According to Joseph F Rinn in “Sixty Years of Psychical Research”:

…Oscar Hammerstein, in June 1913, made him [Houdini] a great offer to come over to New York City to fill a two weeks’ engagement at his theatre with a new act Houdini had originated in  Europe which he called “The Chinese Water  Torture Cell”.

…

Hammerstein saw a chance for a publicity stunt for Houdini before his opening at the theatre, as a short time before, a convict ship of the days long ago had just arrived in New York Harbor. In this ship, prisoners used to be manacled to iron bars riveted to beams in the hold and nobody had ever escaped from the ship.  Hammerstein advertised:

ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 4, 1913, AT 1:30 P.M., HOUDINI WILL PUBLICLY ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM ONE OF THE CELLS OF THE CONVICT SHIP AT 79th STREET AND RIVERSIDE DRIVE.  THE PUBLIC ARE INVITED TO ATTEND.

The report of Houdini’s escape from the convict ship was given in the New York Tribune of June 5, 1913:

Houdini made good his boast to break out of the convict ship Success after being locked and shackled in one of the cells more than an hour  before he finally appeared and swam ashore.

Search for Convict Ship Footage of Houdini

Earlier this year, I searched for and found the missing underwater box escape from Terror Island.

And a couple years ago, I searched for and found the missing footage (episodes) from the Master Mystery at the UCLA Film & Television Archive (FTVA).

John Cox, who has been meaning to view the Master Mystery footage at the UCLA FTVA, but has not had time, noticed a brief mention of the Convict Ship and Houdini, when he was looking at the UCLA Library Catalog holdings online.  We agreed that I would see what this was all about.

So, I reserved [The Mutual weekly, Unidentified issues–excerpts] [ca 1913], a compilation of excerpts from silent newsreels, for the Summer Session.

Below is what I found.  It is my chronological description of “what you see” on one of the excerpts.

See the following text appear:

New York City. The British convict ship Success, on board of which more than 150,000 people were transported from Great Britain to Australia in the last century.

See the ship docked

See the bow of the ship and then the stern of the ship

See five men (4 in uniform) standing on the bow of the ship.

See restraints:

See more restraints and torture devices

See the Iron Maiden on deck of ship

See civilian people walking around the deck wearing suits and hats

See the following text:

 Convicts coming back from work” [reenacted]

See 7 convicts followed by a guard with a rifle on his shoulder on the dock.

See 7 convicts walking up gang plank followed by guard with rifle on his shoulder

See shot of 7 convicts on the deck of the bow each holding in their left hand, a ball with a chain fastened to their left ankle

See the following text:

Betting a 1,000 [dollar bill] Houdini can release himself from the Success cell

See a shot of Houdini looking sharp (cool hat, black bow-tie, white collar shirt, and black suit) with a crowd of people in front of the ship.

See Houdini tip his hat to the officer standing next to him, as they both laugh

See Houdini surface in the water with a dummy from the cell he just escaped from

See Houdini pulling himself up out of the water and adjusting his pants and shirt.  And then Hardeen is seen motioning to Houdini that they need to go.

See Houdini standing in a convertible car with a group of people that witnessed the escape and taking a couple bows.  Leo Weiss is sitting in the drivers seat, you also see Hardeen and Collins.

The End

Related

• LINK: Houdini vs. Success by Richard Norgard

Notes:

UCLA FTVA does not allow you to duplicate or record footage, so the majority of the images are from souvenir postcards and photos found in The History of the Ancient Australian Convict Ship “Success” And Its Most Notorious Prisoners

Although the postcards say 1790, the ship was builit in 1840.