Last week, I shared a tidbit about the Aeroplane Crash in The Grim Game that was not widely known. That is, I shared that the camera plane may have “indirectly led” to the collision, due to a delay in mounting the camera that caused the planes to do the stunt in the rough air of the afternoon as opposed to the calm air of the early morning. I also shared a bonus tidbit, that the stuntman was supposed to make his way to the rear cockpit or drop into the rear seat.  In addition, I shared a couple advertisements from my personal collection showing how the accident happened.

Today, I thought I would share the flip side of the newspaper ad (Toledo Times October 19, 1919) displayed last week, that has a nice jail scene still and describes how “Houdini is supposed to let himself down into the cockpit beside the murderer by means of a rope, and throttle him”:

One of the most amazing air accidents in the history or aviation forms the sensational climax of a new Paramount-Artcraft picture, “The Grim Game,” starring Houdini, the most famous handcuff king, which is coming to the Temple all of this week.

According to the story, Houdini in an airplane is pursuing a murderer, who is trying to escape in another machine. At a height of 3,000 feet Houdini is supposed to glide above the other machine, let himself down into the cockpit  beside the murderer by means of a rope, and throttle him.

All went well, with the stunt, the two machines circling one above the other  and a third , containing Director Willat and the photographer, about a hundred yards away, until Houdini was just about to loose his hold on the rope. Then suddenly a gust of wind lifted  the lower ‘plane into the upper one, and their  propellers locked. They dropped like rockets, revolving nose on nose, with Houdini still dangling on the rope and the the two aviators making frantic efforts to control their machines. Death seemed certain. But a few hundred feet from the ground, with both propellers gone, one of the airmen by a miracle, succeeded in falling into a glide, and, though the other crashed nose-on into a field, the only injuries sustained were slight bruises.