Our friends, Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz of The Houdini Museum in Scranton, PA did a nice review of The Grim Game that they were fortunate enough to see several times in NYC, when they were living and performing in New York City, shown by collector Larry Weeks.
Check it out:
You will also find some other nice Grim Game links at their website:
Is 2015 the year of The Grim Game?
Related Posts:
While on the internet, I came across a post for the Houdini Picture Corp that implied Houdini’s missing movies have reappeared and will soon be on display and available to the general public at Houdini’s Magic Shops. Below is a snippet from the post:
Houdini’s movies stayed in the family for some years following his death on October 31, 1926. While in the basement of a brother-in-law’s home, the films were discovered by an inspector who ordered the cartons of films be removed immediately as they were combustible. Sadly, a fortune Houdini films were hauled off as rubbish. But like Houdini himself, the films reappeared and will soon be on display and available to the general public at Houdini’s Magic Shops.
Unfortunately, it did not take me long to realize that the Houdini Picture Corp post (which is not dated) is old and that the full hour of The Grim Game and missing footage from Terror Island and The Master Mystery will not be on display and available soon at Houdini’s Magic Shops.
Wishful thinking on my part! My Bad!
For more information about the state of Houdini Films, see the plea from Patrick Culliton to “Safe the Houdini Films Before it is too late“
Now that I have your attention,
While going thru my Houdini magazines, I came across an article, titled, “Houdini” by Marie Hinson Blood as told to Robert Olson. This 25-page article illustrated with photos, clippings and other memorabilia gives some Houdini inside facts from an interview with Marie Hinson Blood, the niece of Houdini.
I thought I would share one of the inside facts in this blog:
Houdini made several movies and Marie can rattle them off just like that. “The Grim Game”, “Terror Island”, “The Man From Beyond” and “The Master Mystery”. Her father had all of these movies. Every Saturday friends would try and get into the Hinson house to see one of the films they would show. They could only take a certain number of people, others having to wait until the next Saturday evening. They were all on reels in big tin can with covers. One day a fire inspector came and found these films stored in the basement. Because of their extreme danger of being highly flammable, the inspector said they would suspend all of their fire insurance if they did not get rid of these films. So, her father threw them away. [The New Tops, September 1985]
I find the order of the movies that Marie could rattle off interesting, “The Grim Game” is first and “Haldane” is not listed.
If we could only turn back the clock.
I hope I am invited to the next Saturday evening’s showing of “The Grim Game”.
My previous blog, L302-55 versus L302-60, which we will call Part I showed two famous images of Houdini standing shackled in a Jail Cell with cuffs and ball & chains that are similar but slightly different images.
This blog which we will call Part II presents some physical evidence of where these images have shown up.
In the Los Angeles Times, The Book Review Section, on Sunday, January 22, 1978, the L302-55 image appeared in the article that Ricky Jay did on the book Houdini: His Legend and His Magic by Doug Henning with Charles Reynolds. The funny thing is that in the actual book, the L302-60 image is the image that appears in the book on page 147.
Also, there was a seller on E-Bay who was selling an item titled, Famous HOUDINI with chains photograph-Antique Negative– One of the better quality portraits of Houdini extant that had a picture of the actual negative for sale and a picture of what it would supposedly look like developed. On closer inspection, the negative was of L302-60 and the developed picture was of L302-55; note both pictures on E-Bay had the L302 numbers cropped off.
See below for more evidence.
L302-55:
L302-60:
You Tube:
Other Evidence: