Look who is playing at the Orpheum 118 years ago, today. On Tuesday July 4th, 1899,  it’s Houdini, with his wife, doing the Oregon boot routine:

H A P P Y 4 T H  O F  J U L Y ! ! !

To kick off July, thought I would share a Pharmaceutical Calendar Ad from 1977, I recently acquired about Houdini’s Straitjacket Release:

In this stunt, Houdini used the same kind of straitjacket that was commonly used in institutions for the criminally insane.  The straitjacket was constructed of heavily reinforced leather or heavy canvas, and had a deep leather collar and leather cuffs.  The outfit was laced tightly up the back, strapped and buckled.  Extra-long sleeves with closed cuffs were then folded across the chest, the ends brought around the back and tied together.

[it then goes on to explain in detail how he escaped]

As a further refinement, Houdini also performed his escape hanging upside down.  To conserver his strength, he employed ankle supports and a guy rope to keep his body from swaying.

On Brad Meltzer’s Decoded, Patrick Culliton was interviewed and asked the following question:

Why do you think Houdini started to engage in anti-spiritual diatribe or became part of anti-spiritualism movement?

His chief assistant, a guy named James Collins said he first turned on spiritualists when he was a teenager.

His father died when he was 19 and there was some important insurance papers that they couldn’t find and Houdini pawned the watch his father had left him and paid a spiritualist to give him a reading and tell him where these papers were.  And the papers weren’t there and the money was just gone and the watch was gone and that was sort of a pivotal event in Houdini’s life and kind of soured him on it.

H A P P Y  F A T H E R ‘ S DAY ! ! !

We are very familiar with the above Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery Poster, which can be found in many Houdini books.

I recently just read a 2011 post that John Cox at Wild About Houdini did on the lost posters of Harry Houdini that referenced a 2010 post that Dean Carnegie did on the Prison Cell & Barrel Mystery

Both posts included the above photo of a Houdini theater display in Salem, Massachusetts, and commented about the poster on the right behind the packing crate possibly being a second Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery poster.  Well, I knew I had seen a frontal image of that poster in a photograph when I visited Fred Pittella’s Houdini & Escapes museum during my special visit to NY in 2015.  And that is absolutely a second Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery Poster.  Below are two images I took during my visit that Fred has given permission to share.

Special Thanks to Fred Pittella

To kick off June, thought I would share a Pharmaceutical Calendar Ad from 1977, I recently acquired about Houdini escaping from prison when manacled in handcuffs and irons:

Before attempting one of his jailbreaks.  Houdini had a committee of men thoroughly search him for keys, lock-picking devices or other implements that might help him escape.

….

He insisted that his escapes were authentic and had police certificates to prove that.

Before actually escaping from his prison cell, Houdini had to free his wrists and ankles from handcuffs and leg-irons.

[The ad goes on to describe various methods he would use to escape depending on if the handcuffs were regulation or not and whether he could reach the lock with his hand or not.]

Once his hands were freed, it was a simple enough to remove the chains and leg-irons.  Only one step remained – opening the cell door.

[The ad goes on to say that Houdini was never very specific about how he performed this part of the jailbreak].

To get the real secret of the Cell Escape, highly recommend the David De-Val book

In honor of Memorial Day in May and Flag Day coming up in June, I thought I would do a quick post on Houdini’s “Whirlwind of Colors”.

This is the effect where Houdini turned a massive production of silks into a patriotic, get-on-your-feet extravaganza.

He performed it during the patriotic review show “Everything” at the Hippodrome during the 1918-19 season. Houdini did the silks from fishbowl production and produced a tame American eagle named “Abraham Lincoln” from the folds of a giant American flag. In reality, it was actually a red-tailed hawk passed off as an eagle that he trained himself.

This was also the last trick that Houdini performed onstage in 1926. That is for a finale, he drew from a small crystal bowl of colored water hundreds of yards of silken streamers and lastly a string of flags of all nations. Houdini collapsed at the end of the first act and this trick was actually finished by his assistants when Houdini was rushed to the hospital.

Source: John Cox, Patrick Culliton and Roger Dreyer

UPDATE:  Fred Pittella just let me know that Houdini’s Whirlwind of Color is safe with him.  This is how it looked when Bessie, Hardeen and Jimmy Collins performed it.

Image from Patrick Culliton’s The Key

And this is how it looks today in Fred’s Houdini & Escapes museum.

Special Thanks to Fred Pittella for allowing me to share.

Related:

• What a Variety: 9 + 9 + 1919 = 52

Photo Credit: Images courtesy of Harry Ransom Center