Today we look at Early Houdini Trading Cards (No. 62-66) from an extremely rare set of 25 Hoyo De Monterrey of Havanna Tobacco Cards (No. 57-81) circa 1920, depicting stills from his Terror Island movie:
No. 64 Still 318-7 HHCE Collection
No. 65 Still 318-3 HHCE Collection
No. 66 Still 318-68 Internet
Note: Cards No. 62 and 63 are currently unidentified.
Related
Today we look at Early Houdini Trading Cards (No. 57-61) from an extremely rare set of 25 Hoyo De Monterrey of Havanna Tobacco Cards (No. 57-81) circa 1920, depicting stills from his Terror Island movie:
No. 57 Still 318-45 (HHCE Collection)
No. 58 Still 318-12 (HHCE Collection)
No. 59 Still 318-11 (HHCE Collection)
No. 60 Still 318-21 (eBay)
No. 61 Still 318-19 (HHCE)
Previously, the six hard to find 1977 Stuart Pharmaceutical calendars from the series numbered DM-73301 to DM-73306 were shared:
Each featured Spectacular Houdini Feats and original artwork by James Barkly.
This year, I am sharing the even harder to find 1978 Stuart Pharmaceutical calendars from the series numbered DM-17301 to DM-17306:
This month, features the second calendar from 1978 series numbered DM-17302:
Today, I thought I would introduce 3 different types of Trading Cards from Houdini’s day:
Each of these cards was mentioned in a Houdini article found in the Cartophilic Notes & News publication vol 29 no 5:
HHCE Collection
The Ogden’s cigarette card is his rookie card and is identified as 1902 but that date is not correct. That photo used on the card wasn’t taken until 1904. The set first came out in 1902, but the B series with Houdini came out later. Ogden Guinea Gold Cards ran from 1902 to 1907. And thanks to Kevin Connolly, we know there are two variations of this card, the one variation is with a whitish box with “HOUDINI THE HANDCUFF KING” inside the box. The other variation “HOUDINI THE HANDCUFF KING” is in the beige field without the box.”
The set of 24 Famous Heroes cards came out in the Weekly Boys Cinema Magazine, with the first card (No. 1) being inserted in the Boys Cinema Issue No. 117, Vol. 5 March 4, 1922. Each week, they issued another card.
HHCE Collection
The Harry Houdini card (No. 4) came out in Boys Cinema issue No. 120, Vol 5 March 25, 1922.
HHCE Collection
An extremely rare set of 25 Hoyo De Monterrey of Havanna Tobacco Cards (No. 57-81) circa 1920, depicting stills from his Terror Island movie. The card (No. 60) below, sold November 15 2019 on eBay for $247.02.
I have been able to identify 22 of the 25 cards and will be sharing images from my personal collection at later dates:
During my visit to the McCord Museum, I was fortunate enough to have read a compilation (April 24, 1920 v1 n1 to June 5th 1920 v1 n7) of “The Amazing Exploits of Houdini” found in The Kinema Comic.
Each issue contains a several page serialized fictional story (by-lined by Houdini). This week I share my paraphrased version of “Adventure of the Midland Express” found in the May 22 1920 v1 n5 issue:
Houdini is traveling on train from Liverpool to London. The paranoid actions of his sole traveling companion got on his nerves.
Houdini asked what his worry was.
“Well, the fact is sir,” he said, “there are a couple of men on this train who are out to scrounge some rather important papers from me. They are in the next carriage but one to this, and ever since we left Liverpool I have been expecting them to make the trip along the footboard and risk their arm. I’m a bit of an inventor, sir, and ever since I came out of hospital I have been working on an idea concerning a new shuttle which, I feel confident, will revolutionize the weaving industry. Last week I perfected it, and in a week and childish moment before I had got the idea patented. I showed it some friends, who brought one of these aforesaid scoundrels along with them. Ever since that day, this fellow has been working, making plans of my invention, but he had not yet finished. He knows that I have my plans in my pocket now, and that I am on my way to London to get the idea patented. His plans—or, rather, the copy of mine—are not ready, and I know jolly well that he is out to prevent these plans of mine reaching the Patent Office before his, and that he will go to any length to scotch me.”
“My name is Houdini, perhaps you have heard of it. I used to be rather well known in Liverpool. An any rate, I once broke out of the Bridewell there, and mixed up a few prisoners for them, and if you care to trust me, I will guarantee that your plans will arrive safely at the Patent Office tomorrow morning.”
Dane handed the plans over to Houdini.
Houdini told Dane: “At Leicester, I’m going to leave you, but there’s no need for you to be alarmed. I shall be staying at the Contour Hotel in London, and if we should get separated on the way south look me up tomorrow morning, and I’ll have the plans safe and sound for you to take along to the Patent Office.”
The train slid into the Leicester station, and Houdini secretly changed carriages.
Five minutes outside of Leicester, Houdini put his head outside the window and saw a man moving along the footboard toward Dane’s compartment.
By the time Houdini made his way to the footboard, there was no trace of the man. When he reached the window of Dane’s carriage he was being attacked, not by one man, but by two.
Houdini quickly joined in the fight and put one man out of action, then the other.
As Houdini turned toward an unconscious Dane, the man Houdini knocked out first recovered sufficiently to take a steel bar to Houdini’s skull.
“Neither of em’ are dead!” was the first words Houdini heard on recovering consciousness. Bending over Houdini was a man in uniform who told him he didn’t know what happened but that they were in St. Pancras Station. Dane was still unconscious and there was no sign of the other men.
Houdini and Dane were helped into a taxi that took them to a hotel, where a doctor was sent for.
Eventually they both recovered enough to have a conversation.
Dane told Houdini, “They got the plans after all. I saw them searching your pockets before they whacked me on the head again.”
Houdini smiled, and told him to have the hotel servant deliver his correspondence, which included a large envelope.
“That envelope contains your plans. Better just look and see that they are intact. I thought the post would be safer than my pocket, so I addressed the envelope at Leicester and dropped it into the box. Everything all right?”
“I do wish I had a brain!” was all the comment Dane made.
Last year, as part of the 100 year anniversary of Houdini’s movie, The Grim Game, I did a post on how Houdini broke his wrist and the effect it had on filming.
Still (HHCE collection)
It included Houdini’s own account:
It is unexpected that always happens. Though doing daring stunts thousands of feet above good old Mother Earth, flying in cranky aeroplanes, climbing the outside of buildings, swinging from the top of a swaying flag-staff a hundred feet in the air, leaping on and off heavy motor trucks and the like, I never got a hurt, but from a three-foot fall I again broke my left wrist, not so badly as before, however for then a bone was broken in three places, while this time I escaped with one fracture. This accident has detained me in California longer than expected, but my wrist is now rapidly completing its “knitting work”, and I shall soon be able to give the necessary personal attention to the finishing stunts of the picture and return to New York. [MUM July 1919]
Thought I would follow-up, with a post on how he may have broken his ankle (?) filming.
Three Sheet Poster (The Nielsen Gallery)
According to an M-U-M October 2009 article by Tom Ewing on The Nielsen Gallery Grim Game 3 Sheet Poster:
One final word about the straitjacket escape in The Grim Game. The scene called for Houdini to escape from the jacket, untie his feet, and then drop to the street, where his fall would be broken by a store awning and he would jump to the street. During filming of the street-level segment where he supposedly landed on the awning and jumped to the ground, he fractured his ankle. One must wonder if this injury and the daily abuse he inflicted upon his feet contributed to another ankle injury, this time doing the Water Torture Cell escape in Albany, New York in October, 1926. The stocks shifted or dropped as he was lifted aloft and fractured his ankle. We will never know, but it was the beginning of the end for the daredevil escape artist who died a few weeks later in Detroit on Halloween.
Lobby Card (John Cox Collection)
So, after Houdini shared his account of breaking his wrist from a three-foot-fall [escaping one of the prison cells], he broke his ankle (?) during the strait-jacket stunt.
Previously, the six hard to find 1977 Stuart Pharmaceutical calendars from the series numbered DM-73301 to DM-73306 were shared:
Each featured Spectacular Houdini Feats and original artwork by James Barkly.
This month, I share the first of six (even harder to find) 1978 Stuart Pharmaceutical calendars from the series numbered DM-17301 to DM-17306:
In future months, I will share the four from my (HHCE) collection. Still looking for September/October.
Previously, I had only been able to locate “Latest Paramount Artcraft ads” that included “The Grim Game”:
Finding one that included “Terror Island” as alluded me until now.
I am so glad to be able to add one with “Terror Island” to my collection and share it, along with “The Grim Game” ones from my collection.
So that you may know, The Grim Game is the best show in town, and I’d like to see “Terror Island” right over again.
Our friends, Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz at the Houdini Museum in Scranton, PA and the Library of Congress (LoC) share a 4 page fold over flyer for one of Houdini’s early spiritualist exposure lecture’s at the HillStreet Theatre in Los Angeles, CA:
Page 1 (LoC hs00301)
Pages 2 and 3 (LoC hs00302 and hs00303)
Page 4 (LoC hs00304)
Related:
During my visit to the McCord Museum, I was fortunate enough to have read a compilation (April 24, 1920 v1 n1 to June 5th 1920 v1 n7) of “The Amazing Exploits of Houdini” found in The Kinema Comic.
Each issue contains a several page serialized fictional story (by-lined by Houdini). This week I share my paraphrased version of “The Gold Melters” found in the May 15 1920 v1 n4 issue:
On the ride from the Midlands to Manchester, winds were battering against the windows, as the limo surrounded on each side by desolate moors, raced up the incline to the top of the hill.
Suddenly, Houdini was thrown against the side of the car. Something had gone wrong. Shattered glass was all around and all the lights had gone out.
Concerned for his limo driver, “Are you all right, Bob?”
“Quite Sir! It might have been worse; The steering column has snapped, and it was simply luck that she took this side of the road. If she had swerved to the other side, we should both be lying at the bottom of the valley, perhaps dead, but certainly pretty badly messed about.”
Bob had made up his mind as to what they should do. He would stay with the car all night while Houdini went and looked for shelter from the elements at some hotel or house.
The quest was not an easy one in that district. Moors stretched for miles on every side, and it was pitch black outside. Houdini was about to turn back until he saw a faint twinkle of a light below in the valley.
Without hesitation, Houdini turned off the road and scrambled down the side of the moor. It was an adventurous journey thru the woods.
A half hour later, he came upon a house with the light coming through a downstairs window.
Houdini approached the uncovered window and peered into the room and saw a tall well built man about middle age melting down sovereigns to use the gold for commercial purposes.
Suddenly there was a sound of footsteps coming from the woods. Moving from beneath the window, Houdini made his way around the building until he reached the front door. The doorbell was not working, so he knocked a number of times until the man he saw in the window slowly crack open the door.
Houdini told the man he was searching for shelter since his car met with disaster at the top of the moors.
The man told Houdini he couldn’t put anyone up.
Suddenly another voice from behind Houdini was heard, “Can I have a word with you before you turn the gentleman out of the house?”
The man at the door left his position and stalked past Houdini.
After a conference, the man returned and lied:
“My man tells me that we can accommodate you. Only he and I live in the house, so you will find things very rough and ready, but I must ask you to take things as you find them. If you will follow me, I will show you to your room. Except for our own two rooms, it is the only one that is habitable in the house. Come this way.”
The man immediately moved off in the direction of the stairs, and Houdini followed in his wake. They climbed up three stories, then a long passage. At the door of one room the man paused.
And beckoned Houdini to enter the apartment.
“You have seen too much, my friend and must stay here until you forget. That may be tomorrow. On the other hand, it may be forever”
The door swung shut and Houdini was trapped.
Houdini examined the lock. It was a simple contrivance and he could escape anytime he wanted.
After a couple hours, Houdini rose to his feet and unlocked the door. To one who has broken out of some of the most famous prions in Europe, the proposition of that door was a very elementary matter.
Moving as quietly as he could, Houdini made his way to the stairs. No one appeared to be about, so he removed his boots and descended the stairs without making a sound. Not a light shone anywhere. He had to grope his way along the hall. At the far end, he found a door leading to the room where the gold-melting operations were being carried on. The men were still at work there.
Houdini returned to the hall, and after unscrewing the bells, took down the receiver and asked Exchange to be put into communication with the nearest police.
“There’s a man here who’s melting down golden sovereigns. Perhaps you and a few of your colleagues had better run through and make a few investigations.”
The official at the other end of the wire thanked me, and said that they would be there as soon as they possibly could.
“Good! And when you come, you might bring some food along with you. Enough to satisfy two hungry men.”
On receiving the promise that food would be brought, Houdini crept back to the room he was supposed to be imprisoned in.
The rest of the story is simply told. The police came on the scene and captured the men red-handed at their unpatriotic work.
But, what was more important, the police brought food for Houdini and Bob.