frauds along the way.
Eventually returning to performing, Houdini attempts to create more
sensational illusions and escapes than ever before. One of his creations,
which we know as the “Water Torture” escape, is what finally does him in.
True to real life, Houdini feels ill the night of the performance. He had
developed a pain on his right side, and Otto knows this. But that doesn’t stop
Houdini. The show must go on!
Despite the protests of Otto and Bess, he stubbornly attempts the escape.
After too much time in the water, Otto smashes the glass and releases
Houdini from the restraints that held him in the box. Houdini is lying on the
stage when Bess finally takes him in her arms.
“Darling! Harry! It’s Bess,” she sobs.
Houdini looks into her eyes and whispers, “I’ll come back, Bess. If there’s any
way, I’ll come back.” In Bess’s arms the Great Houdini passes on as the
movie comes to an exciting and romantic end.
In real life Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh had their own off-screen romance. In
fact, they may have been the best couple that could have been cast for the
movie. As strong and romantic as their love was in front of the cameras, it
was the same in real life. Houdini may have been the first major motion
picture where the married stars of the movie were also married in real life.
Tony remembers the movie. “When the Houdini project was first proposed to
me, they didn’t have a leading lady yet. Janet and I were just married then,
and George Pal, the producer, said, ‘Lets do it with Tony and Janet, if we can
get her.’ They thought it would be good teaming and it was. It was very
successful. I was on loan-out to Paramount, and they had to get Janet from
MGM. The studios got a lot of money for it, but we just got our regular
salaries.”
Although Janet Leigh was a bigger star at the time of the production Houdini,
she clearly had Tony’s best interests at heart. She insisted that Tony get top
billing for the movie. In the end, the two stars had equal billing. Both names
were side by side. (http://home.clara.net/digger/houdini.htm)
So, how did the movie, Houdini, come about? It started with a man who had
roots in magic since he was a kid – movie producer George Pal. Most of the
magic community is unfamiliar with Pal and his work, other than Houdini.
George Pal, Jr. was born in Cegled, Hungary on February 1, 1908. Pal’s
grandparents had been members of the National Theatre, and his parents
were entertainers in a traveling theatre. Show business was in George Pal’s
blood.
While attending art school, Pal learned how to draw the anatomy so well that
he was able to sell his drawings to medical students who needed them for
their homework. After school, Pal worked for a motion picture company
creating drawings around subtitles and designing posters.
Eventually Pal started animating cartoons. He opened his own studio in 1932,
where he came up with the idea of animating objects instead of drawings.
Similar to a cartoon’s “frame by frame” drawings, he used regular objects,
such as cigarettes, to create entertaining cartoons. He eventually created
puppets to use in his “stop action” films. He called these “Puppetoons,” a
combination of the words puppet and cartoon. His creativity and success
eventually brought him to the US, where he went to work for Paramount.
In 1943 Pal received an Academy Award for his creative techniques in
animation, but just a few years later, Paramount lost interest in his
Puppetoons. That was fine with Pal, as he was developing another interest:
feature films.
Pal had a flair for the “fantastic” and is best known for his films The War of the
Worlds and The Time Machine. Houdini was a departure from Pal’s norm.
He remembers his inspiration for Houdini:
“I was on a promotional tour for When Worlds Collide in San Francisco. My
wife and I had a few hours between interviews and we had nothing to do until
5:00. So, since it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, we decided to take a walk.
We passed a theatre where a magician was playing – I think it was Dante.
The ushers were all inside watching the show. Since I was an amateur
magician when I was a kid, I decided to sneak in. And to my surprise the
theater was packed. I had thought magic was dead, but what I saw seemed to
prove different. So we watched for a while and then went on walking. My wife
suddenly said it would be interesting to make a picture about a magician.
That got me thinking. Who was the greatest magician? Houdini, of course!”
According to Pal, he searched for who owned the rights to Houdini’s life story
and eventually discovered that Bess Houdini sold the movie rights to her
husband’s biography to Paramount. However, Paramount had turned around
and sold it to someone else, an attorney whose office happened to be just
below Pal’s.
There were others who had been interested in making a film about Houdini.
Producer David O. Selznick had once owned an option on a Houdini script
written by Dore Schary, based on the book by Harold Kellock, but it had
expired. Pal did not think much of the script when he read it but felt that
Paramount should buy it to avoid problems in the future. Paramount refused
to pay the low price of $5,000, and once Pal’s film was finished, Selznick, who
had owned the option on the Schary script, complained to Paramount. Even
though Pal had not used any of Schary’s material, Paramount ended up
paying $17,000 for the rights to keep from being sued for more.
But the story of how the movie came about may have been different,
according to the David Charvet’s Magic Magaizine article about Bess Houdini
(October 1995). Edward Saint, who referred to himself as “Houdini’s
archivist,” or “Madame Houdini’s personal manager,” had a master plan to
keep Houdini’s name alive and his legend strong. In 1935 Saint and Mrs.
Houdini approached several studios with a script based on Harold Kellock’s
biography, which was based on the “recollections and documents of Beatrice
Houdini.”
At first there wasn’t much interest. Various studios indicated that they didn’t
really need to pay much of anything, as they could name the picture, “The
Great Bordini, Fordini or Any-dini.” After numerous rejections from other
studios, it was that Paramount Studios that took the chance and decided to
make the movie. In the February 1936 Sphinx magazine, Bess’s attorney,
Bernard Ernst announced, “Paramount Pictures will soon produce a super
feature sound pictured entitled, The Great Houdini…”
Paramount even had second thoughts. Magician Arnold Furst was quoted as
saying, “Someone at the studio told Bess and Edward, ‘look, Houdini’s been
dead for ten years – nobody remembers him. Who wants to go see a movie
about Houdini!’”
The bottom line is that Pal ended up making the movie. He wanted the magic
in the film to be real, so he hired Dunninger and, eventually, George Boston,
who was not only a great magician himself, but also worked with Thurston as
his stage manager for over twenty five years.
Boston worked with Tony Curtis on his magic. According to Pal, Tony Curtis
had nothing to do during the two months of pre-production. He used that time
to learn and practice his magic. Boston was impressed with Curtis’s efforts
and his ability to learn the magic. In World War II, Curtis had injured his hand
and had his fingers badly smashed. Curtis spent hours on exercises to help
his hands do what they were supposed to do.
While this wasn’t one of Pal’s best films, Houdini was a success. It was
entertaining, had decent performances from the stars and ended up being a
financial success. Critics say that this film helped establish Tony Curtis as a
movie star.
Of all of the movies and documentaries on the life of the great Harry Houdini
over the years, none have had the acclaim and international exposure as
George Pal’s Houdini, starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. It was rumored
that Tom Cruise had been cast for a potential Houdini biography. But
Hollywood and the entertainment industry are different than they were fifty
years ago. Back then movies were major events. Stars were larger than life.
That era of show business may be gone forever, but its movies live on. As for
movies about magic and magicians, there may not be any others as
successful, wide reaching and glamorous as Houdini. Houdini is, without a
doubt, one of magic’s greatest movies - ever!
Copyright ©2005 by Shep Hyken
A magician once said, “Houdini didn’t die in the Water Torture Cell. Tony
Curtis did.”
Houdini is undoubtedly the most recognized name in magic. He was a legend
in his own time, and that continues to this day, long after his death on October
31, 1926.
Numerous books, documentaries and movies have been done on the life of
Harry Houdini. Fifty years ago, on July 3, 1953, Houdini, the movie produced
by George Pal, premiered in New York City. This was a time when movie
releases were major glamour events and not just announcements. Two stars
in the motion picture business, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, starred in what
may be the greatest Houdini film ever produced.
Of all of the films about the life of Houdini, George Pal’s may be one of the
most colorful, while arguably one of the least factual, of them all. The film had
mystery, action and, most important to the film-going public, a fiery romance.
In this version of Houdini’s life, Houdini meets Bess at the Schultz’s Dime
Museum where he is working as a “wild man” and magician. After several
other meetings, he sweeps Bess off of her feet and they are married.
Bess works as Houdini’s ever-faithful assistant through some difficult shows.
Bess is so fed up with life on the road that she convinces Houdini to quit. He
goes to work in a lock factory and is obviously frustrated, bored and
unhappy. One Halloween night, Houdini takes Bess to a magicians’
convention and wins a contest by escaping from a straight jacket. The prize is
a roundtrip ticket to Europe, but at Bess’s urging, he agrees to stay home.
Eventually Bess’s attitude changes, and the couple heads off to Europe in
search of a German magician, the Great Von Schweiger, who Houdini
believes has the secrets that he needs to be successful.
They finally find Von Schweiger but are too late, as he dies just the day
before they arrive. Von Schweiger’s assistant, Otto, becomes Houdini’s
assistant. More magic and escapes ensue as they tour Europe.
Eventually, they return to America and Houdini’s magic is met with great
success. On the day of his famed Detroit River escape, where he is locked in
a box and dropped through a hole in the frozen river, his mother passes
away. Coincidently this day happens to be October 31, Halloween, a day,
Houdini claims, when strange things seem to usually happen to him. Houdini
becomes obsessed with contacting his mother and spends two years
searching for a medium that can bring her back from the dead, exposing all of
the frauds along the way.
Eventually returning to performing, Houdini attempts to create more
sensational illusions and escapes than ever before. One of his creations,
which we know as the “Water Torture” escape, is what finally does him in.
True to real life, Houdini feels ill the night of the performance. He had
developed a pain on his right side, and Otto knows this. But that doesn’t stop
Houdini. The show must go on!
Despite the protests of Otto and Bess, he stubbornly attempts the escape.
After too much time in the water, Otto smashes the glass and releases
Houdini from the restraints that held him in the box. Houdini is lying on the
stage when Bess finally takes him in her arms.
“Darling! Harry! It’s Bess,” she sobs.
Houdini looks into her eyes and whispers, “I’ll come back, Bess. If there’s any
way, I’ll come back.” In Bess’s arms the Great Houdini passes on as the
movie comes to an exciting and romantic end.
In real life Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh had their own off-screen romance. In
fact, they may have been the best couple that could have been cast for the
movie. As strong and romantic as their love was in front of the cameras, it
was the same in real life. Houdini may have been the first major motion
picture where the married stars of the movie were also married in real life.
Tony remembers the movie. “When the Houdini project was first proposed to
me, they didn’t have a leading lady yet. Janet and I were just married then,
and George Pal, the producer, said, ‘Lets do it with Tony and Janet, if we can
get her.’ They thought it would be good teaming and it was. It was very
successful. I was on loan-out to Paramount, and they had to get Janet from
MGM. The studios got a lot of money for it, but we just got our regular
salaries.”
Although Janet Leigh was a bigger star at the time of the production Houdini,
she clearly had Tony’s best interests at heart. She insisted that Tony get top
billing for the movie. In the end, the two stars had equal billing. Both names
were side by side. (http://home.clara.net/digger/houdini.htm)
So, how did the movie, Houdini, come about? It started with a man who had
roots in magic since he was a kid – movie producer George Pal. Most of the
magic community is unfamiliar with Pal and his work, other than Houdini.
George Pal, Jr. was born in Cegled, Hungary on February 1, 1908. Pal’s
grandparents had been members of the National Theatre, and his parents
were entertainers in a traveling theatre. Show business was in George Pal’s
blood.
While attending art school, Pal learned how to draw the anatomy so well that
he was able to sell his drawings to medical students who needed them for
their homework. After school, Pal worked for a motion picture company
creating drawings around subtitles and designing posters.
Eventually Pal started animating cartoons. He opened his own studio in 1932,
where he came up with the idea of animating objects instead of drawings.
Similar to a cartoon’s “frame by frame” drawings, he used regular objects,
such as cigarettes, to create entertaining cartoons. He eventually created
puppets to use in his “stop action” films. He called these “Puppetoons,” a
combination of the words puppet and cartoon. His creativity and success
eventually brought him to the US, where he went to work for Paramount.
In 1943 Pal received an Academy Award for his creative techniques in
animation, but just a few years later, Paramount lost interest in his
Puppetoons. That was fine with Pal, as he was developing another interest:
feature films.
Pal had a flair for the “fantastic” and is best known for his films The War of the
Worlds and The Time Machine. Houdini was a departure from Pal’s norm.
He remembers his inspiration for Houdini:
“I was on a promotional tour for When Worlds Collide in San Francisco. My
wife and I had a few hours between interviews and we had nothing to do until
5:00. So, since it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, we decided to take a walk.
We passed a theatre where a magician was playing – I think it was Dante.
The ushers were all inside watching the show. Since I was an amateur
magician when I was a kid, I decided to sneak in. And to my surprise the
theater was packed. I had thought magic was dead, but what I saw seemed to
prove different. So we watched for a while and then went on walking. My wife
suddenly said it would be interesting to make a picture about a magician.
That got me thinking. Who was the greatest magician? Houdini, of course!”
According to Pal, he searched for who owned the rights to Houdini’s life story
and eventually discovered that Bess Houdini sold the movie rights to her
husband’s biography to Paramount. However, Paramount had turned around
and sold it to someone else, an attorney whose office happened to be just
below Pal’s.
There were others who had been interested in making a film about Houdini.
Producer David O. Selznick had once owned an option on a Houdini script
written by Dore Schary, based on the book by Harold Kellock, but it had
expired. Pal did not think much of the script when he read it but felt that
Paramount should buy it to avoid problems in the future. Paramount refused
to pay the low price of $5,000, and once Pal’s film was finished, Selznick, who
had owned the option on the Schary script, complained to Paramount. Even
though Pal had not used any of Schary’s material, Paramount ended up
paying $17,000 for the rights to keep from being sued for more.
But the story of how the movie came about may have been different,
according to the David Charvet’s Magic Magaizine article about Bess Houdini
(October 1995). Edward Saint, who referred to himself as “Houdini’s
archivist,” or “Madame Houdini’s personal manager,” had a master plan to
keep Houdini’s name alive and his legend strong. In 1935 Saint and Mrs.
Houdini approached several studios with a script based on Harold Kellock’s
biography, which was based on the “recollections and documents of Beatrice
Houdini.”
At first there wasn’t much interest. Various studios indicated that they didn’t
really need to pay much of anything, as they could name the picture, “The
Great Bordini, Fordini or Any-dini.” After numerous rejections from other
studios, it was that Paramount Studios that took the chance and decided to
make the movie. In the February 1936 Sphinx magazine, Bess’s attorney,
Bernard Ernst announced, “Paramount Pictures will soon produce a super
feature sound pictured entitled, The Great Houdini…”
Paramount even had second thoughts. Magician Arnold Furst was quoted as
saying, “Someone at the studio told Bess and Edward, ‘look, Houdini’s been
dead for ten years – nobody remembers him. Who wants to go see a movie
about Houdini!’”
The bottom line is that Pal ended up making the movie. He wanted the magic
in the film to be real, so he hired Dunninger and, eventually, George Boston,
who was not only a great magician himself, but also worked with Thurston as
his stage manager for over twenty five years.
Boston worked with Tony Curtis on his magic. According to Pal, Tony Curtis
had nothing to do during the two months of pre-production. He used that time
to learn and practice his magic. Boston was impressed with Curtis’s efforts
and his ability to learn the magic. In World War II, Curtis had injured his hand
and had his fingers badly smashed. Curtis spent hours on exercises to help
his hands do what they were supposed to do.
While this wasn’t one of Pal’s best films, Houdini was a success. It was
entertaining, had decent performances from the stars and ended up being a
financial success. Critics say that this film helped establish Tony Curtis as a
movie star.
Of all of the movies and documentaries on the life of the great Harry Houdini
over the years, none have had the acclaim and international exposure as
George Pal’s Houdini, starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. It was rumored
that Tom Cruise had been cast for a potential Houdini biography. But
Hollywood and the entertainment industry are different than they were fifty
years ago. Back then movies were major events. Stars were larger than life.
That era of show business may be gone forever, but its movies live on. As for
movies about magic and magicians, there may not be any others as
successful, wide reaching and glamorous as Houdini. Houdini is, without a
doubt, one of magic’s greatest movies - ever!
Copyright ©2005 by Shep Hyken
