Houdini wrote, produced and starred in two of his feature films; he wrote a number of treatments – plots for potential productions; and he self-published several of these treatments. *
This post continues a series of posts where I summarize (or share tidbits about) film treatments (published and unpublished) by Houdini
- The Marvelous Adventures of Houdini (1917)*
- The Man From Beyond (1921)
- Haldane of the Secret Service or Mysterious Mr. Yu (1921)*
- Frizzo––Master Magician (1921)
- Yar, the Primeval Man (1921)*
- Il Mistero de Osiris or The Mystery of the Jewel (1921)*
- The Great Tontine (unpublished)* [Tom Boldt Collection (TBC)]
- The Monster (unpublished)* [TBC]
- The Vulture (unpublished)* [TBC]
- Floating Through Space (unpublished)* [TBC]
- Blood Brothers (unpublished) [TBC]
- Out of the Shadows (unpublished) [HHCE Collection]
* “Film Treatment” can be found in Patrick Culliton’s book, Houdini’s Strange Tales – A Collection of fiction by the legendary Harry Houdini [1992]
Today, we look at Blood Brothers
Per Silverman:
Despite Houdini’s sudsy reasoning, in his affections he had always ranked his mother on a level with his wife, expected Bess to accept the fact, and even in some degree confused her with Cecilia. In one of his unpublished short stories, “Blood Brothers,” he named his hero Haddon Harcourt — HH — and gave Bess’s middle name, Beatrice, to HH’s mother.
Note: Unfortunately, this all the info I have on Blood Brothers at this time. I hope to get to read it one day. Especially, with the fact that he actually named the hero in this one, unlike most of the other unpublished film treatments. And we know, that the 4 feature movies he starred in, all had his characters initials as HH (Harvey Hanford–The Grim Game, Harry Harper–Terror Island, Howard Hillary–The Man From Beyond, Health Haldane–Haldane of the Secret Service).
Haddon Harcourt is a pretty good HH name.
In his Notes book Silverman credits the Blood Brothers manuscript as being in the Tom Boldt Collection.
Agree. And back in March, I tried to reach out to Tom Boldt via email and let him know I was doing this series, but never heard back, so I may not have his latest email.
Yes–the alliteration is inescapable. I wonder if the director of The Master Mystery thought of it, and Harry kept it going in subsequent films.
I believe it was Houdini Himself (HH) that thought of it.
The Master Mystery was Quentin Locke. So it’s the only non HH movie character name.
I did post on this a while back. Believe it or not, Houdini claimed he never noticed his characters all shared the initials HH. Pure coincidence. I find that impossible to believe.