Sunday, March 6, 2016

Puzzling together The Master Mystery

Our great friend Joe Notaro at Harry Houdini Circumstantial Evidence is attempting to reassemble, at least in words, Houdini's complete 15-part movie serial The Master Mystery.

Several versions of the 1918 serial exist on DVD, VHS, and in film archives. Joe has reviewed them all closely and believes he has now seen the complete serial. (Read: I have finally seen all of The Master Mystery.)

Joe has launched a series of posts that take a close look at each version, clarifying exactly what is missing and what is included. Below are links to each installment:



Thanks to Joe for taking on this important and long overdue project. Maybe this will help aid in a true film restoration effort one day!

Related:

2 comments:

  1. Kudos to Joe for taking on this project! As John mentioned, a final complete version should be made available. Harry would have wanted it.

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  2. I'm especially eager to read what Joe has to say about the UCLA archive version, because that I've never seen. I also didn't realize the Bill McIlhany and Kino versions were different.

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