Today, I kick off a series, where I share escape scenes from my personal copy of HOUDINI A Screenplay by Vince DiPersio:

• BURIED ALIVE
• Coffin Escape
• Water Torture Cell Part 1
• Water Torture Cell Part 2
• Belle Isle Bridge
• Walking Thru Brick Wall

This week, I share the Buried Alive scene:

The movie opens with Houdini being buried alive in a 6ft grave.

Next, Houdini performs magic at Hippodrome New York, but crowd wants to see an escape, instead of doing coffin trick, decides to do a mystic show. Mina Crandon and other mystics are in attendance. $10K challenge if Mina or anyone else can guess what word Houdini has written on a piece of paper. An old woman guesses “Mother” and it turns out to be correct. Houdini needs to know how she did it, but she disappears without collecting her money.

The theater owner hired a magician and wanted the coffin trick, not a mystic show, so he cancelled Houdini.

Houdini, Bess, Collins and JEFFERY (good looking Times reporter) go to  John L Sullivan’s (retired champion of the world boxer) Restaurant in Manhattan. John L tests Houdini with a punch and gets a free dinner to the delight of the guests.

Margery then enters the restaurant with a dashing guy, Rahmen Bey, who is in his 20s. The theater owner gave Rahmen Bey Houdini’s weekend show dates. Margery claimed that anything Houdini could do, Rahmen Bey could go better.

Houdini, Collins, and Jeffrey are in heavy disguise at a Margery Séance at 92^nd street YMCA. Suddenly there is a commotion and a ghostly figure tumbles to the ground and the lights are turned on by Collins and reveal Houdini and Margery’s assistant locked together on the ground. Margery calls Houdini a rotten bastard and says she will see him rot in hell for this.