MAGIC OF DAVID COPPERFIELD IX, THE: THE ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (TV)
Summary
This television special is about master illusionist David Copperfield and his attempt to escape from Alcatraz, the former maximum-security prison in San Francisco, California. The program begins with actress Ann Jillian taking the stage at one of Copperfield’s live theater performances and explaining his past televised exploits, such as making the Statue of Liberty and a jet airplane "disappear," and then introduces the magician. He comes onstage and proceeds with a new illusion: the “Table of Death,” in which he is chained to a table over which hangs a cage of lethally sharp spikes, held in the air by a rope. The rope is lit on fire, and he has ninety seconds to escape from his bonds before the rope breaks and the spikes fall. He brings members of the Los Angeles Police Department onstage to verify the strength of the chains and locks, and is then secured to the table and the rope lit on fire. When the spikes fall and the curtain lifts after ninety seconds, he has managed to escape safely.
Next, his “pet” duck Webster makes a cameo appearance, and he jokingly shows off Webster’s own death-defying talents. He then performs an illusion in which Webster appears to be shot from a cannon and shows up inside a box across the stage. Following this, he performs a balancing act in which he appears to suspend his entire body horizontally on the point of a sword, which then seems to go straight through him. After this trick, Jillian stresses that viewers shouldn't attempt Copperfield’s illusions on their own, as they are highly dangerous. Copperfield then brings a randomly-selected audience member to the stage and asks her to think of a specific place and time in which they might have a “date,” and asks her to invent the specifics of the event. After she does so, he brings forward a blackboard on which the exact same details are somehow already written. When Webster makes another impromptu appearance, Copperfield “flattens” him in his “Duck-o-Matic” machine and he seems to disappear. Next, he brings up a young boy from the audience and dresses him in a magician’s outfit, and then places him in a small box, apparently “flattening” him as well and showing the audience the empty case. With the help of some female dancers, however, he “restores” Webster and the boy to their three-dimensional states and they reappear in the box.
Back at Alcatraz, Copperfield mentions some of the famous criminals previously housed there, adding that several people died or vanished in their attempts to escape the prison, and that no one succeeded before it closed in 1964. He brings forth several former prison guards who explain in detail why the jail is inescapable, and they double-check the cells and security features. Copperfield explains that his escape will be shown to the guards and audience by remote-controlled cameras. To further complicate matters, he has employed several attack Dobermans and also set up timed explosives at various checkpoints around the prison. He is placed in a straitjacket and has three minutes to escape from both it and a locked cell before the first explosive detonates. He makes it out of the jacket and somehow escapes the cell, disguising his methods behind a bedsheet. He then distracts the Dobermans with a cat and picks the next lock; he and the cat make it to safety before the second explosion. When he reaches the third and final bomb, however, he appears to simply stand beside it, and the trained officers rush to the scene to stop him. He disarms the explosive and, hiding himself in a cardboard box, vanishes in a shower of a sparks. When the police hurry to their helicopter, they find that Copperfield—and the cat—have already commandeered it, and they fly off the island, having successfully escaped. Copperfield thanks the audience and heads to his car, in which he finds he has locked the keys. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: November 30, 1986
- RUNNING TIME: 1:00:00
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:14595
- GENRE: Specials
- SUBJECT HEADING: Specials; Magic
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV, 1987
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Copperfield … Cast, Himself
- Ann Jillian … Cast, Herself