Category Archives: Terror Island

Houdini’s Adaptations is now available

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Houdini Adaptations, plus Playwriting and Film Treatments: The Grim Game and Terror Island Stories is now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Product Description:

Arthur B. Reeve and Houdini worked on three silent film stories together, ‘The Master Mystery’ (1918), ‘The Grim Game’ (1919), and ‘Terror Island’ (1920). ‘The Master Mystery’ silent film was adapted to a book in 1919. While not adapted to a book, ‘The Grim Game’; was adapted to a story paper format in 1920, just like ‘Terror Island’ was in 1921.

‘The Grim Game’ and ‘Terror Island’ story adaptations are featured in Joe M. Notaro’s book for the first time and illustrated with original movie stills to help tell the story. For each of the 3 films that Reeve and Houdini worked on, Notaro also shares the cast, synopsis, words of Houdini, history, advertising campaign, and missing footage information.

A 1924 newspaper article, ‘Houdini Breaks into Playwrighting’ describing a new previously unknown stage play that reads like the plot summary from ‘The Grim Game’, is also featured in the book, along with tidbits about each of his known stage plays: Challenged or Houdini Upside Down (1911), Walking Through a Brick Wall (1914), and Buried Alive (1914).

And as a bonus, Notaro shares the ‘Out of the Shadows’ Film Treatment from his personal collection that has never been published until now. Along with that, he summarizes and shares tidbits about each of Houdini’s other film treatments: The Marvelous Adventures of Houdini (1917), The Far North or The Man From Beyond (1921), Haldane of the Secret Service or Mysterious Mr. Yu (1921), Yar, the Primeval Man (1921), Il Mistero de Osiris or The Mystery of the Jewel (1921), The Great Tontine (1992), The Monster (1992), The Vulture (1992), Floating Through Space (1992), and Blood Brothers (unpublished).

AUTOGRAPHED COPIES (available May 2024)

US Customers can order Autographed copies directly from me via PayPal:

  • $40 includes Autographed SB book with Premium Color Interior and USPS book rate shipping

Send shipping address and PayPal payment to:

 

Did you know? Houdini is back in “Terror Island”

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On September 26, The Catalina Museum shared an instagram reel that showed their new Houdini “Terror Island” display that includes a couple lobby stills, the missing packing box escape footage, and a Did You Know question.

Below is QR code and link to the reel.

DID YOU KNOW?

MAGICIAN HARRY HOUDINI WAS CONNECTED TO CATALINA ISLAND BECAUSE…

HE MADE A FILM AT TOYON BAY BUT ALSO THROUGH A TUNA CLUB MEMBER AND STAGE MAGICIAN HARRY KELLAR.

Related:

  • Terror Island Exhibit (May 2019)

  • Terror Island Exhibition (May 5 through October 7, 2018)

Houdini Adaptations – Arthur B Reeve

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Adaptation – a movie, television drama, or stage play that has been adapted from a written work

Arthur B. Reeve and Houdini worked on three silent film stories together,

  • The Master Mystery (1918)
  • The Grim Game (1919)
  • Terror Island (1920)

And possibly a story serialized in the newspapers

  • The Zanetti Mystery (1925)

HHCE Collection

The Master Mystery silent film was adapted to a book.

HHCE Collection

Terror Island film script was adapted to a story paper format.

Published by Joe Notaro (copyright 2022)

The Zanetti Mystery was planned to be adapted to a novel and movie.

HHCE Collection

And there is now evidence that The Grim Game, was planned to be adapted to a stage play.

  • Circumstantial Evidence (1924)

The common thread in all the story adaptations is Arthur B. Reeve.

SEE Houdini’s “Feature” Movies

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Advertising for Houdini’s four “feature” movies told audiences what they could expect to SEE:

  • The Grim Game
    • SEE Houdini escape from handcuffs, chains and a prison cell!
    • SEE him plunge between the wheels of a speeding motor-truck and foil his pursuers!
    • SEE him climb the side of a prison and crawl for a rope to the end of a flagpole swaying far from earth!
    • SEE him, on the brink of a gorge, fight a terrifying battle with his foes!
    • SEE him leap from the roof a skyscraper and release himself from a strait-jacket while hanging, head downward, on a rope!
    • SEE him risk his life in a deadly bear-trap and set himself free!
    • SEE him in all the other amazing scenes in this stirring story of love, mystery and dare-devil adventure!
    • SEE him, above everything else, in the most astounding feat ever caught by a motion picture camera:–Two aeroplanes race through the sky—The hero is lowered from one to the other — Just as he is about to board from one to the other — Just as he is about to board his enemy’s car the machines clash in an accident, turn over and over, and plunge to the ground thousands of feet beneath!
  • Terror Island
    • SEE Houdini escape from a nailed-up box forty fathoms under water.
    • SEE him release a girl from a safe that is locked and sunk in the sea.
    • SEE his hand-to-hand encounter with a pirate diver under the waves.
    • SEE him, at grips with a giant savage, plunge from a high cliff into the ocean.
    • SEE the overseas race to a South Sea isle to salvage sunken treasure.
    • SEE the battle royal for love and gold in a sinking submarine.
    • SEE the barbarous feast-day rites that lead to human sacrifice.
    • SEE the world’s master of magic and daring in the greatest feats of his whole career.
  • The Man From Beyond
    • SEE him fight to the death on the edge of the rocky cliff 300 ft above the yawning chasm!
    • SEE him make the sensational swim of the rapids of Niagara!
    • SEE him accomplish the unparalleled thrill of all times—the rescue of the girl on the very brink of Niagara Falls itself!
    • SEE him as the man who, encased in Artic ice for 100 years, is chopped out, and restored to life.
  • Haldane of the Secret Service
    • SEE how he escapes while bound hand and foot and cast into the Hudson.
    • SEE him battle the dignitaries beneath Paris streets.
    • SEE how he reaches the giant liner after he has gone to sleep.
    • SEE his miraculous escape while tied to the revolving water mill.
    • SEE him break the ring of nation’s counterfeiters, the financial foreign-backer of the world.
    • SEE him rescue his sweetheart from the clutches of the terrible Dr. Yu.

Boys Cinema May 14 1921 v3 n75

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Boys Cinema ran every week from Dec 1919 (n1) to May 1940 (n1063). Houdini appeared in 1920, 1921, 1922, and 1923 issues:

  1. Jan 17, 1920. v1 n6. “Houdini the Handcuff King”  cover & p26.  (HHCE Collection)
  2. Feb 21, 1920. v1 n11. “Houdini”  p12+.  (HHCE Collection)
  3. Jan 8, 1921. v3 n57. photo  p5. (HHCE Collection)
  4. Feb 5, 1921. v3 n61. photo p26. (HHCE Collection)
  5. Feb 19, 1921. v3 n63. photo  p5. (HHCE Collection)
  6. May 7, 1921. v3 n74. “The Grim Game”  p14. (HHCE Collection)
  7. May 14, 1921. v3 n75. “Terror Island”  cover & p2+.  (HHCE Collection)
  8. June 25, 1921. v4 n81. “The Grim Game”  p14+. (HHCE Collection)
  9. July 30, 1921. v4 n86.  “The Marvelous Houdini” (photo feature)  p14+.  (HHCE Collection)
  10. March 4, 1922. v5 n117. Houdini card on cover.  (HHCE Collection)
  11. March 25, 1922. v5 n120. Houdini cover with Famous Heroes Card # 4 insert. (Missing)
  12. Jan 13, 1923. v6 n162. “Houdini In The Man From Beyond”  p14+.  (Arthur Moses Collection)

This week I share Houdini’s appearance in Boys Cinema May 14, 1921. v3 n75 from my personal collection.

This extremely rare issue of Boys Cinema takes The Terror Island Film Script (which I have seen, read and studied at the Margaret Herrick Library) and adapts it to a story paper format. It is broken up into 8 parts, which you can read below.

  1. A Prisoner Among Salvages.
  2. A Wonderful Submarine.
  3. An Offer Refused and One accepted.
  4. The Sham Fire.
  5. A Life in the Balance.
  6. Sent to a Watery Grave.
  7. The Rescue.
  8. On the Cannibal Island.

Houdini Movie Lots

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An episode 10 Master Mystery Poster sold yesterday (7/25/2020) at Heritage auctions for $43,200 which included Buyer’s Premium.

Also, yesterday (7/25/2020) , there were some great Houdini Movie Lots (390, 397, 398, 398A, 404, 405, 406, 410, 418, 419, 432, and 434) from The Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins and others that sold at Potter & Potter. Click here for prices realized.

While I have many of these items already, I had my eyes on Lot 398A (which had 2 items I had never seen before) and Lot 404.

Lot 398A

Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz). Houdini “The Grim Game” Airplane Photographs. Circa 1919.  Uncommon group of five possibly unpublished photographs of Houdini and others on the set of “The Grim Game,” one of Houdini’s films.  One photo shows Houdini standing next to the Curtiss “Jenny” camera airplane piloted by Al Wilson; Lt. David E. Thomson, pilot; Robert Kennedy, Houdini’s stunt double; and Lt. Christopher Pickup, pilot of second airplane. Other photos show various images of pilots, cameraman, director, and co-star Ann Forrest. During the filming of a sequence, the planes collided in mid-air but managed to land safely, in what was likely the first airplane collision ever filmed. The damage to the one of the airplane’s wings is clearly visible in three of the photos. Very good.

Notes: Three of the five photographs have been published before. For example pages 94, 95 and 97 of “Locklear: The Man Who Walked on Wings.”  But two of the photographs, AFAIK, haven’t been published before.

Lot 404:

Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz). Houdini Mastery Mystery Invitation. [New York], 1918. Brown ink on cream stock, listing the names of each character and actor playing the role, including Houdini as “Quentin Locke,” and being a “special invitation performance given at the Strand Theatre” on Nov. 7, 1918. 8 ¼ x 5 7/8”. Central folds.

Notes:  A broadside from my personal collection gave Newspaper reviews for this special performance at the Strand Theatre on Nov 7, 1918.

Congrats to the winners.  BTW: I won Lot 404, which will complement my Master Mystery broadside nicely.

Boys Cinema Feb 19 1921 v3 n63

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Boys Cinema ran every week from Dec 1919 (n1) to May 1940 (n1063). Houdini appeared in 1920, 1921, 1922, and 1923 issues:

  1. Jan 17, 1920. v1 n6. “Houdini the Handcuff King”  cover & p26.  (HHCE Collection)
  2. Feb 21, 1920. v1 n11. “Houdini”  p12+.  (HHCE Collection)
  3. Jan 8, 1921. v3 n57. photo  p5. (HHCE Collection)
  4. Feb 5, 1921. v3 n61. photo p26.  (HHCE Collection)
  5. Feb 19, 1921. v3 n63. photo  p5. (HHCE Collection)
  6. May 7, 1921. v3 n74. “The Grim Game”  p14. (HHCE Collection)
  7. May 14, 1921. v3 n75. “Terror Island”  cover & p2+.  (HHCE Collection)
  8. June 25, 1921. v4 n81. “The Grim Game”  p14+. (HHCE Collection)
  9. July 30, 1921. v4 n86.  “The Marvelous Houdini” (photo feature)  p14+.  (HHCE Collection)
  10. March 4, 1922. v5 n117. Houdini card on cover.  (HHCE Collection)
  11. March 25, 1922. v5 n120. Houdini cover with Famous Heroes Card # 4 insert. (Missing)
  12. Jan 13, 1923. v6 n162. “Houdini In The Man From Beyond”  p14+.  (Arthur Moses Collection)

This week I share Houdini’s appearance in Boys Cinema Feb 19, 1921. v3 from my personal collection.

Question: Was this photo of Houdini and actor Theodore Roberts taken when he was on the west coast making The Grim Game or Terror Island?

Clue: Lila Lee, Island

Answer: The Grim Game

Lila Lee, Gloria Swanson, Tom Meighan and Thomas Roberts were making the Cecil B. DeMIlle film, “Male and Female” (the big picture production of the famous Barrie play, “Admiral Crichton“), at Lasky Studios around the same time. In June 1919 they filmed shipwreck scenes at Santa Cruz Island; Elaborate sets built to add realism to the location, in addition strengthening the illusion of tropical verdure. [June 21, 1919 LAT]

 

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Boys Cinema Jan 8 1921 v3 n57

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Boys Cinema ran every week from Dec 1919 (n1) to May 1940 (n1063). Houdini appeared in 1920, 1921, 1922, and 1923 issues:

  1. Jan 17, 1920. v1 n6. “Houdini the Handcuff King”  cover & p26.  (HHCE Collection)
  2. Feb 21, 1920. v1 n11. “Houdini”  p12+.  (HHCE Collection)
  3. Jan 8, 1921. v3 n57. photo  p5. (HHCE Collection)
  4. Feb 5, 1921. v3 n61. photo   (HHCE Collection)
  5. Feb 19, 1921. v3 n63. photo  p5. (HHCE Collection)
  6. May 7, 1921. v3 n74. “The Grim Game”  p14. (HHCE Collection)
  7. May 14, 1921. v3 n75. “Terror Island”  cover & p2+.  (HHCE Collection)
  8. June 25, 1921. v4 n81. “The Grim Game”  p14+. (HHCE Collection)
  9. July 30, 1921. v4 n86.  “The Marvelous Houdini” (photo feature)  p14+.  (HHCE Collection)
  10. March 4, 1922. v5 n117. Houdini card on cover.  (HHCE Collection)
  11. March 25, 1922. v5 n120. Houdini cover with Famous Heroes Card # 4 insert. (Missing)
  12. Jan 13, 1923. v6 n162. “Houdini In The Man From Beyond”  p14+.  (Arthur Moses Collection)

This week I share Houdini’s appearance in Boys Cinema Jan 8, 1921. v3 n57 from my personal collection.

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