The Secret Life of Houdini (59 page)

Authors: William Kalush,Larry Sloman

BOOK: The Secret Life of Houdini

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Working together, the three men blended elements of Houdini’s script into
The Master Mystery
. Instead of playing himself, Houdini would play the part of Quentin Locke, an undercover agent for the Justice Department. Ostensibly working as a chemist, Locke was infiltrating a company named International Patents, Inc. that had been set up by powerful industrialists to purchase innovative inventions solely to keep them off the market. In Houdini’s first onscreen scene, he was covertly listening in to the wiretapped conversation of the owner of the company.

There were enemies galore, including an evil hypnotist, a Chinese Tong leader, a strangulation expert from Madagascar, and, for the first time in movie history, a robot in the form of a larger-than-life tin automaton. The serial featured a romance between Locke and the daughter of one of the evil industrialists who has a change of heart and tries to repent before he is stricken down with Madagascar Madness, thanks to an infusion of gas from his still-evil partner. The plot paled in the face of the showcasing of Houdini’s amazing skills. He finally got to use his diving suit escape but in addition, he burst out of straitjackets, handcuffs, and jails. He defied death by escaping from an electric chair, an oncoming elevator that threatened to crush him, and corrosive acid that threatened to consume him while he was lying bound on the floor. In one spectacular escape while he was hung from his thumbs, he used his legs to get his captor in a scissors hold and then choked him. Kicking off his shoes, he used his toes to find a key in the man’s pocket, which he then inserted in the door directly opposite him, unlocked the door, and turned the knob with his feet. With the door ajar, he then walked up it with his feet and tumbled into a backward arch, loosening his restraints with his toes and freeing himself!

Filming in Yonkers during the summer and fall of 1918, Houdini literally threw himself into his work. By the end of shooting, he had suffered seven black eyes and broken his left wrist when he fell off a swinging chandelier during one fight sequence, but he was thrilled with the final product. “I have
seen
all the Serials, and believe that the Houdini Serial is the greatest ever screened,” he wrote Kellar, with typical modesty. “If it goes over, think I shall make the Silent Drama my next venture.” It did more than “go over.” On its opening weekend in New York, thousands were turned away from the theaters. In Boston, five thousand people milled outside, unable to get in. In one day in New England, Houdini set a record-making fifteen personal appearances to promote the film.

The screen’s first robot threatens Houdini.
From the collection of Ricky Jay

Now Houdini was faced with a dilemma. He had been working on a big new illusion, Buried Alive. When Kilby wrote to ask him about his progress, Houdini was uncertain. “The Movie Fans are ‘clambering’ for another Houdini serial, and as that is much easier than my Self created hazardous work, I may step that way.” In February of 1919, two months later, Houdini’s return to film seemed certain. “With the finish of the Houdini serial, our income will
cease
,” he wrote Kellar. “——and then???”

The two planes were flying over Beverly Hills and heading for the ocean. Director Irwin Willat was in the third plane, along with the cameraman. They were filming the climatic scene of Houdini’s first full-length movie,
The Grim Game
, when, unexpectedly, tragedy struck. “I thought…my end had come,” Houdini told the press. “I was 3,000 feet up in an aeroplane, circling over another machine. The plan was for me to drop from my ’plane into the cockpit of the other by means of a rope. I was dangling from 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 propellers locked in a deadly embrace, and we were spun round and round and round…. But, by a miracle, the ’planes were righted into a half-glide, and, though they were smashed into splinters by their terrific impact, I managed to escape unhurt.”

French poster for
The Master Mystery
.
Library of Congress

Willat was quick thinking enough to keep the cameras rolling during the crash and descent, and the resultant footage was among the most spectacular in the then-short history of cinema. Stills of the two planes locked in their “deadly embrace” were struck and prominently featured in the advertising campaign along with a typical Houdini challenge: “$1000
REWARD TO ANY PERSON PROVING
that the above picture is not a genuine photograph of an aeroplane collision during the filming of an aerial battle in the clouds.” Of course, the reward was never paid out because the collision had happened. There was a bit more deception in Houdini’s recollections of the crash. When the planes came down, not only had Houdini been safe on the ground the entire time but he wasn’t even in the scene. His part in the aerial action had been played by a stunt double.

The Grim Game
was the first of a two-picture deal that Houdini signed with producer Jesse Lasky a few months after
The Master Mystery
had been released, and like its predecessor,
The Grim Game
was another showcase of Houdini’s marvelous escapes and stunts. He does an upside-down straitjacket escape, frees himself from a bear trap, and, in an incredible sequence, rolls under a passing car, catches the transmission bar, and hangs on for dear life, hitching a ride so he can come to the aid of the heroine.

The reviews were raves. “Houdini has stepped to the front as a film star,”
The New York Herald
opined. “Houdini is honestly a star….”
The New York American
agreed. “There is more excitement in one reel of
The Grim Game
than in any five reels of celluloid I have ever watched,” T. E. Oliphant of
The New York Mail
wrote.

Houdini was excited at the prospect of doing features. “I am drifting away from vaudeville, and with the exception of my European dates have no plans re a return,” he told Kilby. Where he was drifting to was Hollywood, where the temperate climate and the chance to rub elbows with other movie stars were appealing to him. He became friendly with stars like Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle and spent time on the Lasky set with a young sultry star named Gloria Swanson. She sent him an autographed photo (“To Mr. Houdini, Please show me some of your tricks. Most sincerely, Gloria Swanson”) that he kept in one of his scrapbooks.

Houdini was also thrilled to spend time with Harry Kellar, who lived only a few miles from the studio. He and Bess also frequently socialized with his old partner Jacob Hyman, who was married to an actress and was practicing medicine. Although still down-to-earth for the most part, Houdini began to show some signs of a Hollywood temperament. One night he was a guest at a “bohemian” dinner given by a prominent westerner who loved to be surrounded by an artistic crowd. Someone introduced Houdini to the company as “having been supplied by Mr. M——.” Houdini immediately bristled, “I was not supplied by anyone. I am too great an artist to be ‘supplied’ by anyone. I am here as a guest.” After a modicum of mollification, Houdini did consent to perform the Needles.

With two films under his belt, Houdini was learning his new craft. Although some modern self-styled acting critics have tried to fault Houdini’s acting, he never seemed out of place on the big screen. He generally got favorable notices, even for his acting ability, and by the time he was shooting
The Grim Game
, he had taken his craft seriously. “Picture actors and stage actors are entirely different,” he wrote from Hollywood. “And though the spoken stage may ridicule pictures, never the less picture must be intelligently
portraied
[sic] and is an art in itself. The smallest movie star can make the biggest spoken stage star look like a nickel before the camera, especially if they do not know the angle of the lens.”