Category Archives: The Grim Game

LINK: There Will Be No Fighting Over The Grim Game…Period!

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298-27 Sphinx Sept 15, 1919 v18n7 (L302-27)

Sphinx Sept 15, 1919 v18n7

Many of us have been wondering what ever happened to Larry Weeks copy of “The Grim Game”.

As far as I know, it hasn’t been seen publicly since the 1980s:

Well, that could all change in the near future.  See Kevin Connolly’s post for more information.

Tomorrow, I will do a post about almost viewing the Grim Game at “Houdini Night” in 1981

Update: John Oliver was told 4 copies were made of The Grim Game and are now in private collections. Apparently a friend of John Oliver’s said he saw it last year at a home out east, and that after Larry Weeks passed they were to be made available.

The Grim Game, Magicians and the Magic of Hollywood Cinema

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GG Ad Page 1

Magicians interest in the movies was spurred by special promotion of The Grim Game for the magic community.  Full-color four-page advertising inserts were published in the magic magazine M-U-M to accompany the release of The Grim Game [August 1919 pages 17-20 and September 1919 pages 29-32].  A special screening of the film was arranged for the Society of American Magicians (SAM), which gave The Grim Game its official endorsement and pledged that its members would help promote the film around the country [Sphinx September 1919 page 162].

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At the 1919 SAM screening of The Grim Game, Thurston gave a speech in which he pronounced the film “one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen” and called it Houdini’s “greatest work” [quoted in Sphinx September 1919 page 162].

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Houdini followed up The Grim Game with a second feature for Famous Players-Lasky entitled Terror Island. There was also some spectacular ads that accompanied the release of Terror Island in April 1920, that we will take a look at next week.

Source

  • Magicians and the Magic of Hollywood Cinema during the 1920s by Matthew Solomon

Drifting Away From Vaudeville

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airplane-collision-in-the-clouds

amazing-under-water-scenesBefore relocating to Hollywood to fulfill a contract with Famous Players-Lasky, Houdini wrote: “I am drifting away from vaudeville, and with the exception of my European dates have no plans re[garding] a return”

Scenes-From-Photoplays-30Scenes-From-Photoplays-31Once he had filled these European dates [Sailed Dec 30, 1919 from New York City to Britain] and returned to the United States [July 12, 1920], Houdini stopped performing in theatres for more than a year-and-a-half while attempting to launch his own independent film production company, the Houdini Picture Corporation

Source:

  • Magicians and the Magic of Hollywood Cinema during the 1920s by Matthew Solomon
  • The Career of Ehrich Weiss by Kenneth Silverman pages 243, 262-263

First Biopic to Acknowledge Film Career

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Was Tony Curtis’ 1953 Houdini or Adrien Brody’s 2014 Houdini miniseries the first biopic to acknowledge Houdini’s film career? Let’s look at the evidence: GG6

The Tony Curtis film originally was going to feature a recreation of Houdini’s death defying plane to plane mid-air transfer and wing walk from his 1919 film, The Grim Game. This is significant in that all the movies so far made about Houdini’s life and career have ignored his stint as a silent movie star in Hollywood. But here is evidence that the 1953 film did not ignore this aspect of Houdini’s life. It just wound up on the cutting room floor.  My question is, where is this footage today?  [John Cox]

In 2012, I went in search of the lost plane to plane transfer and discovered some interesting things about the Tony Curtis movie. Click on the link above.GG5 Well in the Houdini miniseries, the footage did not end up on the cutting room floor.  We see Houdini (Adrien Brody) and Bess (Kristen Connolly) sitting in a theater watching actual clips from the 1919 movie, The Grim Game, along with some shots of Adrien Brody hanging from a rope of one of the planes. Brody as HH in Grim Game Brody makes the following comment: “I’m on the ground the whole time; it’s fake.  It’s all Hollywood”.   Connolly says: “Look at the bright side Harry, it’s good publicity for the real thing”. Brody as HH in Hollywood As it turns out, Houdini was on the ground the whole time, while his stunt double, Lieutenant Robert E. Kennedy, hung from a rope and attempted to perform the plane-to plane descent before the planes collided in mid-air and came crashing down to the ground. 1920 03 20 The Picture Show Image 1The 1953 Houdini movie did not ignore this aspect of Houdini’s career, but the 2014 History’s Houdini miniseries is the first to actually portray it on the final product.

What is Houdini hiding behind his straw hat?

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Arbuckle-Houdini-Group (1)

Image courtesy of Kevin Connolly

The photo above has most of the cast from “Back Stage”: In the front row, we have Fatty Arbuckle, Molly Malone, Bess and Harry Houdini and in the back row, we have Buster Keaton and Al St. John.

Arbuckle-Needles-300x237

Image courtesy of Kevin Connolly

Fatty performing his version of “The Needles”.

The above two photos were taken at the Lasky Studiios where Houdini was making “The Grim Game” and Fatty Arbuckle and company were making “Back Stage”.

Prior to these photos with Arbuckle, Houdini risked his life and sustained injury in making “The Grim Game”.

Marc Wanamaker Bison Archives Grim Game Image

Image courtesy of Marc Wanamaker, Bison Archives

So that means, he is hiding the cast behind his straw hat in the pictures with Arbuckle.

Arbuckle and Houdini with Cast

Image courtesy of Kevin Connolly

Houdini showing off even with a cast on his left wrist.

Special thanks to Leo Hevia for giving me the idea for this post.

Houdini Arrives at Lasky Studio

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Harry Houdini monarch of mystery, arrived at Hollywood, Cal. where he started work immediately at the Lasky Studio under the direction of Irvin Willat on the big six-reel mystery [The Grim Game] written specially for him by Arthur B. Reeve, author of “Craig Kennedy” stories, and John Gray.

Sante Fe Station in Los Angeles May 1919

Houdini was met at the Santa Fe station in Los Angeles by Studio Manager Fred Kley and others, including a number of newspaper and publicity men who had been lying in wait for him with a number of stunts of extrication which they figured he would be unable to perform.  They wasted no time In setting the famous escape artist to work and in a few minutes they had chained and roped him to one of the big wheels of a locomotive.  When they believed he was secure they told him he might release himself if he could.  He did so in less than a minute.

Source: Motion Picture News May 17, 1919

 

 

Houdini Tries Some Hollywood Magic with Wanda Hawley

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As promised from my post last week, here is a photo of Houdini sweeping a Hollywood starlet off her feet.

TMPW June 14 1919 WH HH

At the time this levitation photo was created, Wanda Hawley, was working on the production of “Told in the HIlls” at the Famous Players-Lasky studio in Hollywood, while Houdini was working on “The Grim Game” in Stage 4.

Wanda Hawley (a.k.a. Wanda Petit), (July 30, 1895 – March 18, 1963) was a veteran of the silent screen films era. She entered the theatrical profession with an amateur group in Seattle, and later toured the U.S. and Canada as a singer. She co-starred with Rudolph Valentino in the 1922’s The Young Rajah, and rose to stardom in a number of Cecil B. DeMille and director Sam Wood’s films.

Hawley was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but together with her family moved to Seattle, Washington, when she was a child. She received her education in Seattle.

Hawley made her screen debut with the Fox Film Corporation and after playing with them for eight months joined Famous Players-Lasky and appeared as leading lady for Douglas Fairbanks, in Mr. Fix-It (1918)

She had also appeared opposite William S. Hart, Charlie Ray, Bryant Washburn, Wally Reid and others. She was five feet three inches high, weighed a hundred and ten pounds, and had blond hair and greyish blue eyes. She was an able sportswoman.

With the advent of sound, Hawley’s career ended, and she reportedly was working as a call girl in San Francisco by the early 1930s. She is interred in the Abbey of Psalms in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, CA.

Sources:

  • The Moving Picture World
  • Wikipedia.org

Harry gets cozy with the ladies at Lasky Studios

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During the making of the Grim Game, Houdini has been photographed at Lasky Studios getting cozy with:

Gloria Swanson,

Houdini and Gloria Swanson Photo from Photoplay September 1919 p102

Ann Forrest,

Ann Forrest 10x8

and the young lady pictured below.

Guess Who I Am

Care to guess who that young lady is?  Next week, I will reveal who that is, along with a very rare photo of the Hollywood starlet being swept off her feet by Houdini at Lasky Studios. You won’t want to miss it.

The Master Mystery Aeroplane Accident?

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houdini_Harry_plane_escape_1919

Grim Game Image – Courtesy of Bio4Kids

HARRY HOUDINI BREAKS WRIST

Harry Houdini, whose business is to get out of things, got into trouble yesterday in a motion picture studio in Yonkers by clinging to a wall in a parachute descent indoors.  He broke his left wrist and suffered several bruises, but he doesn’t believe his injuries will prevent his appearance in “Everything” at the reopening of the Hippodrome on August 22. Mr. Houdini is appearing in a twenty reel motion picture serial soon to be released, in which he is supposed to put a flat wheel in the grim reaper’s best chariot.  He got out of an aeroplane in the studio, and something went wrong with the parachute he caught himself just in time.  As the camera was “grinding,” several hundred feet of film not in the scenario will add an extra chapter to the serial. [Page Eight New York Herald, Tuesday August 13, 1918]

Unlike the Grim Game Aeroplane accident, I don’t believe the several hundred feet of film ever made it on screen.

Ormer Locklear (Locke) connection to Houdini and The Grim Game

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Ormer Locklear Flying Circus, 1919 Newspaper Ad

A newspaper advertisement for Ormer Locklear’s Flying Circus, 1919.

How does Houdini know Ormer Locklear and what was his connection to The Grim Game?

Houdini went to the Trav Daniel Sporting Goods Store during his week [January 1916] in Fort Worth.  He asked for a pair of Spaulding track shorts that he wanted to use as underwear.  James Locklear was in the store and recognized Houdini.  He told Houdini that he had enjoyed his act at the Majestic and had also seen Houdini free himself from the straight jacket at the Star-Telegram Building.  During the conversation, Locklear mentioned to Houdini that his brother Ormer did tricks while riding a motorcycle.  After meeting Ormer, Houdini suggested that Ormer drag Houdini handcuffed behind his motorcycle.  Houdini also stated that Ormer would receive publicity from the stunt as well as Houdini and that perhaps Ormer would become a daredevil one day; The event took place on Main Street, because it was the first paved street in Fort Worth.  Houdini wore thick overalls and a hood for the stunt.  His hands were tied behind his back and a rope was attached to Houdini from the motorcycle.  With a crowd looking on, Houdini was pulled slowly behind the motorcycle.  Before Ormer could get any speed, the event was over. Houdini freed himself.  {Paraphrased from Locklear Walks on Wings by Art Ronnie}

Ormer did become a daredevil and was the first to walk the wings of planes in flight. He became well known during the 1920’s and became a star in Hollywood.  Houdini used the idea of a transfer from one plane to another in his film, The Grim Game.  It was at this time, that a tragic accident involving Houdini’s double occurred, and Houdini took the credit for the filmed transfer.  Houdini later claimed that it was he that was the first to be photographed in a plane transfer, but he always gave credit to Locklear as the first to actually make the transfer.

[Houdini’s Texas Tours 1916 & 1923 by Ron Cartlidge]

 

Ormer Locklear poses for a publicity still for The Skywayman

Ormer Locklear poses for a publicity still for “The Skywayman”

Addendum: Houdini played a character with the last name of Locke in “The Master Mystery” and Ormer Locklear played a character with the last name of Locke in “The Skywayman”.  “The Skywayman” and “The Grim Game” both used Jenny airplanes with rope ladders on the bottom wing to perform their stunts.