Here's one I never expected to see! Stage Door in the UK will release the original cast recording of the 1966 London stage musical Man of Magic as a limited edition CD on December 13, 2019. Below are details.
Continuing Stage Door's 'Cast Album Masters Series' is the CD debut of the 'Man Of Magic' Original London Cast Recording. Based on the life of iconic magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, 'Man Of Magic' opened at London's Piccadilly Theatre on November 15th 1966 and ran for 135 performance.
Featuring music by Wilfred Wylam (a pseudonym for classical composer Wilfred Josephs) and book and lyrics by John Morley and Aubrey Cash, the production starred Stuart Damon as Houdini alongside Judith Bruce as Bess and Stubby Kaye as Toby Kester. Produced by legendary theatre impresario Harold Fielding, the production received mixed reviews and failed to achieve the acclaim of his earlier successes 'Half A Sixpence' and 'Charlie Girl'. Despite the lukewarm critical response to 'Man Of Magic', the production was noted for its elaborate recreations of Houdini's illusions and the performances of its leading players Stuart Damon, Judith Bruce and Stubby Kaye.
Although 'Man Of Magic' marked Wilfred Josephs' only work for musical theatre, there is much to be enjoyed in his distinctive and immediate score, not least the rousing duet 'Conquer The World', 'Suddenly' and the comedy numbers 'Take Your Medicine' and 'Kester's Crystal Cabbage'.
The limited edition 500 unit only release of 'Man Of Magic' continues Stage Door's 'Cast Album Masters Series'. Licensing recordings from the major labels, the series presents the CD debut of many London Cast Recordings from the 1960s and 1970s, all digitally remastered from the studio master tapes.
You can hear song samples and pre-order at the Stage Door website. It's also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
It's always interesting to find something that reveals what Houdini would have been doing had he not died on Halloween 1926. This is one of those finds.
In December 1926, Houdini would have attended an 11-day symposium on spiritualism at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was to have been the closing night speaker, in fact.
According to Dr. Carl Murchison (above), the idea for the symposium came about during a luncheon with Houdini and Professor William McDougall of Harvard at the Bancroft Hotel in Worcester in 1925. Murchison recalled:
Professor McDougall and Mr. Houdini, though the best of friends, did not seem to be in entire agreement concerning certain matters that have become of wide social interest because of newspaper emphasis. Half jokingly and half in earnest, I suggested that they and other representatives thrash out the entire matter in a public symposium to be held at Clark University. The suggestion struck both of them with great force, and the three of us worked together in the lobby for more than two hours, planning the form of the symposium as well as we could at that early date.
Despite Houdini's death, the symposium proceeded as planned, running November 29 to December 11, 1926 at Clark University. Among the many presentations was the reading of paper by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ("The Psychic Question as I See It") and Dr. Le Roi Crandon presenting new photographs of his wife Margery producing ectoplasm. Instead of Houdini, the symposium ended with a lecture by Professor Nans Driesch of the University of Leipzig.
But there was still hope that Houdini might contribute, as reported by the Associated Press on December 13, 1926:
It appears Houdini had not yet prepared his manuscript, or that it couldn't be found. Instead, excerpts from his book A Magician Among The Spirits were included in the symposium's official volume, The Case for and Against Psychical Belief. In the introduction Murchison writes: "The book is only two years old, and Mrs Houdini agrees that it still represents Mr. Houdini's final convictions on the subject."
Here's a Houdini play that flew under my radar back in 2017. SPECTATE ran November 7-18 at the Sue Benner Theatre in Brisbane, Australia, and offered what sounds like a unique experience. Here's a description from Scenestr.com:
'SPECTATE' is a transmedia performance work that frames the audience as witnesses to Harry Houdini’s final tragic show.
3D printed performers, live video compositing and immersive audio are used to construct a world of contemporary illusion.
'SPECTATE' is a show about being an audience and using transmedia forms Counterpilot is asking you to play the role of the audience. Wearing a headset throughout the show, you’ll hear a voice inside your head prompting you. You’ll be suspended between layers of reality while Counterpilot challenges you to navigate versions of truth and fiction.
The work features performances by Hugh Parker, Anna McGahan, Toby Martin, Cam Clark, Elise Greig, Brad Haseman, Lucas Stibbard, Veronica Neave, Lauren Jackson, and potentially the spirit of Houdini himself. Written & directed by Nathan Sibthorpe.
Below is a trailer that gives a sense of the show's avant-garde nature. The company also offered a "live-streaming attempted hi-tech séance" on Halloween that year.
The "Mandela Effect" refers to a collective belief in a historical event or fact that actually has no foundation in the truth. Below is a YouTube channel that looks at popular Mandela Effects. In this episode Houdini's drowning death comes in at #1.
The source of this "Mandela" is no mystery. The collective misconception that Houdini died in the Water Torture Cell was born in the 1953 Paramount biopic Houdini starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Two subsequent television biopics, The Great Houdinis (1976) and Houdini (1998), also show the escape playing a role in the magician's death.
But it's not just Hollywood to blame. Many magicians and escape artists when doing their own versions of the escape will advertise it as "the escape that killed Houdini." A recent offender was David Blaine. Even Simon Cowell once spoke this myth on America's Got Talent.
But I've also discovered this misconception doesn't have the hold it once did. Today most people have some idea about the punch, and a Google search can tell anyone the truth. I also find that people under the age of 20 have not really heard this. Back in the 60s, 70s and 80s the Tony Curtis movie was a shown repeatedly on television and that was the way most people learnt about Houdini. But nowadays kids watch YouTube videos...like the Mandela Effect!
Thanks to Lisa Cousins for this one. NOTE: I've created a new playlist on my YouTube Channel called Linked Videos in which I've collected all the Houdini-related second party videos, such as this one, that I've shared here on WILD ABOUT HARRY.
While working among Houdini's private papers at the Harry Ransom Center, playwright Beth Burns believed she caught a whiff of what Houdini might have smelled like. She described it as: "A nice, clean, woodsy smell—like Old Spice and shaving cream, with a note of coffee."
I'm not sure if that's what this new Houdini Cologne smells like. But as this is the creation of our friend and class act David Haversat, I'm sure it's just as nice. So if you're looking for a gift for the magician in your life, look no further than your nose.
Houdini - Cologne for Men will be available this Christmas and Hanukkah Season for $29.95. For pre-orders please contact houdinicologne@gmail.com.
On Thursday, December 5, Eric Colleary, Cline Curator of Theatre & Performing Arts collections at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, will give a lecture on "Houdini the Collector". The talk starts at 7 PM and admission is free.
Click to enlarge.
The Harry Ransom Center is located at 300 W 21st St, Austin, TX 78712. For more information visit their official website.
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.
It's official. You can find Houdini anywhere. He's even hanging around the Museu de la Xocolata (Museum of Chocolate) in Barcelona, Spain. The image used here is from a French Mastery Mystery poster (released 101 years ago today). And, yes, this is made of pure chocolate!
Houdini is even featured on the museum tickets (below). Also chocolate bars. Delicious.
Here's a fun one. This podcast by sisters Whitney and Lindsey Nelsen assess the overall "hotness" of historical figures. In this episode they rank Houdini and magician Dell O'Dell. I especially enjoyed their discussion of Houdini's physical attractiveness (4.5 out of 5) starting around the 40 minute mark. Enjoy.
Today marks my 44th Houdini birthday. It was on this day in 1975 that I saw the Tony Curtis Houdini biopic for the first time. That lit a flame of curiosity that has never been extinguished. But the truth is I did not immediately rush out and buy a book about Houdini. My great passion at that time was Universal Monsters, and I was not yet ready to set Frankenstein aside for a life of magic.
But then a few weeks later, I opened the TV Guide, always hoping to find a listing for a Universal Monster movie, and saw this:
This is an ad for Doug Henning's first World of Magic television special, a historical event in itself. But it was not the show I was interested in. I didn't know who this hippie magician was and I didn't care. All I saw was the image behind him. Houdini. The real Houdini. It was my first look at the actual man and this image electrified me!
You can see this ad has small holes in it. That's because I pinned it to my bedroom wall and would stand gazing at it, searching it intently. This somehow made Houdini real and tangible. He also seemed to be looking right at me, inviting me to investigate the mystery of his life. I can still feel that coming off this image. If the Tony Curtis movie was my indoctrination, this was my awakening. And after I watched the Henning special, I was a goner!
If you had an "awakening" moment, please feel free to share in the comments below.
Great news from the Houdini blogosphere. Jack Coray's Houdini & Hardeen is back! Here's how Jack explained it in his return post:
Click to enlarge.
Houdini & Hardeen has already clocked some impressive posts, including this post with a pic of Hardeen and Dr. A.M. Wilson that I've never seen. Jack is also promising to review every issue of Houdini's Conjurers Monthly Magazine; a great idea!
So revisit or visit for the first time Houdini & Hardeen, because one can never get enough of The Brothers Houdini!
At the beginning of this year, thirty remarkable minutes of largely unseen Houdini footage appeared on a YouTube channel run by someone called "Sleight of Direction". The clip was titled "Various TV Magic Clips from the US - 1970s to before." The video description didn't even mention Houdini, and when I asked about this, I received an odd reply to my comment:
"Yeah, I noticed that when the video was first uploaded. But the majority of my viewers are exclusive fans of sawings/slicings/zig zags/twister/compressors/selbits illusions, so didn't think it'll be of any interest. However, it's good to know fans of other illusions exist."
It now appears this channel and video are gone. I can't say I'm surprised. There was something strange about this user, and I'm wondering if any of this footage was ever theirs to share. (I continue to think these clips may have somehow come from the late Bill McIlhany's collection.)
While the quality was poor, the footage was amazing! (I've detailed it in the original post.) I did save the footage and can upload it to my own YouTube channel and re-link it. But I don't want to step on any toes.
If anyone knows the story behind this, please email me. Thanks.
UPDATE: I decided to go for it and upload select clips to my own YouTube channel and have embedded those clips HERE. Enjoy.
I really enjoyed the new Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Not only because I'm a Tarantino fan, but it depicts a bygone Hollywood that I clearly remember. And now friends have alerted me to a Houdini connection to the film. If you buy the exclusive LP soundtrack, it includes a map of 1969 Hollywood. And if you look closely on that map, you'll see the "Houdini Mansion" among the historic Manson-era haunts.
This is a reference to what is today the restored and privately owned Houdini Estate, a popular site for weddings and film shoots. But back in the 1960s and '70s it was a burnt-out abandoned ruin that everyone called the "Houdini Mansion". This was a haven for hippies and all kinds of characters to flop, including one man who called himself Robin Hood and would shoot arrows at people. And, of course, it was said to be haunted!
The remains of the house and gardens with overgrown stairways and stone arches where open and visible to motorists driving through Laurel Canyon, so the "Houdini Mansion" was a well-known and somewhat mysterious Los Angeles landmark. No surprise to see it on this map as part of the Hollywood Tarantino so lovingly recreated in his movie. [For the truth of Houdini's connection to the property check out my related links.]
No, this photo isn't from the movie, and that's not Brad Pitt! This is me in 1977 at the "Houdini Mansion" showing off a freshly pilfered brick. And look at that cool Magic Castle t-shirt.
The Once Upon A Time in Hollywood exclusive soundtrack LP is available in independent record stores and in a limited quality on Amazon.com.
Thanks to fellow Tarantino fans Matt Bradford and Michael Curran for this one.
Continuing Stage Door's 'Cast Album Masters Series' is the CD debut of the 'Man Of Magic' Original London Cast Recording. Based on the life of iconic magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, 'Man Of Magic' opened at London's Piccadilly Theatre on November 15th 1966 and ran for 135 performance.
