Grand Illusions The Story of Magic vol 1

[Music] mechanical figures that perform acrobatics on their own inexhaustible bottles mind-reading act coins lights cards lights these are just some of the tricks of the magician's trade but they all bear the signature of one man his career in magic lasted only ten years but Joel eugène robert-houdin is called the father of modern magic I think robert-houdin was the Doug Henning of his day [Music] from bullet catches two coins lights to second sight to otama tongs all that you see here in whole or in part are illusions that originated with or were defined by a single magician he was a true renaissance man and he has left an indelible mark on magic he is Jean Eugene robear who dad he's known as the father of modern magic and I think that's there can be no dispute on that point Robby Rodin was yes very much responsible certainly for influencing a great number of people he moved us into a modern world he's considered the father of modern conjuring when we lost the robes and the caps I think that the more we learn about were buried and the more importance he takes on he doesn't become less the more we learn he becomes more what busker Mike morena is doing here on Santa Monica's promenade is what magicians have been doing since the beginning of time namely performing for a crowd outdoors until robear who Dan this is where most magic was performed before who Dan came along magicians were basically street performers considered essentially like criminals they were pickpockets and carny crooks the kinds of people that most respectable individuals not want to associate with in addition the magician's of the day still dressed as Merlin the conical calf the flowing robes the magic wand they were far from respectable society and robear who dan was born into a very respectable world specifically he was born Jean Jean ro-bear in Bois France it was December 7th 1805 he was a clock maker a mechanic a very clever and technical performer with machinery in 1830 jean eugene robear would meet and marry the daughter of a noted parisian watchmaker he would move to Paris and unusually adopt his wife's maiden name becoming Jean Eugene robear who damned even at this early stage robear who dad had started to play with magic as a hobby mastering sleight of hand using cards or coins soon he began to consider magic an art form one he wished to pursue much more seriously by the 1840s robear who dad had put watchmaking aside he dedicated himself to magic and from the very start he did magic differently for one thing he opted for evening dress he went even further than that however Rovira Dan sort of brought it into the drawing room not quite on the street corner in such an it was no longer a costume it was a a gentleman of means who could do some interesting experiments in psychology or whatever they called it and that day so was not a flamboyant character it was a respectable restrained dignified gentleman doing the routines utilizing the skills of a watchmaker robear who'd as soon brought automatons into his act he always seemed to have a an atomic table one one or another in his show essentially automata are mechanical figures able to simulate life without relying on electricity they amused and amazed their Victorian audiences one of robear who dan's creations the fantastic orange tree is recreated today by magic designer John gone well this wonderful tree is a duplicate of one that was in Roberto Don's act and around 1845 and you would start off this piece by borrowing a handkerchief from a lady and from another lady borrow a ring and maybe from a gentleman you borrow a dollar bill of which he signs and you put them all together and put them in a container which is set on fire and mysterious smoke would would go up in the air and at that point the music would start and he would Robair who Don would ask the audience to to look closely at the tree and you would actually see little flowers growing throughout the tree and after the tree had blossomed lo and behold you would actually see little oranges start to grow and now these are just turned out to be real oranges believe it or not and these four or five down here would be picked off the tree and thrown to different members of the audience and one of them would be given to the gentleman whom we borrowed the dollar bill from and a knife he would open it up and well inside the orange was his borrow dollar bill signed by himself we'd come back to the tree and there would be just one orange still left on top and it would split open and inside we would find the borrowed handkerchief and two wonderful butterflies pick it up in the air and in the middle of the handkerchief would also be the borrowed ring then there is a 34 inch high figure known to magicians around the world as Antonio Diavolo a hundred and fifty years after he was first introduced to audiences Antonio is still alive lovingly restored by John gone now I believe yes Antonio is going to attempt to do a handstand and he's been rehearsing this all week so let's bear with him here come on little fella Oh almost Antonio very good get the feet up almost come on that's one yeah well when Tony oh there we go very good oh yes very good Antonio this was his co-star who was programmed and taught so to speak to do a certain routine and he'll do that routine for us today and watching it we get a sense of the first time in many many years what it's really like to see a performance of Ribera dance it's a great thrill for anyone involved in magic to see Antonio go through his paces now be careful this is where you fell Antonio oh my gosh look at that antonio get back up there oh very good amazing Antonio yes by the late 1840s robert-houdin had established himself as a new kind of performer taking magic into the parlors soon led to magic appearing on the stages of legitimate theaters robear who dan would tour England and France as a magician playing such prominent venues as the st. James theatre entertaining for a personage no less than Her Majesty Queen Victoria and in the early 1850s he was able to do something beyond taking magic off the street and into the theatre he built his own theatre Fudan builds his own theatre the robear who damned theater which held I think 180 or about 200 seats but then he decorated the set on the stage to look exactly like a very elegant society Parisian drawing-room with Louis the 15th furniture and very expensive accoutrements and but it was a well-equipped theater under all of this he could do his performance that was designed to look like a parlour presentation a parlor amusement and secretly have the advantage of all of the secret lighting and stage traps and all of these things that he needed to affect his his illusions he did a number of things including introducing what's called a second sight trick modern audiences would know this is a form of mentalism we would blindfold his son on stage and audience members would bring objects the son without seeing the objects was able to identify them as who Dan worked his way through the audience and and challenged people to come up with weird or unusual things for his son to divine as such today mentalism acts are still a definite crowd-pleaser as witnessed by the performance of Jeff and Tessa Everson as they entertain a corporate audience I had keep getting a shape and some of the sounded like a gun does that make sense what kind of certificate is this sir gun gun certificate very good and no a call at going do you know his first name test don't see this gentleman scaring me I think it's Ronald sir what is your first name it's actually Ronny have we ever met before there's your gun certificate back thank you very much testing tear blindfold off ladies and gentlemen give her a hand the amazing tessa robear who Dez still in his forties had changed the very nature of magic it was becoming a respectable theatrical art for the upper classes magicians were becoming celebrities few could imagine that robear who Dan's greatest success was still to come bottom line is remember who dan stop him a great deal of bloodshed with a single magic show that's the bureau one can't even begin to assess the work of master magicians Jean eugène robert-houdin without recognizing the manner in which his mechanical ability allowed him to stretch the art form boudin was was a watchmaker by profession and that mechanical background gave him the basis to build and design men many of the clever illusions that he presented the mystery clot was an ingenious mechanical device while it wasn't marketed as a magic trick it actually is an illusion of sorts it's a glass clock where so many of the fittings and pieces are made of glass such that the entire mechanism is transparent the clocks hands look like they're floating it really is a brilliant piece of apparatus and was something I think that who Dan was particularly proud of another piece of which Rohmer who Dan was justifiably proud was the Crystal coin casket now in the magic collection of Ken klostermann it was a highlight of robear who dan's intimate stage show this would hang between his table beautiful silk red cords and he would throw coins to the crystal casket and you would hear him leave one at a time up here in a crystal casket until there were maybe 20 or 30 coins a casket one could only imagine what he might have done with modern technology and chip technology and programming abilities and remote control switches and such one of the most remarkable creations was the pastry cook of the Palais Royale in this illusion a miniature mechanical pastry cook welcomed an audience member to his toy like pastry shop from which he served hot buns cakes ices and liqueurs and then there were illusions more suited to the large stage one of the most enduring was known as the ethereal suspension performed today by the Legrand avide Magic company of Beverly Massachusetts [Music] who then called it the ethereal suspension because what he did was take a very current invention which was ether and he would actually scatter a bit of it around so people in the audience could smell it and the impression was that his young son was under the influence of ether and could then float in the air and the audience of course could smell the ether Qwest probably maybe a little happier to be at the show and he worked it into the into the show in such a way that many magicians have [Music] [Applause] in 1854 joy you gene robear who down the Renaissance man decided to retire from stage magic and devote his time to writing and the study of electricity and mechanics the French government had different ideas however what was to follow would become one of the most legendary stories in magic how a magician ended a war the French at that time were occupying Algiers there was a group of religious clerics known as the marabouts who were essentially inciting revolts against the French claiming that they had magical powers the Emperor says hey we got some trouble in Algeria there are these Shaymin guys and they're danced around pulling their teeth out and putting them back in and saying see I have powers you don't I now rule your country so he sent a letter to Don commissioned him to go down and try to stop this native uprising so Ribeiro dad goes to Algeria quite a distance from France now Roberto Fudan could have done two things he could have gone and exposed the tricks of the local magicians or he could do greater tricks and I think he chose the obvious path and any showman would take he held an apple and a sword and he said fire I'll catch it I'll protect myself he said fire at me and I'll stop it so he holds the Apple on the swords as fire boom bullets in the Apple throws it down they go ah so why you know you catch bullets in Apple's big deal I'm ripping teeth out of my mouth he says though yeah check this out fire again didn't expect it boom catches it in the teeth spits it out all of a sudden the shame and from Algeria uh uh-oh this guy's good but the one that really stopped the war stopped the killing was a trick called the light and heavy chest he cast his spell of a man and showed he was such a powerful magician he could take away the man's strength men could no longer pick up the box the light and heavy chest still exists today in the collection of Ken Klosterman and it's abilities can still be tested the name of Napoleon the second and roba who Don you have lost your strength you may try to lift this but you will not succeed you may try but you will not succeed [Music] don't break the handle now just to show it's like a point but that's light and heavy chest and the other interesting thing is that I can put the strength back in you if you want that to happen do you want it to happen you sure alright it's difficult but I will try now are strong able to lift the box bottom line is Ribeiro boudin stopped a a great deal of bloodshed with a single magic show and that's a miracle robear who dev finished his autobiography in 1858 and would go on to become the bible of magicians much discussed much dissected interestingly it is here that we first hear of a mentor of robear who danced a magician named torini who aided him in his early days however most scholars dismissed this aspect of the book a great deal of melodrama built into who dance autobiography and one of those elements is the Torrini story about how he was sort of down and out to me and turning helped him out but truth matter is i think it was who dance grandson who admitted look that was just something my grandfather made out that was not not real person robear who dan would live on another 13 years until On June 13 1871 the great magician passed away his legacy however carried on certainly he did something that he knew nothing about it's all which was to give Eric Weiss his name when Eric vise decided that he would call himself a name which he thought meant like boudin and he put eye on the end of it he was wrong in this opposition as he later found out but nonetheless he did take the name Houdini Harry Houdini belonged to the new century and in its early years he established himself as the most famous name in magic at first he openly admitted his idolization of the late French illusionist then things changed when he was in France playing in Paris he decided he would take a trip to the town where a bear who Dan was born and visit his grave and lay a wreath of flowers there in Rovere with Dan's honor he was very peeved when he went to a bear who Dan's house and robear who Dan's widow wouldn't see him wouldn't talk to him and then wouldn't give him permission to put the flowers on the grave Houdini did not take you know rejection well to say the least I mean if if he was rebuffed he got very angry he later wrote a extraordinary book called the unmasking of robear whoo Dan he tried to show that none of the things that have been credited robear whoo dan really belonged to him that robear boudin was not the father of modern magic but he was not the person who had first appeared on stage an ordinary street clothes he simply tried to destroy robear who danced reputation even to the extent of saying the famous autobiography of roberto dan wasn't even written by Roberta death Houdini wrote he purloined the ideas of magicians long dead and buried and proclaimed these as the fruits of inventive genius that he might be known to posterity as the king of conjurer's he sold his birthright of manhood and honor I think that as time goes on he looks more embarrassing he would have been much better served to have accepted that Burberry Don was a very important performer leave it at that from a magician's point of view I think it was a sad affair Harry Houdini when he came down on Roberto who Dan I think was was being a bad boy I don't think he should have died in the last generation we've seen we're buried down the importance of her buried and coming back to the forefront Roberto was a fantastic businessman he was a fantastic theater manager he had a fantastic sense of what the audience wanted to see wonderful talented writer and he wrote some of the most important books ever written on magic conveying not only the secrets but very important aspects of the secrets so that his students understood the art of course as with all legendary figures there is always another point of view the legend is better than the performance [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] his name is Harry Houdini and he was one of a kind as the world's most famous escape artist he brought magic to the masses he was also a very complex man who would do almost anything for audience adulation the intensity of competitiveness surprises anything in my experience at least they would almost break down theater doors together to see him he was one of the greatest showman this or any century has ever known he would milk his audiences he would make them cry and cheer he has come to define what we mean when we use the word magic you can walk down the street even today and ask a child who Dini and he looks at you and says magic that doesn't happen with any other magician [Music] harry houdini the greatest escape artist the world has ever known promised his wife that if he died before she did he would try to return to her from beyond the grave from a less audacious man such a vow would be ludicrous his resolve to cheat even death carried a strange plausibility so much so that thousands of people regard his death as only the first act every October thirty-first many gather at seances to see if Houdini will live up to his pledge interest in the master mr. fire is as pervasive as ever there have been magic shops books theatrical productions and films the question is how Houdini has managed to defy death and time to become such a hero and icon he became the ultimate meaningful magician because his magic was really about something he tapped into people's need and needs of the time the sense of their they were going through of this overwhelming mechanization of the age that humans were just becoming cogs in big wheels and Harry who stood up and said now there's nothing that can hold back the individual human spirit nothing can keep us down that you need to struggle to break free the other part of that is that he was doing miracles I mean you have to go back to biblical times really to find anything comparable to some of the things that it would be needed they seem like real magic Houdini walked through brick walls he escaped from jail cells he even made an elephant vanish in front of thousands the life of Houdini is the stuff from which legends are made more often than not the author of those legends was Houdini himself Sid Radner inherited the largest collection of Houdini artifacts from Judy knees magician brother Hardeen his fascination gives him a unique perspective into the legend of Harry Houdini one of the things he gave me was the original biography of Houdini which and this particular copy is intrigued because if you look in the Flyleaf you'll see what's written first what he wrote one side of the page and what he wrote sayo Hardeen brother of Houdini this book is full of lies the lies surrounding Houdini's life begin with his birth records prove that Houdini was born in Budapest Hungary in 1874 however Houdini claimed to be born in Appleton Wisconsin separating fact from fiction has been a long-term labor of love for Houdini biographer Ken Silverman he came with his family to America to the States when he was four years old I think you that's explained simply by the psychology of a lot of immigrants who didn't want to be known as greenhorns a lot of people who came to the States or to Canada from Europe you know insisted that they have really been born here devotees of the American Dream have found inspiration in the story of Harry Houdini and then to find myself very much with Harry Houdini being a typical immigrant overachiever I find it to be very inspiring to me this little immigrant boy from Hungary became what he did he came what he became and still around us chasing the American dream was not easy for the white family Houdini was born Erik Weisz one of six children Cecelia Weiss Houdini's mother maintained that he never cried as a baby and like most boys he found magicians fascinating Houdini's father Samuel Weiss found it difficult to make ends meet as a rabbi in Appleton Wisconsin he moved his family to Milwaukee and then to New York City to find work they were so badly off in Milwaukee that they had to apply to a charity just to get cold for the for the winter and to borrow 50 bucks to keep him going he didn't do any better in New York either and ultimately when Houdini was about 16 his father developed tongue cancer and thought of that the failure of his father rabbi Weiss was always a big spur for loudini he was always afraid of ending up broke and old like his father it's a wonderful place in his diary where he talks about being in front of a pawn shop and he sees some trophies that were given to some famous person and now the trophies are ending up in the pawn shop and he didn't have this kind of fear that he was going to end up that way that he too might become very famous but then end up as an old man broke and unknown young eric wise about to make things better for his family at 12 he left home and worked as a shoeshine boy by nineteen he joined a carnival he worked in cheap cheap circuses not big circuses where he sometimes performed as a wild man I mean he served also too you know being a cage you could throw meat into the cage at him also very importantly he worked as an acrobat it's not generally known about it any but he worked out with some acrobats in the circus and it's unappreciated but he was a very strong very acrobatic person by 1894 Eric was performing as a card manipulator at 17 he took the name Houdini from the famous French illusionist robear who death his magician hero his first name Harry came from Airy the pet name his mother called him Houdini performed with his brother Theo who took the stage name Hardeen while performing in Coney Island Harry met his future wife Bess they were married in just two weeks the thought of the innocent bast working at Coney Island would not be appropriate for his image so throughout his life in all published accounts he stated that they met on a streetcar actually she was traveling with a florodora girls traveling as a dancer and a rather cheap type of act in those days girls in show business and well that exactly weren't the most respectable she told me if she met him in a little place in Coney Island and she was singing and he was very poor Dorothy young chiami got to know Bess Houdini very well she was an assistant on Houdini's last tour in 1926 they were a loving couple they knew each other well they were activated and they had nice expressions loving expressions have come across the table but they weren't obviously affectionate despite his love for Bess Harry made it very clear that there was another woman in his life after the death of his father the support of his mother fell to Houdini and his brothers Harry swore he would take care of his beloved mother and he did so in spectacular fashion after making it big in vaudeville he showered her with $1,000 in gold coins a week's salary he wrote to his mother constantly the reason we don't have any of his letters to his mother is that at his death in his will he asked that all his letters to his mother be taken and tied up and used as the pillow in his coffin and in fact that was done his the letters world gathered up and he he was buried with them together it was an extremely close relationship it's hard to know how Pasadena really tolerated it when Houdini married bests she replaced his brother Hardeen as his assistant but it was a constant struggle they performed a mind-reading act and magic tricks they also performed the metamorphosis as their main illusion that was probably the trick that started his career it was a it was the most famous trick and he puzzled lots and lots of people today it's done by lots of magicians and done very well [Music] he did it bang-bang as literally one-two-three in the exchange was made he wasn't the first one to to do it I mean there are several other people who are doing something very like the substitution trunk but he he advertised to do it faster than anybody else one of Houdini's greatest achievements on the stage and the thing that he really prided himself on most was the so-called challenge and Co fact early in his career before he became a big vaudeville star he would invite people to bring up their own handcuffs and he would offer to get out of them Houdini's aggressive ambition elevated him from sideshow performer to magician in just six years yet despite his initial success he was still waiting for that big break the famous story is that an agent in Chicago Martin Beck who was the the head of the big Western vaudeville circuit saw Houdini perform in Minneapolis from doing some handcuff escapes and said to him we'll look that's what you really should be doing this is what you're really good at this is what audiences really respond to Beck hired Houdini to appear on the vaudeville circuit where Houdini began to develop his escapes they evolved into powerful visual symbols representing the strength of the human spirit unfortunately American audiences did not respond as enthusiastically as he'd expected in an ironic move for the patriot Batson Harry left America risking all they had on a bold plan to conquer the music halls of Europe in 1900 Harry and Bess Houdini arrived in England Harry immediately began to formulate plans to conquer the British music halls in a bold move Houdini convinced the manager of a London theatre to accompany him to the headquarters of Scotland Yard where he demonstrated his amazing abilities Houdini was silent as an officer handcuffed him around a pole and commented that's the way we lock him up around here Houdini freed himself instantly and replied and that's the way we get out of them America he was booked for a theatre engagement on the spot and he opened the following week over the next three years he he took Europe by storm and became a tremendous star of the British musicals and an even greater star maybe of the show the German cabaret and circus and vaudeville circuit they would almost break down theater doors to together to see him he was beginning to get some of the highest salaries and eventually got the highest salaries of any entertainer in Europe the novelty of Houdini's act was part of the reason for his huge success in Europe his compact muscular body the result of disciplined exercise made Houdini the world's first sex symbol Houdini was a very good-looking man highly athletic I think he's a little bit of sex too also was his performances he often did them naked to show that he had nowhere to hide his keys he was very different to the conventional magician coming out the stuffy magician with a rabbit coming out of a hat and so he caused quite a splash in Europe another reason for Houdini's great success was his showmanship before Houdini escapes had very little theatrical Flair part of his genius was his ability to develop escapes into suspenseful theater Houdini did more than just escape from things Houdini was one of the greatest showman to ever walk the face of the earth Houdini knew more than just to get out of these challenges and these these boxes nice handcuffs quickly he would milk his audiences and he would make them cry and cheer and you know he always looked disadvantaged and and he would escape from sometimes it took Oh long periods of time half an hour 45 minutes of all the escapes he performed in Europe his greatest and most controversial feat was the mirror handcuff escape it was advertised on the buses in London I mean the buses carried Houdini on them town it was really front-page news what happened was that one of the leading London papers challenged Houdini to get out of a pair of handcuffs that a locksmith in Birmingham had taken about literally seven years to make concealed by a waist-high curtain cabinet Houdini began his task at 3:15 in the afternoon Houdini escaped from the mirror cuffs in about an hour many believe that it was technically impossible for Houdini to pick the locks of the handcuffs the great Randy who was a probably the leading Escape Artist since Houdini Stein's said he had to have had the key that no one could have picked these cuffs picture it this way if Houdini fails everybody feels bad Houdini and his wife the newspaper is reviled as taking advantage of this visitor from America but if he gets out everybody's happy the newspapers got a wonderful story Houdini's got a wonderful engagement and I think that mrs. Houdini simply went to the reporter and laid it on the line look we're gonna fail and you're gonna fail and everybody's gonna feel really nasty or vice versa which is it gonna be and they flipped him the key in addition to highly publicized events like the mirror cuffs Houdini advertised his shows with large outdoor escapes Houdini was really sort of turning the downtown areas of cities into a theatre you know he made this a huge civic theater with a hundred thousand people watching his performances I guess there may be the closest thing might be you know a Rolling Stones concert or something like that where you know stadiums backed with whatever 70 or 80 thousand people going crazy but Houdini offered it free and was all a great come-on for his show that night after Houdini's tremendous success in Europe he returned to America and immediately began to improve his illusions and escapes one of the really most interesting things to me about who DS career is is its its development its evolution he was constantly improving what he did and it's interesting to see him take an escape a particular escape and work on it over his career into more and more dramatic and more and more bold and risky versions it took Houdini years to develop the dramatics that would make his escapes work as stage entertainment one of his masterpieces was called the milk-can escape he would get into a big galvanized mill can sort of snuggle into it though it was very tight that would then be filled with water or with milk or occasionally with beer and then that would be pad locked and a little screen would be put around a bang very fast the screen would be taken away and there was nudey be standing there sort of dripping wet but there was the milk can next to him and the padlocks were still on people in fact could bring their own laws and padlock with their own laws and he's still looking out very quickly obviously the idea of putting the water in there made it more exciting and more dangerous Houdini's spectacular success made him one of the most imitative acts in vaudeville Houdini imitators popped up everywhere acts like Harry how Dini just coating an eye at the a know adding an e or omitting an H ot knee or Houdini knee or what have you a gel and Germany used the name miss Andina un dia de and she had a poster made almost a duplicate of Houdini's posters and he would go crazy bunkers when somebody use his name Houdini slapped a lawsuit on her I treasure my lawsuits I don't know why his personal preference of Houdini irate because someone was using his name and proceeding to write to an attorney and I'm fighting a suti million for preventing that for him to use his name in any way shape or form Houdini was not only litigious but downright ruthless in the pursuit of his imitators even resorting to using rigged handcuffs as escape artists began a challenge and duplicate some of Houdini stunts Houdini doctored some of his handcuffs so that when he challenged them and they did challenge each other they would have a pair of handcuffs which they thought would open up with a key like this but actually didn't it opened up with a key like this and they were beg to be taken out and Houdini would only get them out at the end of the show we made them sweat it out and then would release them at that time after they would remove their claims that they defeated Houdini Houdini was certainly the most competitive person that I know anything about I mean is the intensity of competitiveness surprises anything in in my experience at least and Houdini could stand no rivals and having really beaten out every other magician in the world there were many people who left for him to beat out but Roberto who Dan on a trip to Paris in 1902 Houdini made a pilgrimage to the grave of the great illusionist Roberto Hooda the magician from whom he adopted his stage name he asked for permission to lay flowers on his hero's grave but Roberto Dan's family refused to see him his response to this perceived insult was the book the unmasking of robear who Dan in it Houdini called robear who Dan the Prince of pilferers and wrote he purloined the ideas of magicians long dead and buried and proclaimed these as the fruits of his own inventive genius that he might be known as the king of conjurer's he sold his birthright of manhood and honor I think that as time goes on he looks more embarrassing Houdini he looks it becomes more obvious that he had a vendetta the attempted destruction of roberry Dan's reputation had to do with getting rid of all rivals even historical rivals Houdini's ego had run rampant the amount of newspaper publicity he obtained the attention lavished on him by the public and his enormous box-office draw all contributed to his excessive personality some describe him as unbearable always expecting to be the subject of conversation never failing to be the center of every photograph on one occasion Bess Houdini was seen pacing backstage calling attention to her husband's frequent use of I and me as he addressed the audience but on July 17th 1913 Houdini's beloved mother died it was an event that would forever alter Harry Houdini it really unseated him as so much so that you know for a long while there he gives up magic and escapes almost all together he starts doing completely different kinds of things you mean he almost gave up his career in show business a magician is not a juggler he as an actor playing a role the role of a sorcerer so wrote the celebrated French kanjar-ro bear who damned if robear who Dan had the gift of prophecy he may have foreseen the arrival of his namesake Harry Houdini and the history of conjuring no actor has been more celebrated his complex enigmatic personality still captivates us seven decades after his death but what was behind the drive and the intensity of Houdini is as much a mystery as the illusions he performed he was a mass of contradictions Houdini was certainly the most competitive person that I know anything about I mean is the intensity of competitiveness surpasses anything in in my experience at least when you analyze howdini his greatest ability was his ability to get press and you get nothing without a camera without but without a reporter there and I would like to have him make him the way he really was a very low-key outside of the stage he was a very wonderful time in born Erik Weisz one of five sons of impoverished Jewish immigrants he worked his way through cheep dime museums and burlesque shows to become the highest-paid variety performer of his time by 1912 Houdini through his own ingenuity daring and sizable ego made himself into a household name his performances were informed by the same story he was always playing the role of the underdog able to escape adversity despite overwhelming odds separating the real Houdini from the legend has been a labor of love for Houdini biographer Kenneth Silverman to me one of the most extraordinary moments in Houdini's Dyer is the first time he did a manacled bridge jump escape this is a very dangerous escape he would be handcuffed and then he would get on the top of a bridge at some time leg cuff to jump into the water a handcuffed and he would disappear underneath and have to somehow get out a very very dangerous stunt his diary entry describing it at the end of it he has a big capital letters with exclamation points ma saw me jump ma saw me jump Houdini was the classic dutiful son he once wrote if God in His infinite wisdom ever set an angel upon earth in human form it was my mother it's difficult to understand how his wife best tolerated such absolute devotion he made it very clear to his wife best that the the other woman in his life was his mother actually she cheated turns out she wasn't the only other woman in his life I mean the one affair they know that Houdini had was with the the widow of Jack London the famous writer interestingly one of the things that Houdini said to to her to sharmee in London when he got involved with her very very typical the highest praise he could think of giving her was I would have told her my mother about you huh it's it's the highest form of praising and think of giving Houdini remained very close to his mother until her death in 1913 he received news of her passing while performing in Denmark and he fainted immediately after reading the cable and really put him in a tailspin up for the first time really he stopped performing he couldn't keep his dates he really couldn't work any more his diaries are filled with you know just endless talk about his mother he writes to everyone about her Mary ocher on D is a successful collector and dealer in all things related to Harry Houdini his collection gives him a unique perspective into the many facets of Houdini's personality after a while only so many Houdini documents and signatures you can catch his mood you can catch his speed when he arises the signature when he's upset about something I have letters that saying that so-and-so I caught him at it he deceived me and I mean these ages are very bold and you can see expresses his anger and then writing in my collection of letters I have several letters that I consider important written personal letters expressing emotions expressing missing his mother subsequent to his mother's death Houdini wrote his brother Tasha it's tough and I can't seem to get over it sometimes I feel alright but when a calm moment arrives I feel as bad as ever time heals all wounds but a long time will have to pass before it will heal this terrible blow the death of Houdini's mother increased his preoccupation with spiritualism a movement sweeping through Europe and America mediums claimed to be able to make contact with the dead who supposedly would reveal themselves as seances through levitations handwriting and knocking sounds Houdini's interest in spiritualism Kamath at one of its heights when there was a lot of it going on and he did have a desire to talk to his mother and that created his reason for going to cease the spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of the legendary Sherlock Holmes was an evangelist for the spiritualist movement he had a strong belief in the maintenance of personal identity after death despite their different beliefs Houdini and Doyle corresponded for three years and became very good friends Doyle's wife was a spiritualist medium and Doyle offered to prepare a seance for Dini and which his wife would try to get in touch with Houdini's mother they met in Atlantic City and after hotel room Doyle's wife went into a trance and started doing automatic writing she wrote sixteen whole pages of message from Houdini's mother and the the messages said my dear son how glad I am to be in contact with you you have no idea how joyful I am here Doyle after the seance was just ecstatic I mean that that he had been able to give Houdini proof of the the afterlife well his mother came through it seemed for a time by writing the sign of the Cross addressing Harry as Harry and then speaking to him in English this was all fine except that she barely spoke a word of English she always talked in German she always called him Eric his true name and she was married to a rabbi which kind of makes the cross unlikely oops it left very bitter feelings in fact although I've been close with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after another two or three years they really drifted apart and a lot of a lot of bitterness he felt his intelligence was insulted and perhaps he also felt personally insulted because he was very much affected by the death of his mother and in an open minded exploratory kind of way I was willing to look at a seance or two at the time to see if there was something to it and was deeply offended by the level of obvious deception that was going on as a result Houdini vigorously attacked the spiritualist movement insisting that mediums were merely doing tricks he duplicated their techniques he attended spiritualist meetings in disguise and denounced the mediums forever seeking to expose the fakes how he busted every major medium he could get his hands on during his during that period in his life why he went about it with such energy as it's interesting to speculate about for one thing you know he recognized that the mediums were doing some of the same things he was doing but claiming to do them by supernatural means he also being a straight shooter and as he always presented himself resented the fact that they the spiritualist mediums were thieving really off often off very poor people they were people who couldn't afford the money Houdini he was such a moralistic sort of guy he also had the feeling that what spiritualist mediums told their clients led to divorces broke up families that it led people into finally to become insane Houdini's mission to expose mediums seemed to be keeping him from his escape work but there were other reasons he knew that he was starting to get a little long in the tooth for these incredibly demanding physical things he was doing he was thinking of retiring at that stage in his career didn't know what he wanted to quite do it made sense by 1918 Houdini's world was changing vaudeville was slowly dying as the new medium of film squeezed live entertainment out of theaters he responded by transforming himself once again in 1921 after starring in several films he formed the Houdini Motion Picture Company the new medium he concluded was the perfect place to showcase his daring escapes and preserve his legend for generations to come and the man from beyond which was really Houdini's first picture he's been frozen into a block of ice I mean he's somebody who's died in the 19th century as I remember on some kind of whaling vessel and he's been frozen in Arctic ice and he's chipped out and he returned to life he's taken back to somehow two of New York and what's very strange about that movie among other things is that the opening shot is of a passage from the Bible really about immortality and it closes also with a picture of a passage from the Bible about immortality and this whole idea of his being able to survive in the ice after alive after a hundred years it's sort of taken as a in the movie as a sign that the soul survives death now really has a kind of spiritualist argument that's interesting because at the very same time lutein is exposing all of these spiritualist mediums and showing that you know they they're they're really fraudulent I guess it reveals some kind of sneaking lurking desire and really to believe in the possibility of survival although he threw himself into the movies with characteristic zeal Houdini's film career was considered a complete disaster there are some very fundamental and basic reasons for this Houdini the encounter the fact that he was camera shy especially when he came to holding a girl kissing a girl Houdini was no actor I mean he's absolutely as awful I think in in the pictures there was no Barrymore I can tell that right now Houdini thought that he he could not only being that he could direct it he could write it and he could produce it that's one of the big mistakes he made by 1923 Houdini gave up any hope of a career in Hollywood down but not beaten he increased his attacks on spiritualism and formulated yet another plan to revitalize his sagging career at the age of 51 Houdini returned to magic and the stage but unlike his vaudeville days Houdini would now appear in a full evening show booked to run in legitimate theaters he opened in New York's Shubert Theatre in December 1925 pretty good he wrote in his diary for dime Museum Houdini when he toured with his final show he achieved really a lifelong dream of having a full evening of which there was a significant portion of just straight magic that was actually something that had taken Harry most of his life to do because inaudible you didn't do full evening performances you did a quick vaudeville turn which was the escape act and the water torture cell or the escape act earlier and the metamorphosis and so that final tour was the one chance he had to really mount the magic show they had always dreamed of he was doing things like he had a big cabinet that was looked like a radio and he would tune the dials he would show the cabinet empty tune the dials music would start coming out and out from the top of the pet cabinet would pop a girl you know and she was sort of been wearing her scanties and the radio would be playing at Charleston she'd do a little Charleston in the early part of Houdini's final tour the Charleston dancer was 17-year old Dorothy young chosen from an audition of more than 200 hopefuls when Dorothy approached her father with the news he refused to let her tour with the show and the Houdini's intervened they asked to meet my father and they convinced him that they would look after me as their very own daughter they didn't have children and they did they were just wonderful born parents to me I always called him Houdini never mr. Houdini or no Harry Houdini just Houdini and best mrs. H mrs. H and I opened the show doing that dance and then he did the usual things you know with the scarfs and then the needle trick he was producing flowers he was producing rabbits he was producing silk handkerchiefs uh really for the first time his life since the beginning of his career he was doing magic while the first act of this Houdini show was straight magic the second act featured his escape work it concluded with his most infamous escape of all the Chinese water torture cell every night when the Chinese water torture cell came up mrs. H always stood in the wings and I always stood with her because it was very exciting Houdini would come out and in a bathing trunks and they would lower him headfirst in this tank full of water and the tank had a glass in front of it so you could see Houdini before they put the curtain around him they would let that audience have a full view of him it was really frightening every place we went there was always a full house and we were playing Chicago once and the house was sold out and I don't know how he got my grandmother a seat so I took her backstage later to meet Houdini and he kissed her for it and he said now I know where Dorothy gets all of her charm I my grandmother was so pleased the only time I remember Houdini ever being the least bit disturbed in the whole year I was with them but we were playing Buffalo and the prohibition was on at the time and mrs. H who was a real she was opposite personality with foodie me she was jovial liked to cut up a little bit and so she said how about taking a bottle of liquor over none of us drank so we took a smuggled a bottle of liquor and at dinner that night somehow it was mentioned and Houdini's eyes snapped and he said do you realize the adverse publicity we would have had if they had found that bottle and that was the only time in the whole year I ever remember him but being a little disturbed otherwise he was very easy he was a very super showman but in real life he was very low-key a compassionate very caring kind man by October of 1926 Houdini's tour progressed to Montreal where he played the princess theatre several McGill University students interviewed Houdini in his dressing room for their school newspaper the events that followed have been clouded by the mystique of the Houdini legend one of the students was doing a sketch of him a third student according to the story asked Houdini if he could punch him in the stomach and said to him I've heard they even take a punch to the stomach do you mind if I punch you and Houdini apparently said no I no I don't mind and as sujini was getting up off the bed of sort of couch that he was resting on the students started eating him very hard in the stomach punching him a couple of times following the show that night Harry and Bess traveled to Detroit he performed as planned but in a great deal of pain he finally consented to see a doctor after the show Houdini was diagnosed with acute appendicitis most likely aggravated by the blow to the stomach he had received in Montreal [Music] Houdini died a week later on Halloween 1926 of complications from a ruptured appendix his body was taken back to New York City where thousands gathered for his funeral since then his legend has only grown something many attribute more to bests than anyone else I've seen us at the Library of Congress a scrapbook that she compiled after Houdini's death it's it's certainly the most crazy and unusual scrapbook I've ever seen its first of all about the size of a refrigerator I mean I've just never seen a book like this she got clipping services throughout the world to send her any article of any kind that just mentioned the beanies name and she took every single mention of his name and paste it into the crapper I know she was lost without him because he was her whole life I look back it must have been very very difficult for her [Music] Houdini the psychic basher promised his wife best that if there was a way back from death he would find it in characteristic Houdini style he thought of the after world as one more lock to be picked and conquered vas Houdini held séances in an attempt to contact him but gave up in 1936 it is true Houdini did not materialize in the way he envisioned but in one way he did live up to his promise the fact that you can walk down the street even today and ask a child my neighbor across the street 11 years old Houdini and he looks at you and says magic that doesn't happen with any other magician Houdini was such a powerful character so charismatic his name is so revered and so much a part of our vocabulary that many magicians find themselves living in a shadow not only is he the only magician to be included in most dictionaries but his very name has become part of our language I was down in Florida last winter and I was going to church and the pastor was preaching on someone Nicaea and he said I guess he was trying to pull a Houdini this last achievement contains the key to Houdini's continued hold on our imagination of all his remarkable transformations Houdini's most impressive was his ability to turn himself into a metaphor that will last through the ages [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in the history of grand illusions there is a very remarkable family who helped set the standard for magic performance all of the illusions you see here being performed today were a part of their story in one sense they are long gone in another they are very much alive [Music] they are the Herman family I hope I get this right it's it in 1963 you born in 63 yes I am and they are still very much with us [Music] when a child is asked to draw a picture of a magician they usually whether they know it or not create an image of a member of the great Herrmann family the wisping mustache the evening clothes the cape it is the image most of us have of a magician and it was the trademark of the remarkable Herrmann family from Kampf ours to Alexander to Leon to Felix it was a look that came to epitomize deception intrigue and the all-knowing man of mythical talents who could read your mind or catch bullets out of thin air they are largely forgotten now but within the magic world the Herman's were a family of firsts the first international star magicians the first to set the look of the magician and the first woman solo performer illusions performed by the Herman's such as the notorious bullet-catch trick in which the magician catches live rounds in his teeth or on a plate can still be found today al biet in slightly different venues logician Ben Robinson recreated this illusion in 1990 [Music] Jeff McBride's incredible skill at card scaling thrills Vegas audiences this trick though has its roots in the 19th century Alexander Furman could throw cards throw playing cards with legendary power and precision he could bounce them off the wall to the balcony he could land a card in the lap of any particular spectator in the audience it was one of his most popular effects to different people send a clear thought the strongest thought I have right now the person has a card with them and the card is Jeff and Tessa's Second Sight Act in which they appear able to read the minds of audience members is a great hit with corporate groups and audiences across the country few year know however that Jeff and Tessa's Second Sight Act was a regular feature in the incredible touring show of Adelaide Herrmann credited by most as the first great female magician your name is Brian is it Brian Walsh I was a Brian Wolfe yes thank you very much Brian card magic performed here by Eugene Berger the universal popularity of card magic can be traced back to compares Herman who played to packed houses all over the world take the card that's come out for you Catherine you take the entire deck and look at these prices it's the nine aha and then of course there are the truly grand effects like the ghoulish cremation but the story starts earlier than this [Music] Germany in the early 19th century Samuel Herman a physician mixes magic with medicine often working as a traveling showman this is an era before great stage shows when magicians live the life of itinerant gypsies street performers or what was known as parlor prestidigitators maybe you know it might be better if I do it without the Johnson [Music] it's like it disappears after the birth of his son Kampf ours in 1816 Samuel took his family to Paris much to Samuels dismay and apparent surprise the bohemian atmosphere didn't encourage his son's studies instead Kampf ours was entranced by the artistic life using stage skills learned by assisting his father calm pars joined an acting troupe he flirted with medical school but settled on performance and became a magician in 1847 he took his show on the road and would soon garner an international reputation he greatly impressed the Sultan of Turkey by cutting the heads off of a white chicken and a black chicken and then he switched him and he put the white head on the black chicken the black kid on the white chicken and the Sultan wanted him to do with a black slave and a white slave and comparsa declined to to perform that effect of course Campos was not the only Hermann according to legend Kampf ours kidnapped his little brother Alexander who was 28 years his junior to work as his apprentice and assistant when he was 8 years old his brother Kampf ours conspired with him to off as his assistant and the story sort of always said that he was he kidnapped his brother always looking for new horizons and territory in 1859 compares became one of the first magicians to tour overseas in this case he made sure that his reputation preceded him when he came to the United States in 1861 he was hailed as the premier prestidigitator of the world the reception was both rapturous and prosperous at the New York Academy of Music the box office take was $35,000 in just five weeks comp our show might seem unusual for the venues he would perform close-up magic effects that would astonish large audiences in 1500 seat theaters today however we can gain a glimpse of what comp our show was like magicians such as Lance Burton emulate kampar style by performing close-up magic in large theater settings [Music] [Music] a variation on one of campers most famous illusions the inexhaustible bottle was still being performed by the amazing Kreskin in the 1970s there really isn't any as a matter of fact would you come forward and just hold the bottom of the vase but both hands bottom that would be under the bottom now would you come over here and do likewise hold the bottom you just the bottom now hold a little bit higher that's to mean interesting phenomena because there are no attachments there's no way of my entering anything into it and get folks watch all I do is hold my hand over it now and can you folks describe to me you notice something happening what do you notice happening my friend it's getting heavier you can feel it gaining weight even though I'm not touching it and there are no hoses up their sleeves especially his and yet look we've waited long enough because it has build up again quite a while [Applause] copper's Herrmann would perform right up to his death in 1887 at this point his brother Alexander would carry on the Herrmann legacy it was logical and in fact inevitable Alexander had already become a superlative magician headlining his own act he effortlessly transformed himself into Herman the great mesmerizing audiences with his charisma and skill when most magicians say Herman they are usually referring to Alexander Alexander Herman was was one of a kind he really had a genius in the ability to make himself attractive to an audience the greatest magician of all time was Alexander Hermann he could walk into an audience and produce rabbits without any equipment Alexander Herman made it fun Alexander's act was quite different from his brothers he preferred larger scale illusions and became known for large props and elaborate stagings it made sense by the 1870s magic had entered theaters appropriate for large-scale illusions to say nothing of technical innovations that made such illusions possible some of the illusions included decapitation spirit cabinets and the legendary bullet catch it was terrifyingly effective a firing squad would position itself in front of Herrmann and fire at him with bullets marked by the audience Herrmann would catch the bullets on a plate there seems to be a gothic and McCobb sensibility to many of the Herrmann effects certainly one of the most ghoulish and effective the one that seems to follow the bullet catch with perfect logic is the cremation performed by Las Vegas headliners Kahlan and ginger today it has lost none of its potency [Music] [Applause] Alexander was a bona fide success and it showed in an offstage style as flamboyant as his onstage persona this was a guy who traveled around the United States in a private railroad car before which was a fairly flamboyant way to travel certainly expensive way to travel but before he got to any town he climbed out of his railroad car and climbed into a chariot that would be drawn drawn by two powerful steeds and he would ride a chariot into town when Alexander Harmon arrived in your town something big was happening using his own private railway car he toured the United States on the newly completed Transcontinental Railroad in 1874 Alexander met and fell in love with a fiery dancer named Adelaide scarce a she would leave an indelible mark upon Herrmann's act and legacy of course they were doing these fantastic dances where they kicked their heels up literally and showed their legs and people growing nuts I just thought that was just outrageous to see a lady's leg so she was she was sort of on the cutting edge [Music] adelaide and alexander hermann were married in 1875 and she joined alexander on stage audiences were enchanted by the lithe and sultry beauty who matched Alexander in both wit and artistry she turned heads with her racy solo dance numbers and she holds the distinction of being the first magic assistant to receive Co billing status magicians today credit Adelaide with changing many of the prevailing views of women in show business and as authority figures in those times it was very hard for a woman to carry off that role when we were in a paternalistic society where men were the authorities so for Adelaide Herrmann to perform and succeed the way she did and she had a remarkable career it really puts her in one of the most outstanding positions in the history of magic the lives of both Herrmann's were extravagant Alexander's wealth and fame was beyond his father and brothers wildest dreams he owned a mansion in Long Island a yacht and even had his own private railway car the Herman's lived extravagantly but it would come back to haunt Adelaide later in 1896 the Herman company was leaving New York State on the very first leg of a tour across the United States Alexander was in his railcar smoking one of his favorite Herman cigars when he was seized with chest pains they wired for a doctor to meet them at the next stop but it was too late Alexander would die on that train Adelaide was right at his side and she had her arms around him and he finally looked at her and said I guess I'm not going to get over this be sure to take the company back to New York and he died the newspapers literally said well Herman the Great is dead magic is dead [Music] Adelaide had little time to grieve Alexander had been at one of his financial lows a terrible fact soon became apparent he didn't leave any money if Adelaide was broke there was at least a full season of bookings ahead so within days of baring her beloved Alexander she sent for Alexander's nephew Leon Leon Herman was an ambitious 29 year old cabaret performer working at the folly bearshare in Paris the young man jumped at the chance to ride on the coattails of the greatest magician of all time introducing her nephew as the successor to Herman the great Adelaide and Leon set upon the tour planned for Alexander Leon soon proved to be a skilled practitioner at one of the most popular magic tricks of all time the levitation performed here by Bret Daniels [Music] while Leon gained a reputation as a skilled and innovative magician and Adelaide was featured prominently it was a short-lived Union audiences felt that Leon was no Alexander Leon I think unfortunately was judged very harshly against Alexander Alexander was so congenial and Leon didn't speak English as his English was very poor at first shortly after they began performing together a cartoon parody appeared the point was clear Leon could not fill Alexander's shoes since there could only be one Herman the Great in 1899 Adelaide made the audacious decision to go solo as a magician in her own right her first tour took her West the West was still the Wild West in 1900 much of it and for a woman to pack around a big illusion show and on her own with just her her company that took a lot of fortitude courage if you were a female entertainer you were at the edge you are definitely the edge no matter how clean your act was the very idea that you didn't marry and he went from city to city without a chaperone was outrageous a few women picked a career period and to pick a career where you're out in the world on your own in a powerful position is it would just have to be groundbreaking groundbreaking indeed many people were surprised at her daring in perpetuating some of the more dangerous illusions including the bullet-catch trick Adelaide was chastised both for performing the illusion and perhaps worse performing it in slacks overall it was Adelaide's determination that kept alive her husband's pension for grand spectacular shows and they were spectacular when we look at the pictures of this today I mean it looks like a shilling for a grand offer but Adelaide could not repeat Alexander's show while her show would always carry the unmistakable Herman's stamp lavish sets and multiple assistants it would soon also be infused with a feminine quality modern illusionist Jade gives us a sense of Adelaide's act which began to use subtle music and was filled with a sense of growth and replenishment represented here by this overflowing rice bowl of illusion [Music] after his professional break with adelaide leon decided to make productive use of his famous uncle's title cheekily billing himself as hermann the great fiercely protective of her late husband's name adelaide hauled leon to court but her injunction attempts failed and leon used the name for the duration of his career the Hermann name was obviously good as gold at the box office for Adelaide soon found herself launching another unsuccessful suit to protect her husband's legacy this time it was her nephew Felix Felix scratchin had been exposed to magic his entire life having spent time as a child at the New York home of his aunt Adelaide and uncle Alexander a former assistant to his cousin Leon Felix was intent on becoming the next in a long line of great Herrmann's he appeared at the news aid in New York City and then he started booking other shows and his career too started growing by all accounts felix was a talented performer who truly upheld the family name despite Adelaide's disapproval and the fact that he was not a true Herman Felix died in New Orleans in 1938 Adelaide Herrmann continued performing well into her 70s when she died in 1932 at the age of 79 she'd been performing for half a century but the greatest tragedy of her death was that it ended the magical reign of the Hermann dynasty many who saw compares Herrmann perform in Europe deemed him the finest conjurer who ever lived those who watched his brother in America made the same claim for Alexander others lauded Leon and Felix and just about everyone agrees that the career and strength of Adelaide paved the way for just about any woman entering magic as a headliner it's ironic that while the first family of magic is largely gone from memory their work and legacy can be found on stages all over the world it can be found in simple slights and grand theatrical effects it can be found in second sight and card scaling it can also be found in something as simple as a child's drawing and in the very image most of us conjure up when we hear the word magician hello John do you play a little cards bummer I hate it when they play cards but that's okay because in what I'm going to show you not only do we use my deck ideal and outside of that you have nothing to worry about and Lia as I deal these cards when you have the impulse just tell me to stop and you stopped on the nine of hearts see it's a lot easier if I see the card too well if I took your nine of hearts and put it on top of the deck you would know exactly where it as she gets on top of the deck and if I put it on the bottom of the deck you'd know but when I cut the deck you don't know anymore the spirits know do you believe in spirits good because I hate doing this for agnostics spirits show us Lea's card now tell them to go back take the card that's come out for you Catherine you take the entire deck and one at these prices it's the Niner heart [Music] the Great's of modern magic dog honey was certainly the man who got it going more than anybody he revived magic there are the traditionalists the pen dragons are an absolutely fantastic act in magic and then of course the master Sheldon it's such a fantastic shot and I anyone can never top it and the innovators I was exhilarated I had never seen anything that was so breathtakingly contemporary in magic [Music] many magicians are referring to the 1990s as a golden age of magic and to understand why it's important to recognize those who have laid the groundwork those who are responsible for bringing magic to new levels of excellence and new audiences to recognize the Great's of modern magic [Music] [Applause] it was 1975 the TV show was live the magician's hand shook but almost every modern magician admits that from this moment on Doug Henning changed the face of modern magic there was this show on Broadway the magic show and then his first NBC television special and that's what it all he opened the door for all of us Doug Henning was certainly the man who got it going more than anybody he revived magic he really and truly is the reason for the Renaissance in magic he was born in Winnipeg Manitoba in 1947 and from an early age he was fascinated by magic he started with card tricks and amusement nothing more it was a hobby and it was wonderful because I could fool my friends and made me a little bit different than they were I could say pick a card and they'd all be amazed at how I found it and then as I progressed a little bit further I found out that there's a level beyond tricks in his early 20s Henning hit the road and wound up in Los Angeles home to the legendary Magic Castle the clubhouse of the Academy of magical arts and the unofficial home to some of Magic's greats here Henning met Dai Vernon considered the master of close-up magic Vernon took Henning under his wing and gave him an advantage over other magicians he just wasn't you know the large illusion performer he did things in a very he did things in that small area as well I call this an illusion because I never actually tear the papers off his mentors have said that Henning approached classic magic with the intensity of a young med student pursuing his degree so Doug was was very well educated in magic he he he wasn't going to reinvent the wheel when it came to the great mysteries in the past and she's going to bring it to a new generation by their ears by their eyes actually believe that they see separate pieces but they've been deceived you see I haven't actually torn the paper at all you can't trust your senses you don't believe me soon Henning was doing stand-up magic and astonishing audiences with his manner and his finesse and something else his look it was this 1970s new look new version wonderful magic and a personality that truly lit up the stage and captivated everyone that was his charm and his personality besides being an extraordinary magician he broke out of the mold he dressed in jumpsuits and whatnot and had long hair which was popular in the day he was one of the young people of the day in 1974 Henning set upon one of the most ambitious projects he would ever attempt a full Broadway show built entirely around magic he would eventually appear in three such shows magic designer Charles Reynolds was with him from the beginning gee I don't know that I really had any particularly impression you know there was this this little guy with with with the teeth and the hair and and the sort of hippie garb and I heard he was coming to Broadway and what I didn't take into consideration is what an incredible winner doug was I mean most performers come out on stage and they have to work to win over the audience Doug only had to walk onto the stage and everybody loved him and he was a star he had star quality [Music] and the magic looks like real magic and the purpose of this is to get this feeling of wonder this uplifting beautiful feeling of wow maybe there is real magic Doug became a big star as a result of the magic show the magic show became one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history and as a result of that a TV producer named David Susskind came to Doug and wanted to produce a television special it was going to be done live which was even in those days rather unusual for better or worse certainly two magicians it was for the worse magic it had suffered tremendously in television it it had some success in television but it had never really gotten started to a great extent and Doug came in and suddenly it was youthful suddenly it was bright suddenly was fresh [Music] of course a live show means unpredictability the danger of which multiplies when one is dealing with Tigers the Tigers got loose during the live television show and we're actually wandering the halls of of NBC while their keeper was running around saying nice kitty and trying to get them back into this line of cages that ran into the big cage as a result of the NBC specials a whole new generation of Magic fans was born surprisingly magicians seemed to agree on why Henning became so successful he put himself in the audience in a sense wow look at this and he was gaze with Wonder at something I think the appeal of Doug Henning was that he was exactly the person he appeared to be and because of that his performances were completely sincere deep down in his heart Doug really believed in magic [Music] he was this wondered child this he you know when he would finish a trick or he did something he looked so surprised Wow I actually did it and when Doug did magic he was or seemed as astonished as the audience did at one that what he accomplished I think my great gift to the art of magic is a sense of wondering the secret is that I feel wonder inside of myself for the world [Music] Hennig decided to retire in 1986 to pursue his interest in meditation his departure shocked many in the magic community and saddened friends what happened with Doug was he found another enthusiasm not entirely unrelated to magic in in Transcendental Meditation Henning made the notion of a magician as a modern-day superstar feasible he made the public aware of magic and in doing so helped pave the way for some of the most astonishing magic acts of modern times [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it goes without saying Las Vegas is the Rome of magic the Colosseum it is here that the classic illusions are mastered and performed in some cases who redefined one such illusion is the legendary metamorphosis wherein the magician manages to change places with their assistant who is presumably handcuffed and pad locked in the trunk on which the magician stands husband and wife team Charlotte and John Pendragon have not only mastered the metamorphosis they've redefined it and all magicians agree the pen dragons can do it faster than anyone else [Music] the pen dragons are the undisputed modern masters of the metamorphosis their transposition is instantaneous to see the pen dragons do metamorphosis is a thing of beauty beyond the metamorphosis however the pen dragons have created a style that permeates all of their illusions what they do is they take some illusions that really make it unique to themselves that no one else could do physically or magically it's about their bodies it's about their their their strengths not only of performance but literally the strength that they bring to the performance and because of that there's a real sensuality to their act in everything they do in every movement and the way they handle even the props as well as themselves if the pen dragons are redefining classic illusions then Bally's Casino is playing host to an act that shatters all molds their names are Penn & Teller called by many the bad boys of magic I first met them at a college convention where they were booking shows for colleges and I think teller was the first real deep thinker of magic that I'd ever met and I could you know never really you know can't pigeonhole him because he's probably the most intellectual wacky guy we will need a magic walk this is our magic walk in tearing apart such classic illusions as the bullet catch Penn & Teller have earned their reputations as iconoclasts there are edgy and contemporary one I saw Penn & Teller perform in their off-broadway show in New York and I was exhilarated I had never seen anything that was so breathtakingly contemporary and magic I mean the most popular acts and magic of that time seemed to reflect the 50s 60s and at best 70s Penn & Teller knew not only what year it was they knew what day it was even when headlining in Las Vegas Penn & Teller advertised their show by saying it's a magic show for people who hate magic shows they have positioned themselves as the Nemesis of magic and even that of course is not true because no one who excels at something that well could possibly hate the thing they excel at the fact of the matter is is that Penn & Teller do a superb job not only of fooling their audience but they fool magicians all the time and you have to be at the very top of your form to be able to do that I think what might be a surprise to people or which shouldn't be taken for granted is is what what great magicians they are many have credited Penn & Teller with taking magic that extra step their laid-back irreverent style however hides something that many magicians do recognize these two guys are the hardest-working magicians I know I've never met guys who will take of trick apart rehash it but think about it revamp it spend a lot of money redoing it a perfect example of this can be found in their take on this legendary illusion wherein Penn is to catch a bullet in his teeth this is a brand new version of it it's a totally different method and they do laser sights on these big Magnum revolvers and the wonderful thing about that the innovation they have is that they have a big yellow line that runs down the back drop across the stage and right down onto the floor in the theater and that yellow lines but so wide like that like a traffic divider [Music] [Music] they're very hardworking very very articulate magicians I mean their magic is really very skillful some would call them the antithesis of Penn & Teller the masters of traditional magic if so this is traditional magic at its most theatrical operatic best [Music] Siegfried and Roy are not simply one of the most popular magic acts in Las Vegas they're one of the most popular acts period their magic is grand glitzy and unforgettable [Music] they're great guys wonderful for magic and really responsible for the upswing and magic in this town more than anybody it's such a fantastic show anyone can never top it the two greatest sources of our success our employees and our relationship was it friggin right zigfried Fishbach er and Roy Horne first came to Vegas from Germany in 1969 with their pet cheetah Chico mr. first job here in Vegas at the Tropicana and they only had one cat in their act which was a cheetah that they finished they would perform the substitution trunk they Houdini metamorphosis the glamorous Vegas of today however did not then exist for magicians some have said that Siegfried and Roy did not just have to climb up the ladder they had to invent it it was like two guys who came to Las Vegas and said okay we want to make a Las Vegas act that's glitzy and spectacular and everything that Las Vegas is we want our magic act to be and they did it with the Lions and the Tigers and the huge spectacular illusions and vanishing an elephant and and yeah if if there's a Las Vegas magic boom they started there's no doubt about it they laid all the groundwork and all the guys with all the tigers that followed them would not be there were it not for Siegfried and Roy there's no question that Siegfried and Roy we're the Trailblazers have created this this is waved behind them and that have allowed many other talented people to come in and and see Las Vegas today Siegfried and Roy can be found performing twice a night five nights a week at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas it's a massive show with over 77 cast members and 100 technicians and stagehands this is one of the Vegas tickets and zigfried and Roy have to work to make sure that every show for every audience is an opening night as a result of their drawing ability the Mirage Hotel had this theater designed and built specifically for Siegfried and Roy just as a 10-acre mock jungle called The Secret Garden has been built for friends of theirs in large part it is the big cats they use in their act that have helped make Siegfried and Roy famous Roy who does most of the caring for the animals is obsessive about their treatment and has an almost symbiotic relationship with them what Roy does with animals is incidentally a complete mystery to magicians I mean his ability to work with those animals as assistants and his partners in the act is a secret that no one's matched I have this bond this my animals because I'm just like them I trust my emotions I trust my instincts maybe I have been a tiger before in my life but it is more than just animals that drawing close to a million people a year it is showmanship and an eighth sense of knowing what will astound audiences and even to try and describe some of what they do makes you sound a little like a blithering fool because there's no way there's no way to describe the impossible to a certain extent it just needs to be seen it is in fact an absolutely remarkable work of art on stage every night ZQ deny I'm very much a different from each other you're like fire and water we had a Clash of the Titans we have sandal and lightning joy by himself would be too much and I by myself maybe not enough we meet in the middle that's the magic but Siegfried and Roy have to go out every single night twice a night and do it again and it's new and fresh for that audience obviously they get a lot of repeat viewers but still it still gotta be new and fresh each time despite the glitz and the spectacle there is however a real dragon lurking here Siegfried and Roy began in 1969 they have been working nonstop since at some point the rigors of the act must catch up with them it is possible that one of the great acts of modern magic may soon retire oh man you know I I haven't a clue I haven't a clue we we look at them now as being so ageless that we're not having those discussions you know god what if they do retire I mean man how do you replace the replaceable I don't know I was having a great day until you brought that up could have got a long time without discussing that magic is a volatile art form creating an expanding new talent every single day nothing is ever held in stasis as a result it would be wrong to suggest that magics greats exist only in the past new wonders and new magicians will always be created as long as there are audiences around to appreciate them [Music] [Applause] [Music] I can do something for you the completely lacks deception eating glass fire and cigarettes is not a trick in any way sword swallowing regurgitation it's absolutely real and amazing sorcerers and is also really vile and disgusting this is a very weird magic [Music] oh let's take it all the way what the hell [Music] why do people want to see this stuff I'm not sure they do [Music] [Applause] [Music] if you are easily upset by unsettling sites like this there is a type of magician who would rather shocked than dazzle you [Music] he wants to make you laugh at his absurdity or wonder why would anyone want to do that [Applause] what is your son do for living mrs. Mulligan he's a geek Todd Robbins is a specialist in what we are calling weird magic Robbins breathes fire swallows swords and walks in bare feet on broken glass but his specialty his raison d'etre is eating lightbulbs [Music] what I do is is sort of almost a rebellion from from traditional magic [Music] [Applause] magicians look at this and say Vuitton what I'm doing is not magic now I look at and say it's the closest thing to real magic you're ever gonna see if you define true magic as the ability to do extraordinary things beyond the capability of the average person then that sorts Robin that's fiery that's walking over broken bottles so basically my act is a magic show without tricks tastes like chicken unlike most magicians who follow in the footsteps of Houdini Blackstone er Henning the specialist in this kind of magic finds his roots in the European Street Fair or North American carnival sideshow these side shows featured fire-eaters regurgitator sword swallowers human pin cushions and people who made seemingly inedible things Todd Robbins saw this and his life changed here is a 12 year old kid seeing this stuff and being hit with the reality that this was all real wanting to learn the secrets Robbins entered a small magic store and approached a couple of old carnies I said I really liked learn how to do those carnival skills it turns out one of the guys I was talking to had worked in sideshows and he went oh so you want to learn how to do the dangerous stuff kiddo okay I can teach it just don't tell your parents [Music] you cannot really learn how to do this it's sort of like learning how to swing from the trapeze from the book you just you can't do it you have to learn first hand because there's a great deal of risk to eating glass to hammering nails in the nose though do fire eating and walking over broken bottles in the bare feet there's a strong element of risk the thing I found engaging about the sideshow material is that it looks like a trick but it's real the half of what you see on the sideshow is fake and half of what you see is real the irony of it is that they never make clear which is which and what is further further ly ironic is that chances are the half that you think is fake is probably real and the half that you think is real is probably fake sword swallowing is an ideal example it takes a great deal to learn how to do sword swallowing because it's dangerous and difficult it's dangerous because you're shoving 2 feet of steel down your throat duh and it's difficult because whenever you put a foreign object in your throat you trigger a gag reflex the only way to overcome it is by sticking something down your throat every day until throw relax and then you can put the sword down and that can take up to a year of daily practice and it's torture after you've gone through this then you have to then work it into an act and then you have to get the guts to put it on stage in front of people and after you've gone through this whole ordeal this Odyssey then and only then you discover that no one really gives a damn about sword swallowing and I think I know why let me let me just show you they think it's a trick they know that there's such things as collapsible swords I've seen them in movies too semen in cartoons and things like that and so people think that sword swallowing is a trick and it doesn't matter what you do you can take a sword that has no handle on which to fold up into it's just a bar of steel you can bang it around you can show it to people and yet some people will think it's still a trick so what you have to do is do whatever you can to show that it's real so here we go never done this sitting down is worth a try here goes there's nothing like the taste of Steel in the morning oh look my fevers gone down so and the great thing about it is when people realize that what they've just seen is real when they dismiss see they're cynical intellect and it hits them on a much more profound level than just seeing a car trip it's just what you're going there right now like all sword swallowers Robbins has been injured scratching his esophagus others have died there was a guy who took a dipstick from a car and swallowed it and it punctured right through into his lungs and there was internal bleeding and kids don't try this at home wait to get to school and so in this guy knew what he was doing and he still ended up you know killing himself doing this although difficult and dangerous sword swallowing is not the highlight of Robins show that honor goes to the eating of light bulbs there's no trick to it but there is a technique behind there's a way of chewing up the glass and swallowing it so it doesn't cut up the mouth and throat and there's a diet and regimen that I go through each and every day that keeps them moving through my system you know just talking about this makes me hungry and I'm ravished I'm starved I'm in the mood for a light snack the thing I enjoy most is getting someone who's very full of themselves who insists after all the whole thing that it can't be done it just you can't eat glass I will then if the if it's convenient grab the person and say okay come on and we'll go down a local market I'll have I'll give them money and say buy lipo [Music] or for sitting somewhere and it's you know convenient I say knives I let real lipo was is that glass Oh can't screw it and do it right therefore and adjust just like a two-by-four right between their eyes it's great surprisingly in the hierarchy of sideshow skills glass eating isn't considered the preeminent special talent that ranking goes to the regurgitator of the physical stunts still practiced today it's definitely the weirdest when John Thompson now world renowned as the great Tom Soni started out as a 12 year old fire eater and sword swallower he worked chicago's Riverview amusement park in the mid 40s and he worked with the weirdest of regurgitate errs Waldo the human ostrich they had a Viennese accent on top of everything else he would say my name is Waldo it's a human ostrich fun he says I've been written up six times in the Robin arrow Ripley column when I'd like to show you why they call me the human ostrich and he would have a pie pan and he would pass this pie pan out and he would tell everyone to put if you put a nickel in he'd give you a nickel at the end of the show if you put a quarter and well most kids would say let's put a nickel in you know and and then they did try and get a quarter back at the end well he would get all the money and then he would take it and doubt it just swallow it all and he say yeah this as far as they caught me it's like human austerity and it opened his mouth and people look in there there was nothing there you know he said I'm still hungry and he would take a couple of bridal rings and he'd clack them together you know and and he kind of put him in his mouth and they kind of stick out the side like they could pop and now everybody really is nothing in his mouth he really swallowed these things yes I'm still hungry maybe I will have some fish and it would bring out a little fish fish but with a goldfish in it he catch it then that they put it in his mouth and let the tail do this and they'll go now a woman would pass out you know watch it and nobody wanted to look in his mouth they believed him you know and he said I'm still hungry now he said some filet mignon and he would take a little white mouse and he put it in this and let the tail hang any go now men would pass out you know saying and finally he would finish with a dessert and he'd bring a bowl of lemons and people would always select the largest lemon and he'd swallow that any kind counted out I'm not looking in this mouth anymore you know because you could see the lemon way at the back he had everything in his esophagus lined up and then he would literally regurgitate everything out would come to lemon would come to white rat or mouse into the cage and then the fish into the bowl and swim around and then then the bridal rings and finally the money nobody took a penny he was always guaranteed that money let's face if I did that animal rights people would be on my case in a second so I don't instead I use cockroaches you use about two inch cockroaches and if you put him in the freezer for about 10 minutes it slows him down the point of suspended animation but it doesn't kill them it keeps him long enough still long enough so I can put one on my tongue throw it back and swallow it down hold it in the throat show that it's not there and then COFF it back up again I got to get a real job [Laughter] [Music] unusual acts such as Tom malakas are not new to magic in the early 19th century performers like Chabert the fire king would stroll into a blazing inferno and emerge ten minutes later unscathed such unusual attractions were the mainstay of turn-of-the-century dime museums and sideshows there was for instance the three-headed woman or similar human oddities such as Count ivan Orloff the human windowpane a man with eerily transparent skin or major Zamora the celebrated triple-jointed dwarfed by the 1950s the mainstream popularity of circuses and sideshows had largely disappeared with the emergence of the new medium of television but all of these elements oddball stunts blood gore and human freakishness eventually resurfaced in a unique style of touring show known as the ghost show which usually sold itself in the most gothic manner borrowing heavily from the horror films of the 1930s [Music] for the price of one ticket patrons enjoyed an hour-long ghost show alongside a feature film usually a horror film one of the most popular performers in this almost forgotten art was magician Raymond one of the best and most garish self-promoters in the business [Music] Raymond began as a Medicine Show stooge and worked his way up to a full evening show becoming famous for his very weird blend of magic and horror Raymond's ghost shows would present tricks that had to be patently fake like decapitating an innocent member of the audience with a buzzsaw yet he would play it for real it was a six foot by four foot wide and it had this big steel blade and to begin with we had these boys and girls on the stage volunteers when the griller come out they had all run off stage but I always grab one of the boards or girls to hold him and we throw the black bag over the head and two or three rows pick him up another girl boy and put him on a table they assistant forgot a glass of green smoking liquid and as I started to drink it look at the kid Helen's stage do you know what this is this is the greatest cockeyed concoction that's ever been concocted it's a green from the hole from the mummy from the old Gyptian tomb his mummy Jeeves you have a loving Raymond would then transform into a crazed mummy character and with the buzzsaw seemingly cut off the volunteers head and the blood was streamed down over a big sheet of paper which the girl's parents trying to keep from falling state the Moors to show the blood and then she'd double paper walk off and I'd jump off the stage with the head in one hand and Bichette in the other Raymond would tear through the audience with a severed head and once the audience was at a fever pitch he'd hurry back to the safety of the stage release a pair of terrifying monsters into the crowd and then suddenly turn out the lights in the this the audience would imagine they felt snakes arriving at their feet luminescent skeletons would suddenly hover above their heads no one knew where the monsters were and the result was absolute pandemonium bedlam broke through as you could hear yourself trying to tell the scream and it took us trial and error for years we used to throw a handkerchief to the spotlight man said now one throw the handkerchief I want the lights to go out and when you hear the police whistle bring them back on we never heared so we ended up using a 38 pistol ghost shows were a cultural phenomenon that came and went in the span of 20 years from the 30s to the 1950s magic and ghostly images have always had a relationship magicians in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries often included dark and provocative satanic imagery in their advertising and performances around the turn of the century it was very popular for stage magicians to have at least one spiritualist piece in the program usually a spirit cabinet routine or something ghost oriented and then rung by about 1930s 40s it kind of faded out subsequently workaday magicians concentrated on pulling bunny rabbits from hats and were seen mostly at birthday parties or on children's television shows however a small faction chose to reject this style of magic calling themselves bazzara station and author eugene berger believes this has brought mystery back to modern illusion the bizarre magicians are trying to make magic powerful again bizarre magic began in 1950s and 60s in England with Toni Shields and in Scotland with a man named Charles Cameron and Cameron put it very well he said but he felt magic needed at the time was a good Catholic revival remaining a largely unknown underground faction until recently bizarre magicians are finally starting to emerge in greater numbers they embrace the Gothic writing of HP Lovecraft and adopt mysterious alter egos the Czarist hsihu are often shunned by mainstream magicians hold their own specialized gatherings sharing their admittedly unusual stories and effects the group trinity performs for very small groups of people conducting an interactive evening called the cross creek graveyard seance the seance is based on the dead buried in a small cemetery in the cross creek graveyard in pennsylvania trinity presents a seance in which spirit guides visit through objects belonging to the dead and buried and as i reached into my pocket to pull out my watch it slipped from my cold fingers out to Margaret's grave well I can guarantee you what they're not going to experience is your typical Hollywood late night movie type of seance ok we are giving them as a real and experience as their imaginations and their emotions allow them to experience what Trinity wants is for their seance to seem eerily real for them the seance is a shared voyage into another world not just a show you tell us at what time Michelle's soul was touched 9:30 9:30 9:30 Michelle would you read what the letter has to say dear brother I'm writing you to tell you that our mother has died of the pox she died last night about 9:30 Michelle what time did she die 9:30 at the same time your soul was touched Anthony I believe we made a contact in our performance in our entertainment our theater we're not looking for people at the end to stand up and cheer and clap we're looking for stunned silence nervous laughter I guess woman's sweating and men crying are quite acceptable so that would be a successful seance the bazzara scare experiences similarly sword swallowers and glass eaters are sharing something equally unusual but they all stay clear of the occult believing that it may be pushing limits too far what's too far in today's society does the bazaar manager go too far hard to say I mean for some people sure it does and for others is probably not enough what worked at the beginning of the century doesn't necessarily work at the end you know things have changed a lot in these hundred years in terms of people's perceptions these specialists in weird magic are shocking our sensibilities provoking us showing us that so-called realities can be easily twisted and bent in the end that is the goal of all magicians it makes people wonder you know how is it possible and that's important because when people start to wonder they start to think so that's why I do this kind of stuff dude so that people are amazed by new things I do then my job is done and there's just beginning [Music] there's nothing like a good cigar [Music] [Music] don't you hate when you get a piece of glass stuck in your teeth I hate that don't count floss with the filament case you're wondering I don't uh not ain't this part the reason is because I'm flying down south to do some colleges tomorrow and if I eat this now it'll still be in my system when I go through the metal detector at the airport and if you were working security would you believe my story you know I can practically hear the snap of the latex gloves as they prepare for the full-body cavity search so I'm not going to eat the middle part [Music] I've got to get a real job [Music] I shouldn't be doing this but my doctor said I needed more roughage in Niagara Falls Ontario today a man prepared to catch a bullet between his teeth there is a fine line between magic and disaster between the illusion of death and death itself this is the story of those who have crossed that line a story of tragedies and the illusion that has caused the most death by magic there's a very dangerous trick that definitely used real bullets live ammunition and I don't think I ever want to do it again you're saying to an audience you all thought about it but I'm gonna go there I'm gonna go to that very frail line where life and death meet when I look down that barrel a thousand thoughts went through my mind [Music] by their very nature magics great illusions border on the McCobb sawing a woman in half submersion in a coffin [Music] mock drownings casually chopping off an audience members head such grew is accepted within the tradition of making magic large-scale magic is often a flirtation with death a rehearsal you're saying to an audience you all thought about it but I'm gonna go there I'm gonna go to that very frail line where life and death meet Phil Bowie Niagara Regional Police we also have a stretcher for me Jojo I appreciated Ben Robinson is playing with that frail line where life and death meet this is one of the most dangerous illusions in the world of magic it's called the bullet catch and it involves the magician appearing to catch a mark to live bullet between his teeth [Music] not moving for a moment he lost several teeth doing this for the first time he says after falling down some cemetery steps at the Dinis tomb 12 have died doing this very illusion let's see how he did [Music] [Applause] over the years many magicians have lost their lives while flirting with the darker corners of their craft from escape artists - murdered mentalists - 12 who have lost their lives to the bullet-catch illusion the magic world has stories that range from the terrifying to the freakish to the bizarre this is the story of those who have come close to losing and those who have lost their lives - magic his name was Washington Irving Bishop he was a Mentalist magician a mind reader in 1889 Bishop was performing his mind-reading act at the Lambs Club in New York for a very prestigious audience during the performance he collapsed unconscious he was taken to a room upstairs and examined by doctors who were unaware that Bishop suffered from catalepsy catalepsy is a condition that gives the impression that all vital signs have stopped or as the dictionary puts it a trance or seizure with unconsciousness of the body unaware of this the doctors pronounced Bishop dead and performed an immediate autopsy removing his brain for study presumably wanting to see if there was any physical reason for his Mentalist abilities it was his autopsy that killed Bishop magic has largely been an unregulated affair and no area has less regulation than the area of sideshow performers it's one of the seldom considered but more dangerous subsets of magic Todd Robbins is a professional sword swallower well-versed in the arts dangers there was a guy who took a dipstick from a car and swallowed it and it punctured right through into his lungs and there was internal bleeding and kids don't try this at home there was a sword swallower at the turn-of-the-century who was this beautiful act and one guy did not believe it was real ran up onstage and punched him in the stomach while he had the sword down and that that's that's not a good thing in most cases the reason behind death by magic is poor planning or hubris James Randi is able to give us a first-hand glimpse of how tricks can go dangerously awry Randi had been a professional escape artist for 43 years when he took a dare that he could not escape from the Toronto Sun newspapers security safe for Randy the safe appeared to represent a relatively easy escape well I looked at this and it was obviously to me a fireproof safe field for documents they anchored it out I got inside and they closed the door and they spun the dial on the outside now I don't give away much of a secret to tell you that I had a small flashlight with me stuck it in my mouth bet down on it which turned it on and I had a screwdriver with me and I started to work on the inside plate right up to the combination dial well as I was working on the screws I noticed that the plate was pressing out at me and I pushed on it and had a spring behind it and I knew exactly what that was that if that spring were let loose and it came out the two deadlocks and there were dead locks that had been built into this door and shouldn't have been that would spring into the sides of the safe and would seal it for good that would be it I would have to be cut out with a sudden torch and I'd be dead long before that so I was running out of air and so I shifted around slightly inside the safe and in the process lost all of the screws down at my feet but I didn't care by that and I just spoke and a good loud voice I could hear everything that was going on outside and I said open the safe I've got a I'm here and I felt myself passing out so I damned my head up against the plate so that it would not spring out I had a couple of the screws out I had a couple of screws in and I was trembling so and so weak from deprivation of oxygen that I could barely get the screws turned in and there was much as ipping and back and forth and the office manager was saying it won't open it won't open I'm thinking to myself I didn't touch the inside there's nothing wrong with that he'd certainly should open Moses my assistant outside was pretty cool and he figured out what had happened he simply turned I could hear him plainly and I never heard better words out of a man's mouth he said who opens the safe every morning and a young lady said I do and he said please open the safe she knocked on I was told in front of the safe zip zip-zip clunk and it opened and as it opened I felt there rushing at me and I felt that I remember hitting the floor I passed out it is a perfect example of how tricks go awry even for experienced artists like Randy who has performed everything from an upside down straitjacket escape over Niagara Falls to remaining submerged underwater in a coffin but there's one illusion Randy has refused to attempt I have never done they the bullet catch never wanted to do the bullet catch it has not changed much since its initial appearance in the 1600s basically an audience member marks one or two bullets which are then placed in a marksman's gun the magician then stands before the marksman who fires the bullets are caught either on a plate held before the magician or in the magician's teeth the bullets still bear the marks made by the audience member it's such a dangerous trick in fact that only a handful of magicians today have ever tried it was a very dangerous trick I definitely used real bullets live ammunition and I don't think I ever want to do it again when I look down that barrel of a gun a thousand thoughts went through my mind I've been shot in the hand I've lost part of my ear my four front teeth are false I've been lacerated in the leg and then you say well bright guy how are you why do you persist that indeed becomes the question ironically while this trick has grown to mythic proportions in the magic community little is known of its origin in 1631 in the Edition that I read it talks about a man catching a bullet in his hand historian and magician Ben Robinson has performed the bullet-catch trick six times and written extensively on the subject most notably his book twelve have died he is familiar with all those performers who ever died or were injured doing the catch little-known talents such as magic Marvo the tragic tale of Marvo illustrates one of the main problems with the bullet catch too much audience participation he did the catch he did the trick but a guy stood up in the audience and said catch this and took his own gun out and slayed the magician very accessible in this trick because we all know about guns Oh Mona bullets and all about death every night you turn on the TV you see somebody shot this trick this illusion the stunt attaches itself to our very primary being because it's death one of the more horrific bullet-catch tragedies involved Arnold buck a popular magician in the 1840s he gets a guy oh the audience he says load the rifle they load the rifle he says no walk over there with the rifle and you're gonna fire on my command in that day the end of the barrel was fluted it was like a tulip and when the man walked into the audience he reached into his pocket and took out a handful of carpenters nails and dropped them down the barrel went and took his place buck didn't see him do it the audience doesn't know what he's doing it's a Gaslight theater dramatic effect they've seen Arnold buck do this many times before okay we'll get our money's worth one two three fire and buck got nailed quite literally the obvious question in these circumstances is why the audience members behaved with such Cavalier disregard because the gun would invite it and then and think of it from the audience point of view it's like well hey he can catch a bullet I'm just making the show better you know catch lots of things he's gonna do it saw him do it last night now I'm loading the barrel new show big surprise cuz they bought into it they really believed he could do it the tale of John Henry Anderson a legendary magician of the mid 19th century is one of the best in the Bullitt catches history he pulls this guy out of the audience and says will you help me load the bullet you know we're gonna go through this then you're gonna fire at my face and the guy who was helping him was an amateur magician and as anderson writes he foiled my trick he knew what i was going to do and he stopped it so when he took the rifle anderson saw him blow his trick apart he walked into the audience where they'd fire from from the orchestra seats with a live rifle and he said take very careful aim at my face train right on my lip sir you know as well as I do you could kill me will you I will count to three and you'll pull the trigger and my life will be in your hands and he mentally fenced him he was like dude are you gonna shoot me the audience member opted against firing the gun instead dropping the rifle Anderson decided to exploit the moment you know he played it up the man who had the rifle innocence could have taken my life knew my trick and has decided to let your Wizard of the north live you know thunderous applause aside from being the most dangerous illusion in magic the bullet catch was also responsible for one of the most legendary onstage deaths in the history of the artform Chung Ling soo the mysterious man from the had a legendary encounter with the legendary illusion he was one of the talk draws in magic thrilling audiences throughout the world he had apprenticed with Hermann the Great and the fabulous Harry Keller his name was Chung Ling soo and he became the most recognizable Asian in show business but there was one problem he wasn't Asian Chung Ling soos real name was William Ellsworth Robinson he was born in 1861 and spent most of his life in theatrical circles but after his apprenticeship with the magic greats he had trouble making the name for himself Robinson decided to head for Europe and he found that he was much more successful as an Asiatic Act apparently an Asiatic act so he took the name Chung Ling soo after Ching Ling foo who was very popular and was an actual Chinese person he took this appellation and for a couple of decades he carried through the illusion with the public that he actually was Chinese he accentuated this by never speaking directly to the reporters the press or to the audience but always through interpreters now he can speak English as well as anyone else to make his show even more spectacular Hsu added an allusion to his act that he had previously performed with Hermann the Great the bullet catch so he has a whole squad of guys with Sabres and robes and timpani and a huge show operatic bullet-catch on March 23rd 1918 Chung Ling soo was performing in London at the Wood Green Empire Theatre the show finale was the famous bullet catch the trick he had been performing for 14 years two bullets loaded into two rifles are going to be pointed at him marked fire on his command actually it was the stage managers command lower a saber fire catch the bullets on the plate the saber is lowered the guns report Chung Ling soos staggers back rips open his robe there is a gusher of blood coming out of his chest the audience applauds thunderous applause hey guys shot in the chest staggers back falls to the ground fire curtain comes down pandemonium in the audience oh my god wait a minute it's real they take his handkerchief they stop up the wound from the back they roll him around they take another guy's handkerchief they stuff it in there he's dying he's shot he says my feet are called first signs of death you're losing your body temperature they try to rub his feet try to make him feel better not happening and get a stretcher not like 911 today get the paramedics immediately this is waiting for a horse-drawn carriage to come to the theatre to get a great star who is lying on stage bleeding to death he dies the next day probably just past midnight immediately rumors fly murder-suicide what was it Scotland Yard gets into it they employ a gun specialist named Robert Churchill they discovered the secret to Robinson's bullet catch which I won't reveal by cutting the barrel in half they see a malfunction in the rifle Robinson had kept the guns sequestered never let anyone touch them he cleaned them himself the verdict was he said by being too miserly with his secret he led to his own death so it was ruled death by misadventure that's the official coroner's verdict of course one of the side effects of Sue's death was that it revealed what had been known to MAGIX insiders for years but had been kept a secret from the public namely that Chung Ling soo was not Asian but a Caucasian yes there was a certain amount of titillation and they in the press afterwards when they revealed that he actually was an Englishman perhaps a little bit of resentment by all those people have been taken in by it because his makeup and his mannerisms and such as Chung Ling soo as a Chinese were really very well done he put a lot of work into it and had a lot of good advisers to tell him how to go about it and he fooled them all except the Chinese after Sue's death the bullet-catch trek became so infamous that even the most daring of magicians wouldn't attempt it an exception was Escape Artist Harry Houdini until he received a letter from celebrated conjurer Harry Keller Houdini then said I will now do the trick that just killed my good friend Rob Robinson and he didn't do it because Keller the magician famous Dean of the Society of American Jews since Harry don't do this you know you Maura some guy is gonna judge the exact words in the letter was some dog will job you great backstage lingo more than 60 years after Chung Ling soo died performing the bullet-catch magician Paul Daniel set out to recreate it live on British television he used Sue's original costumes and remarkably one of the two men who fired on sue was present to fire again I was there the night that they taped Paul Daniels doing a recreation and it was quite an exciting moment that audience was pretty tense pretty chance I must say [Music] report please it belongs only in the hands of the professionals and while time has taught the world that it is not a trick to toy with a modern-day version shows that it is still a remarkably effective magic illusion the most innovative variation is done by magic superstars Penn & Teller and they do laser sights on these big Magnum revolvers and they shoot across a line and they never cross that line once on one side the ones on the other and yet the bullets end up on the other side of that line [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] magic is often a flirtation with deaf in concept and sometimes in reality through Marvo to Chung Ling soo too far too many others we're taught that the dangerous illusions of magic can only be performed with vigilance and strict attention to detail and safety [Music] the average audience isn't going to believe that you're really going to catch a bullet from a rifle or a pistol in your teeth come on let's use a little bit of common sense here you can't do that [Music] not moving for a moment he lost several teeth doing this for the first time he says after falling down some cemetery steps at Houdini's team Miss Robinson says this is the fourth and last time he is performing the illusion let's see how he did [Applause] is that the barn you placed on the ledge spot [Applause] [Music]

Channel: 770pratik

Views: 1,157,184

Rating: 4.0488672 out of 5

Keywords: magic history

Id: on7aHtKrCLI

Length: 160min 56sec (9656 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 08 2013

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[u/Casino_Roy]

This is Killer! James Rhandi is a khan

[u/5guTjiSn]

Volume 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQRgceYrqAs

IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247385/