Houdini in "VELVET FINGERS"

We are all familiar with the famous film footage of Houdini doing card manipulations late in his career. Little is known about this footage, except that it was made by Pathe in 1926. But while doing some unrelated research, I stumbled on two newspaper advertisements that appear to show exactly when and where this short film played and, most excitingly, the title: "Velvet Fingers."

These ads appeared in The Hutchinson News on April 1st and 2nd, 1926, and advertised the line-up of movies at the Royal Theater in Kansas City. The main feature was the Ralph Lewis newspaper drama, The Last Edition. But look below and you'll see among the short subjects on the bill is HOUDINI in "VELVET FINGERS." The second ad has the more descriptive "HOUDINI in an array of tricks." It seems almost certain that "Velvet Fingers" and the famous Houdini card flourishes footage are one in the same.

Unfortunately, I can't find any other record of a short called "Velvet Fingers" (there was a serial with this title in 1920). Might the theater have invented the title? Hard to know. But the Our Gang short that is billed above the Houdini movie was indeed called "Better Movies."

Royal in Kanas City where "Velvet Fingers" played in 1926.

It's intriguing to wonder just how many tricks in the "array of tricks" existed in the full short. In the surviving film, we see Houdini demonstrate a 32 card forward and back palm, an armspread turnover, a waterfall, and an amazing armspread toss and catch. Houdini was featuring these flourishes in his 3 Shows In 1 at this time, so this is really the only footage that exists of Houdini doing his stage act. Pretty cool.

As far as I know, this short no longer survives complete. Some footage appeared in 1950 feature documentary, The Golden Twenties. The most complete selection of footage can be found on the 3-DVD set "Vintage Magic Films" produced by The Miracle Factory. I once had the fantasy that this could have been a sound short, but certainly that would have been advertised, so I have to put that wish to bed.

And now here's a short clip from "Velvet Fingers."

Related:

• The King of Cards in 1926
• Houdini's grand finale: 3 Shows In 1

UPDATE: Readers Bill Mullins and Joe Notaro have uncovered some clippings that confirm the title and give us even more details about the full footage:

Motion Picture News, March 20, 1926:
Pathe Review No. 12 brings Houdini to the screen as a master manipulator of playing cards in a novelty called "Velvet Fingers."

Greensboro NC Record, March 21 1926:
HOUDINI'S VELVET FINGERS
Houdini, master magician, brings to the screen his grace and form in handling playing cards in a current issue of the Pathe Review. He also presents an expose of some of the card tricks by means of which card sharps have mulcted the public of millions of dollars. Slow motion analyses "the gambler's cut," in which the middle and bottom of the deck are transposed, leaving the top as it was; the "forearm rifle" in which Houdini makes a whole deck of cards obey his orders and the "forearm toss," in which every card stays in its place as if under hypnotic control, and other stunts that make the cards almost sit up and talk. [typos as in original]

UPDATE 2: Was this footage originally part of a 1925 short produced by Red Seal Pictures? Click to read: The Houdini card manipulation movie mystery deepens.

The Houdini card manipulation movie mystery deepens

Following up on my 4th of July post about the famous footage of Houdini doing card manipulations -- which we discovered was shown in 1926 as a short called, Velvet Fingers -- Tom Interval of Houdini Museum has turned up an intriguing new discovery.

Tom has found this advertisement with suggests this footage might have first appeared as part of a short called Marvel of Motion by Red Seal Pictures. [EDIT: It was actually a series of shorts called Marvels of Motion.] The short featured "startling photographic inventions" including "very remarkable slow-motion pictures of Houdini and his card tricks." It played at New York's Rivoli Theatre in June 1925, a year before Velvet Fingers.

It's very likely this is the same footage, especially as the description of Velvet Fingers also mentions slow motion. It's possible this footage was first created for this Red Seal short and then later extracted on its own as Velvet Fingers. Or maybe Houdini himself shot this footage and licensed it to various film companies for use in their shorts, which means it might have appeared in several different films.

Another tantalizing possibility is that what's contained in Marvel of Motion is footage of Houdini that we have not yet seen.

Another day, another Houdini mystery!

Thank you Tom.

UPDATE: Recently NEW footage of Houdini doing coin and card manipulations has come to light, which throws a wrinkle into the Marvel of Motion/Velvet Fingers saga. This new footage shows Houdini in a suit and tie, so it was not made at the same time. So is the suit and tie footage from Marvel of Motion and the tux footage from Velvet Fingers? Or visa versa? Or was it all one film? The mystery deepens!

Related:

• Houdini in "VELVET FINGERS"
• The King of Cards in 1926

Bringing Houdini to Seal Beach

Last night I had the extreme pleasure of giving my "Houdini in Hollywood" talk at the monthly meeting of the historic IBM Ring 96 in Seal Beach, CA. I'm happy to report that the event was a big success. I've never felt more relaxed giving this talk, and Ring Vice President Cliff Gerstman ran a tight meeting and everything timed out beautifully.

The Ring organizers told me this was one of their best attended events, and I was especially happy to see some young people in the audience. I really wasn't sure if teens and preteens would put up with over an hour of silent movie footage and a lecture about a man who has been dead for 89 years, but they were fully engaged from beginning to end, and even came up and asked me questions during the intermission. Yes, there's definitely going to be a next generation of Houdini nuts!

With special permission from Park Circus Films, I was able to screen clips from TCMs newly restored The Grim Game (the jail break and suspended straitjacket escape). The group seemed to really enjoy this. The young people were especially impressed with how Houdini rolled under a truck and rode it away. But the clip that seemed to resonate the most was Houdini's card manipulation short, Velvet Fingers. Made within a year of his death, it remains his most haunting piece of film. The magicians in the room also appreciated this evidence of Houdini's card skills.

Ring 96 holds meetings on the third Saturday of every month. They feature lectures, competitions and other exciting magic based events. I encourage you to bookmark their website and attend their meetings which are always open to the public. I also encourage you to check out Cliff Gerstman's website T.I.E.S. (The International Escapologist Society), and his monthly e-newsletter, The Chainletter, which regularly runs news and features on Houdini.

For this event, I extended my talk by 20 minutes, and I think I found the perfect length and combination of clips. Unfortunately, I don't have any current commitments to do the talk again. But I will be giving an all-new lecture on Houdini's spirit busting activities at the Center For Inquiry in Hollywood and Costa Mesa in October. This new talk is called "Houdini Among The Spirits." I'll post more details soon.

Thanks again to Cliff Gerstman and all the members of Ring 96 for the warm reception and for letting me bring Houdini to Seal Beach.

Related:

• Houdini in Hollywood (mega lecture!) at IBM Ring 96, August 15
• Houdini conquers Hollywood (at last) in The Grim Game
• Houdini in "VELVET FINGERS"

Film of Bess Houdini in 1938

One of the gifts I received at my 50th birthday Houdini Seance last week was the Miracle Factory's compilation DVD, Vintage Magic Films. This remarkable DVD had over 3 hours of ultra-rare footage of famous magicians from the 1920s, '30s and '40s. I was most excited that this DVDs contains the nearly complete footage of Houdini doing card flourishes, which we've now come to know as Velvet Fingers. This footage is, unsurprisingly, the first selection on the disc.

But it was something buried in the section labeled simply "Japanese magicians" that made my jaw hit the floor. Here is footage shot during a gathering of the "Southern California Japanese Amateur Magicians Society" in Los Angeles in 1938, and among the attendees is Edward Saint and Bess Houdini! Bess is sitting in the front row and at one point she's showered with applause and gifts. Someone even hands her an orange. (Hmmm.) Bess is smiling and seems to having a great time. There's even a moment when we see her cough. (Bessie coughing!) Apart from her appearance in Religious Racketeers, I don't recall seeing film of Bess in her later years, and I always enjoy seeing candid footage like this.

The DVD also includes other hidden gems such as Blackstone doing a packing crate escape with a committee that includes Thurston and T. Nelson Downs, and footage of Nicola doing a suspended straitjacket and underwater handcuff escapes. 

Vintage Magic Films is available from Amazon or the Miracle Factory.

Thanks to my good friends Ron and Asbed for this Bessie surprise!

Related:

• Bess Houdini in color
• Rousing the spirits
• Houdini in "VELVET FINGERS"

Here is that remarkable Houdini mystery footage

Earlier this year our friend Leo Hevia discovered 30 minutes of largely unseen Houdini footage buried in a YouTube video of random magic clips. It was an exciting find! A few weeks ago the clip and channel disappeared. It's still not clear who ran this channel, nor where this footage originated.

But this footage was just too remarkable to let vanish, so I've taken the liberty of uploading four of the most complete and interesting clips to my own YouTube channel. (Hopefully I'm not stepping on any toes by doing this.) I have also embedded the clips below along with a description of what they show. As you can see, the quality is poor, but the content is incredible. Enjoy!

1. Visiting sister Gladys: This appears to be unedited home movies of Houdini visiting his sister Carrie Gladys on a snowy day. After several shots outside of Houdini leaving the house (the footage is not in sequence), we cut inside the house to find Gladys playing the piano as Harry and Bess enter. Gladys then greets Houdini's assistants one by one: Franz Kukol, James Vickery, Jim Collins, and an unidentified assistant. Two more men are greeted by Gladys and Houdini, but I don't know who they are. After everyone leaves, Houdini returns to pick up and kiss a photo of his mother. We then see Houdini hugging and kissing Bess outside in the snow. Incredible.

2. Houdini Coin and Card handling: A real mystery is this one minute of footage showing Houdini doing coin sleights and card manipulations in slow motion. It's tempting to think this is a lost fragment from Velvet Fingers, but Houdini is dressed in a suit instead of a tuxedo, so this appears to be something entirely different. Whatever it is, it's a remarkable minute of film and breathtaking to watch Houdini's hand movements.

3. Monk Table Tie Escape: This footage shows Houdini doing an escape on the set of Haldane of the Secret Service. But this is not from the movie itself. The scenario here appears to be that he's being challenged by monks (played by actors and his assistants). This footage has appeared in documentaries, but it always cuts off as Houdini is being tied. Here the footage is complete and uncut, showing the full escape and Houdini being raised up on the shoulders of the ecstatic monks.

4. The Man From Beyond cliff stunt: While maybe not as spectacular as the above clips, this is every bit as interesting. This shows Houdini filming his cliff fight and his stunt of hanging off the edge. Shot from a distance, we can see the cameraman and also the geography of the stunt, showing Houdini was not as high off the ground as it appears in the movie. A rare piece of behind the scenes.

Also part of the original clip was the first few minutes of Houdini's 1909 movie, Les merveilleux exploits de Houdini à Paris. But this is something I'm going to save for a later time as part of a larger restoration project.

Related:

• Mysterious Houdini footage now mysteriously gone
• Holy smokes! Thirty minutes of largely unseen Houdini film surfaces
• The Houdini card manipulation movie mystery deepens

LINK: The Hopewell professor and Houdini’s mysterious death

Below are links to a well-researched two-part article by John Ashton about the days leading up to Houdini's death and the role played by the head of the psychology department at McGill University, Professor William Dunlop Tait.

The Hopewell professor and Houdini’s mysterious death - Part 1

The Hopewell professor and Houdini’s mysterious death - Part 2

Professor William Dunlop Tait.

The photo seen in part 2 is credited as being Houdini at the Princess Theater in Montreal. But it's actually a still frame from his card manipulation movie Velvet Fingers. To discover why the photo is mistakenly captioned, check out THIS POST at Joe Notaro's HHCE.

Thanks to Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz at the Houdini Museum in Scranton.

Related:

• The McGill explanation
• The Pickleman punch
• The Prince of Wales assault

Holy smokes! Thirty minutes of largely unseen Houdini film surfaces

We may only be three days into the new year, but our friend Leonard Hevia has made what might be the find of 2019! While browsing the Sleight of Direction YouTube channel, Leo found 30 minutes of Houdini film footage, much of it unknown! It's contained in a video clip posted on New Years Eve titled "Various TV Magic Clips from the US - 1970s to before." Curiously, the video description doesn't even mention Houdini. But oh baby!

The quality is very poor, but the content is incredible. Below is the embedded clip set to begin at the Houdini footage at 59:48 (you might want to mute the sound).

UPDATE: As you can see, the original video has been removed, but
selected clips can be viewed HERE.

Here's a breakdown of what I consider the most remarkable footage seen here. Timecodes show where the clip is located in the above video.

Houdini Visits Gladys (01:21:14): The most mind blowing footage for me is what appears to be unedited home movies of Houdini visiting his sister Gladys during a snowy day. After several shots outside of Houdini leaving (the footage is not in sequence), we cut inside the house to find Gladys playing the piano as Harry and Bess enter. Gladys then greets Houdini's assistants one by one: Franz Kukol, James Vickery, Jim Collins, and an unidentified assistant. Two more men are greeted by Gladys and Houdini, but I don't know who they are. As everyone leaves, Houdini takes a moment to pick up and kiss a photo of his mother. We then see Houdini hugging and kissing Bess outside in the snow. Incredible.

Houdini's Paris Movie (01:23:52): This next clip is of huge significance to Houdini movie history. It's the first three minutes of Houdini's 1909 movie Les merveilleux exploits de Houdini à Paris, complete with the original French title cards. The key here is that includes the opening incident in which Harry and Bess help a drunk man on the street and are arrested. With this footage, a restoration is now doable (although we are still missing the very opening in which we see the Alhambra decked out in Houdini posters).

Houdini Coin and Cards (01:14:48): A real mystery is this one minute of footage showing Houdini doing coin sleights and card manipulations in slow motion. It's tempting to think this is a lost fragment from his 1925 Marvels in Motion appearance (later released as Velvet Fingers). But Houdini is dressed here in a suit instead of a tuxedo, so this could be something entirely different. Whatever it is, it's a remarkable minute of film and breathtaking to watch Houdini's hand movements.

Monk Table Tie Escape (01:27:10): This is footage of Houdini doing an escape on the set of Haldane of the Secret Service. This is not from the movie itself. The scenario here appears to be that he's being challenged by monks (played by actors and his assistants). This footage has appeared in documentaries, but it always cuts off as Houdini is being tied. Here the footage is complete and uncut, showing the full escape and Houdini being raised up on the shoulders of the ecstatic monks.

This compilation also includes several unfamiliar clips of suspended straitjacket escapes; behind the scenes filming of The Man From Beyond; the familiar footage of Houdini outside a Kansas City theater and the Rochester bridge jump; Harry Kellar visiting Houdini, Dash and Bess at Hardeen's Flatbush home (where Houdini was living at the time); and several clips from The Mastery Mystery with original title cards and some footage not seen in the Kino DVD.

So where the heck did this film come from? I'm afraid I don't have any answers, and I don't know who runs this YouTube Channel (it appears they may be outside the U.S.). But this channel includes a treasure trove of rare magic clips, and I can't help but wonder if we are somehow seeing part of the recently auctioned Bill McIlhany collection? But wherever it came from, what a way to start the new year!

Thank you Leo for sharing this fantastic find.

Related:

• Magicana acquires the McIlhany film archive
• The mystery of Carrie Gladys Weiss
• The Houdini card manipulation movie mystery deepens

A look back at Harry's WILD 2014

2014 was a year jam-packed with Houdini events and news and a very busy and exciting year for WILD ABOUT HARRY.

We kicked off the year with an interview with Karen Mann, the daughter of Jacques Price, and also took looks back at Houdini at the Hillstreet, his rough ride at Niagara Falls, and his 3 Shows in One. A major new Houdini documentary, The Magic of Houdini, hit TV screens in England, while another new documentary appeared in Germany. In February, Briggs auctioned the Houdini collection of Pat Croce. In March we enjoyed a Haunted Houdini Tour of Los Angeles, which included a ghost Houdini couldn't explain. And while we officially lost the possibility of a Houdini Broadway musical, we did get Nothing On Earth by the Axis Theatre Company in New York, and Flim Flam by the talented troops at the Malibu Playhouse.

Spring saw us discussing slicing a girl in Worcester, Houdini's film lab (then and now), punches by Pickleman and others, and what Houdini thought about being Buried Alive ("I like it very much"). In July we celebrated the 100 year anniversaries of Houdini's Battery Park overboard box escape and his Walking Through A Brick Wall. The NYPL showed us a never-before-seen Houdini poster, and Potter and Potter hosted a major auction of Houdiniana that included what we thought was his long lost Double Fold Death-Defying Mystery (turns out it was just on tour). We also discovered that Houdini had some Velvet Fingers.

Fall was dominated by the arrival of the Houdini miniseries starring Adrien Brody and Kristen Connolly. The two-part movie played fast and loose with the facts and brought out some strong opinions. If only Ray Stark could have done it his way. In fiction, Houdini met The Shadow and Sherlock Holmes (thrice!), and we got three books offering revisionist versions of his death. We also met a Young Houdini, and took a fresh new journey under the pyramids. Back in real life, Houdini got a namecheck from The Pope (kinda), an important Bessie letter came home, and we learned that even Houdini can't escape the woes of commuting.

2014 also saw the sad loss of magician and escape artist Alan Alan, Houdini collector Larry Weeks, and Ragtime's first Harry, Bernie Yvon.

As always, attempts were made to contact the spirit of Houdini on Halloween, this time with seances in Danvers (the Official), Scranton (the Original), Las Vegas (the Annual), and the UK (the World Famous). I decided to mark Halloween 2014 with a look back at the Final Houdini Seance in 1936 with some unseen photos from the collection of our friend Mark Willoughby. And then there was that odd rain storm...

My own personal highlights were my Houdini event at Hollywood Heritage, a panel appearance at ScareLA, and interviews with On With Scott, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, and Ennyman's Territory. I also enjoyed my 50th birthday celebration in Houdini Seance Room at the Magic Castle.

Thanks to everyone for your support of this blog and your participation. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Barring any breaking Houdini news, I'll be taking the rest of the year off and will see you all back here January 1, 2015 for what I expect will be another WILD year for Harry.