Below is an advertisement [Dramatic Mirror September 21, 1918] from my personal collection advertising that the Houdini Serial [AKA The Master Mystery] will be released on the open market plan.
The Master Mystery was released on the open market plan in November of 1918.
The first four episodes was first shown at a special trade show on November 7, 1918 at the Strand Theatre in New York City.
And it made its premier, November 18th, 1918 in the Saint James Theatre in Boston.
To start the 2023 New Year off, thought I would share a special card with a special message from my personal collection:
The front of the card has a spanish ad for the Houdini Serial, The Master Mystery:
Below is a similiar ad in English:
This card was sent from Holyoke MA to Niagara Falls, NY.
It would have been sent out in the early 1990s:
First Class postage in the US was 29 cents from February 3rd 1991 to January 1, 1995. Prior to that it was 25 cents for the first ounce. In 1995 it was increased to 32 cents for the first ounce.
H A P P Y N E W Y E A R ! ! !
Adaptation – a movie, television drama, or stage play that has been adapted from a written work
Arthur B. Reeve and Houdini worked on three silent film stories together,
And possibly a story serialized in the newspapers
HHCE Collection
The Master Mystery silent film was adapted to a book.
HHCE Collection
Terror Island film script was adapted to a story paper format.
Published by Joe Notaro (copyright 2022)
The Zanetti Mystery was planned to be adapted to a novel and movie.
HHCE Collection
And there is now evidence that The Grim Game, was planned to be adapted to a stage play.
The common thread in all the story adaptations is Arthur B. Reeve.
Just received the following from David Haversat Zanadu LLC:
We got our hands on a stack of this recently produced poster for Houdini’s Master Mystery. It’s a 24” x 18” heavy stock image containing the plans to cut-out and build your own miniature robot as seen in The Master Mystery starring Harry Houdini. The Robot “The Automation – Q” was the first film to be featured in a film.
Order while supplies last! Email: haversat@gmail.com for details.
Above is what Q looks like if you build him.
History of Paper Robot:
Early 1920’s – Originally in Spanish, M. Barrenchea created the art as a promotional piece geared for children (above)
HHCE Collection
2010 – A repro poster sold out of Spain (above)
http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/houdiniPaperRobotPages.html
2013 – HHCE shares the above 2010 image:
2014 – Potter and Potter sold an extremely rare original (above)
2018 – HHCE adds (rare) repro poster from Spain to HHCE collection
2020 – HHCE shares image of repro poster from Spain
2020 – Eddie Guevaro of the House of the Unusual contacts HHCE about buying a copy of my repro poster for his collection
2020 – HHCE lets Eddie know that I am not the maker of the repro poster and only have the one copy
2022 – House of the Unusual releases their version (written in english) of the repro poster, which was proudly added to the HHCE collection via David Haversat
It is a pretty cool piece, and like the Spanish original & repro, it is sure to be a collector’s item in the future.
The mighty Arthur Moses recently shared with John Cox and I, a sheet of Spanish Master Mystery Tickets:
Yes, tickets is how Arthur described them. He just got these from Spain and believes no others exist. Each ticket is 1-3/8 inch x 1-3/4.
My jaw dropped when I saw these.
I would date them around 1921.
Thoughts?
Thank You Arthur for allowing these to be shared.
Bonus:
Spanish Master Mystery Punchout Robot Poster (12.75 x 8.75 in) from early 1920s.
Spanish May 28, 1921 Tras La Pantalla Magazine Insert (10 x 7 in)
Related:
“Light the candles!”
Make a wish and blow them out!
“H A P P Y 1 4 7 TH B I R T H D A Y !
In October 2016 and February 2021, this very nice publicity illustration above sold at the Potter & Potter Auction for $1920 and $2040 respectively. Congratulations to the new owner!
Below is the auction description:
LOT 63 DETAILS
[Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weiss)] Ogle, R.B. Original Publicity Illustration of Houdini. Circa 1919. Pen and ink on paper, possibly depicting a scene from The Master Mystery (1920), in which Houdini is shown climbing through an open window into a bedroom at night and bearing down on a man wielding a dagger. “Kinema Comic” annotated in pencil in lower margin, with scattered printer’s annotations and stamps. Artist’s name identified on verso. 10 x 13″. Old central vertical fold.
The description mentions that it is “Possibly Depicting a Scene from The Master Mystery”.
Well, I have seen all of Houdini’s Movie, The Master Mystery, plus studied the script, synopsis, and book, and can tell you that is not a scene from The Master Mystery.
So what is it a scene from. Well, I have also have read a number of “The Amazing Exploits of Houdini” found in The Kinema Comic and that illustration was made for the story “In The Dead of Night” found in the May 29 1920 v1 n6 issue that I did a post on.
That said, the February 2021 Potter & Potter Auction did feature some nice items from his movie, “The Grim Game”, Lot 61 Lobby Card ($1,680) and Lot 62 Pressbook ($2,040).
Next Week:
Thanks to our good friend Arthur Moses, I get to share the Portuguese version of an article titled, How Does Houdini Do It? By William Eastman. The English version of this article first appeared in the May 1921 Physical Culture Magazine. The photos are the highlight of the article.
Bonus:
Below is a snippet from the May 1921 Physical Culture Magazine article that covers his movies.
According to the Master Mystery Pressbook:
YOU will have two advance slides on “The Master Mystery,” the great serial featuring Houdini. One slide will be an accurate reproduction of the twenty-four sheet poster and is to be used prior to the showing of this super-serial; the other slide is the typical episode slide to be used to announce the episodes and the date on which they will be shown.
In addition to these two slides, there was also slides for specific episodes:
The United Kingdom also came out with a variant:
Related:
Credits:
Back in 2013, I shared the following image:
http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/houdiniPaperRobotPages.html
Since then, I have come across some additional information posted in 2010 by “robothut” aka John Rigg’s, the maker of the above paper robot reproductions of “Q” from the Master Mystery.
robothut: I received my reproduction poster and built up the paper Houdini robot. The poster is all in Spanish, there is no date or copyright on the poster. So there is no way to know if this handout poster for kids as it says in Spanish, was made back in 1919 when the movie was made or at a later date. I have also increased the scale of the robot to make it easier to build. There is a place on the poster that says Mr. M. Barrenchea did the artwork. So any Spanish friends out there that can track down any info on this guy? The small robot is from the poster scale and is about 7.5 inches tall, the larger one is my scale and is about 9.5 inches tall.
robothut: I just got a reply from the seller of this [reproduction] poster in Spain. The original was made in the early 20’s. I don’t know anything about the drawer [artist]. I attached you in this email some pictures of the original (front and back). So as you can see he took images from the back of this poster and added them to the front layout for the reproduction copies he sells.
So, the 7.5 inch tall and 9.5 inch paper robots made by “robothut” were originally created from the above reproduction poster.
The first image from “robothut” shows the front and back of the original (12.75 x 8.75 in) for comparison to the reproduction poster (19.5 x 13.5 in).