Potter & Potter have posted their February 27 magic auction which includes a listing for a Houdini Grim Game Press Book.
Lot 62 Description
Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz). Houdini Grim Game Press Book. New York: Famous Players-Lasky, 1919. Oversize booklet filled with stories and data related to the stunt-filled film, and reproducing dozens of photographs and posters used to advertise it. Front wrapper detached, lacking rear wrapper. 15 ½ x 10 ½”.
Any Grim Game Pressbook is an extremely rare item. This one is almost complete, only missing pages 23 and 24 (rear wrapper). In fact, I only know of one complete Pressbook with all 24 pages.
Original 24 page pressbook
I happen to have a 24 page reproduction from Stephen A Sparks, who once owned the original.
As well as a 24 page reproduction that Arthur Moses included in the limited Grim Game Souvenir Folder given to Houdini Nuts in celebration of the 2015 TCM screening of the movie:
Besides the reproductions, the original 22 page pressbook being auctioned off on February 27th and the one 24 page original, I am only aware of two others:
The 20 page original Pressbook I own.
And an original Houdini signed wrapper in the collection of Ken Trombly.
Credit: Ken Trombly Collection
Wow, that signature on Ken’s wrapper is a beaut.
Besides the signature, check out the date; That wrapper would make a nice 100th year anniversary Valentine’s Day Gift!
Haha. Indeed!
(Same week he signed the papers bringing the Houdini Picture Corp. into existence, btw.)
I am aware that Houdini used a stunt man for the airplane to airplane stunt. I’ve watched the Grim Game as well as the airplane interlocking and spiraling to the ground.
How did the stuntman survive? He had no opportunity to scramble back onto the plane and it appeared the planes were spiraling erratically to the ground.
You would think the guy on the rope was a goner!
According to “The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots and Hollywood Classic Aviation Movies by H.Hugh Wynne”:
Kennedy closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable end. Suddenly Kennedy was aware of a change in the forces acting on his body and the difference in the speed of the descent. He opened his eyes. Approximately one thousand feet above the ground, the centrifugal force of the spin miraculously separated the two airplanes and the pilots regained control. Thompson’s plane came down at 26th Street and Santa Monica Canyon, where it flipped over on its back. Pickup’s machine, dragging Kennedy along the ground still clutching the knotted rope, landed in a bean field at 18th Street and San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica…the only injuries suffered in the whole incident were a few bruises and abrasions inflicted on Kennedy as he tumbled in the dirt.