HOUDINI (TV)
Summary
A docudrama about the life of famous magician and escape artist Harry Houdini. The story is told in flashback, as Bess Houdini attends a séance meant to contact her husband Harry Houdini, deceased for ten years. This is her final attempt to contact him in such a manner, and is being broadcast across the nation via radio. Houdini was born to a poor Jewish Hungarian family as Erik Weiss. His father, Samuel, speaks to him on his deathbed, telling young Erik that he is the man of the house now. While working to support his family, his brother Theo gives him a book on the French magician Robert Houdin. This piques young Erik’s interest in magic, and soon he and Theo start practicing magic tricks together. Erik and Theo bill themselves as “The Houdini Brothers” and try their act in the carnival circuit. There they meet Beatrice “Bess” Rahner, a singer also trying to break into show business. Erik is immediately smitten with her. When the crooked booking agent tries to take advantage of her, Erik walks in and knocks him out. Erik has his mother fix Bess’s dress and he walks her home, impressing her with his magic tricks. He proposes marriage to her and she accepts. Erik, now going by the name “Harry Houdini,” starts performing with his wife as “the Houdinis” in small-time venues. Their success is limited until they meet theatre owner Martin Beck, who criticizes their lack of theatrics. Houdini claims he can create an act with real peril behind it and challenges Beck to find out. They perform at Beck’s theatre and Houdini performs his famous escape from a sealed milk can. Beck is impressed, not only with the escape but with Houdini’s sense of drama and showmanship. He immediately agrees to draft a contract for Houdini. Soon Houdini gains fame and notoriety for his death-defying stunts and escapes. In the present, the séance proper begins, but a lightning strike causes a power outage, temporarily halting the proceedings. In the past, Bess and Houdini argue about his increasing obsession with the morbid and how he seems to thrive on the adulation of his audience. They celebrate New Year’s Eve with Houdini’s family. His mother tells him that his father would be proud of him. Theo reveals he was recently laid off from his factory and asks Houdini for help. However, when Houdini offers to set him up on lesser stages, Theo angrily declares he doesn’t want Houdini’s charity and leaves. Houdini retorts that there can only be “one Houdini.” Houdini performs for the royal court of Germany, where he is given a great reception. Bess recounts the level of planning and choreography that went into each performance. After his performance, Houdini tries to ditch the reporters to spend time alone with Bess, but he receives an urgent telegram: his mother is dying and requests his presence. He rushes back to America, but she is already dead. Theo gets into an argument with him about his priorities; Theo is bitter because his mother asked for his brother and had nothing to say to him. Theo leaves Houdini alone to mourn his mother. Bess and Houdini attend a séance in the hopes of contacting the spirit of his mother, but he easily exposes it as a fraud. He vows to expose every fraudulent mystic until he finds one that can contact the dead. Soon, Houdini is well-known for debunking false mediums and educates the public on the methods they use to take advantage of their customers. He consults the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a noted believer of spiritualism, whose wife supposedly has a connection to the spirit world. However, Houdini realizes her powers are false when the “spirit” of his mother refers to him as “Harry” (she never called him anything but “Erik,” his birth name). He leaves over Sir Doyle’s protests. Houdini and Bess get into an argument over his self-appointed crusade. Realizing he will never be able to contact his mother, Houdini breaks down and cries. Soon the mediums Houdini exposed start suing him for libel, costing him a fortune. Beck urges Houdini to go back on tour and revive his escape acts. Bess tries to prevent him from doing so, and she becomes convinced that the public is more important than her. Believing that Houdini is more concerned with his dead mother than her, she angrily departs. Houdini revives his act, but he feels empty inside without Bess. One night one of his volunteers from the audience punches him in the gut as a test of his boasts of being able to resist any pain. Jim, Houdini’s assistant, calls Bess and warns her that the punch has seriously impaired Houdini and he is running a high fever. He implores her to appear at his next show. Bess arrives onstage just as Houdini is attempting his famous “Chinese water torture” escape, where he is hung upside down and submerged in a tank of water. Bess pleads with him not to go through with the act, and he promises it will be the last time and tells her he loves her. As the act progresses, Bess realizes something is wrong; his injury has trapped him in the tank. Bess smashes the glass, freeing him. Houdini awakens in a hospital with Bess by his side. The doctor says he’s had appendicitis and that his appendix has ruptured. Realizing he is dying, he swears to Bess: “if any man can escape death, I, Harry Houdini, will be that man.” He signs a written statement to that effect and dies shortly thereafter. In the present, the séance resumes. Bess puts down her wedding ring as an “offering” to Houdini’s spirit. As the séance continues, a spectral version of Houdini seems to enter unnoticed. He calls out for Bess but none of the attendees hear him. When the medium starts to convey what could be contact with Houdini’s spirit, Bess believes her but Theo disagrees. He reveals that the medium collects extensive files on all her customers and, working with the radio host, has had a private detective following Bess for the past few months. Bess interrupts the radio broadcast, proclaiming that Houdini’s name was not tarnished in these proceedings despite the deception, that he used “deception for enchantment.” She offers one last plea into the radio microphone, hoping that Houdini will hear her. As the séance breaks up, Theo admits to Bess that his mother’s last words to him were a confession that she acted cold towards Houdini in the hopes of making him stronger. He says he never told him because he was upset that his mother seemed more concerned about Houdini than him. He hopes that by exposing the medium, he has in some way made up for his misdeeds. All exit, leaving the “ghost” of Houdini alone. Bess comes back to collect the ring she left on the table and the “ghost” tries again to speak to her. As she turns to leave, she hears him. He says that whether he be a ghost or merely a figment of her imagination, he wants her to “believe.” The film ends as Bess and “Houdini” share an embrace and one final dance. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: TNT
- DATE: December 6, 1998 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:34:15
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:55140
- GENRE: Docudrama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Docudrama
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Pen Densham … Executive Producer, Director, Writer
- John Watson … Executive Producer
- Richard Barton Lewis … Executive Producer
- Mark Stern … Executive Producer
- Leanne Moore … Producer
- Jennifer Hare … Co-Producer
- Ken Collins … Associate Producer
- Don Harper … Music by
- Mark Mancina … Theme Music by
- Peggy Holmes … Choreographer
- Johnathon Schaech … Cast, Harry Houdini
- Stacy Edwards … Cast, Bess Houdini
- Paul Sorvino … Cast, Blackburn
- Rhea Perlman … Cast, Esther
- David Warner … Cast, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Mark Ruffalo … Cast, Theo
- Grace Zabriskie … Cast, Mrs. Weiss
- Ron Perlman … Cast, Booking Agent
- Karl Makinen … Cast, Jim Collins
- Judy Geeson … Cast, Lady Doyle
- Frank McRae … Cast, Usher
- George Segal … Cast, Beck
- Emile Hirsch … Cast, Young Houdini
- Curt Lowens … Cast, Samuel Weiss
- Jack McGee … Cast, Street Vendor
- David Moreland … Cast, Sweatshop Foreman
- Jack Knight … Cast, Warden
- Jack Marston … Cast, Kaiser Wilhelm
- Karen Hartman … Cast, Fraudulent Medium
- Endre Hules … Cast, German Stage Manager
- Martin McDougall … Cast, Radio Technician
- Michael Gallagher … Cast, Doctor
- Laura Pallas … Cast, Dancing Woman
- David Bickford … Cast, Journalist
- Daren Flam … Cast, Montreal Student #1
- Jeffrey Pierce … Cast, Montreal Student #2
- Tom Michael Bailey … Cast, Policeman
- Bill Moynihan … Cast, 1st Volunteer
- Rob Elk … Cast, Detroit Police Officer
- Joshua Breslow … Cast, Young Theo
- James Barbour … Cast, Reporter #1
- Ralph Meyering Jr. … Cast, Reporter #2
- Jeffrey Cox … Cast, Reporter #3
- Kevin Shinick … Cast, Reporter #4
- Shimada Haruo (See also: Haruo Shimada) … Cast, Street Magician