Today, I continue my series of posts where I share an interview that Pictures and Picturgoer magazine did with Harry Houdini:

“WILL you step this way, please?” The call-boy of a popular London music-hall beckoned to PICTURES representative, and hurried along endless corridors to a dressing room where reposed the man whose name is a household word the world over—Harry Houdini—the Handcuff King. Repose may seem an inadequate term to use in connection with this live, active and almost restless personality, but it is accurate. Houdini works hard, plays hard, and rests hard.

We talked of many things; of life and hopes and ambitions, of business and of romance.

• His future film plans.
• His pet superstition.
• His greatest happiness.
• His fertile brain.
• His pleasure in films.

His fertile brain.

Not so engulfed in his own career that he has no time to watch what is going on in the outside world, Houdini is interested in topics and problems of the day, and has also various hobbies.

One of these is—invention. He loves inventing things, and the scheme of the new American travelling trunk now on the market emanated from his fertile brain. He got the idea for this while on tour with a circus many years ago, when facilities for carrying luggage were such that it required great ingenuity to carry anything at all.

Will power is one of Houdini’s strong points—always he had the will to succeed. Perhaps that is why he did. Once having made up his mind that a thing is possible he will never rest until he has accomplished it. An example of this is when once he practised for six weeks in order to get one effect [scaling the wall of a building, then climbing out on the flagpole and then doing some additional fancy work while hanging by his knees] on the screen [The Grim Game].

Source:

• Picture and Picturegoers March 6, 1920