Afterward, however, Fante advises Harry to "drop it", noting that Johann Von Schweger, a German magician, retired at the height of his career after performing a similar feat, fearful of his own talents. Harry accepts the challenge and, through intense concentration, extricates himself from the jacket, greatly impressing Fante. On Halloween, Harry and Bess attend a special magicians' dinner at the Hotel Astor, during which magician Fante offers a prize to anyone who can free himself from a straitjacket. Bess becomes Harry's onstage partner, touring the country with him, but soon grows tired of the low pay and grueling schedule.Īfter Bess convinces Harry to take a job in a locksmith factory, Harry works as a lock tester while fantasizing about escaping from one of the factory's large safes. Bess admits her attraction, and soon after, the two appear at Harry's mother's house, newly married. When Bess shows up to watch Harry perform two more times, he finally is able to corner her. Harry flirts with the unsuspecting Bess during his act, but she flees from him in a panic. Harry then appears as magician "The Great Houdini" and, spotting Bess in the audience, invites her on stage. In the 1890s, young Harry Houdini ( Tony Curtis) is performing with a Coney Island carnival as Bruto, the Wild Man, when Bess ( Janet Leigh), a naive onlooker, tries to protect him from the blows of Schultz ( Sig Ruman), his "trainer". The film also follows his love for his wife Bess Houdini and his most dangerous stunts and stage illusions. Following the death of his mother, he exposes various fraudulent mediums in the spiritualist movement, while always hoping to make contact with her. It details his beginnings as a carnival performer, later as a worker in a safe factory, and finally his international success as a world-renowned escape artist and stage magician. The film's storyline is a fictionalized account of Houdini's life.
The art direction was by Albert Nozaki and Hal Pereira, and the costume design by Edith Head. The film's music score was by Roy Webb and the cinematography by Ernest Laszlo.
The film's screenplay, based upon the life of magician and escape artist Harry Houdini, was written by Philip Yordan, based on the book Houdini by Harold Kellock. Houdini is a 1953 American Technicolor film biography from Paramount Pictures, produced by George Pal and Berman Swarttz, directed by George Marshall, that stars Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
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