More lawsuits: The litigious nature of the magician made for a bumpy road in Hollywood.
The end of the era: As with flying, Houdini’s stint in film was relatively short-lived.
Houdini was fascinated by film both because of his desire to stay current with the changing times and because he saw the opportunity to immortalize his talents. His first foray into acting came in a brief movie he made in Paris called
Merveilleux Exploits du Celebre Houdini a Paris. In the film, Houdini shows himself defending a drunk from police brutality, only to be arrested and placed in a cell with a straitjacket. Fortunately, the King of Handcuffs cannot be restrained by such trivialities, and quickly escapes the straitjacket and the handcuffs the cops clap on him, and soon after, a locked cell. No complete version of this movie survives.
Houdini’s second appearance on film is no less dramatic or self-focused. While debuting his incredibly dangerous Manacled Bridge Jump in Rochester, New York, he had himself filmed. The film shows Houdini diving from a high bridge into the river below and coming up out of the water miraculously free of handcuffs.
By 1915 motion pictures threatened to end the careers of vaudeville performers worldwide. Houdini, determined as always to stay relevant, turned his attention more fully to entering into the world of film. He served as a consultant for the special effects of a horror movie. He signed a contract to play Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’s Captain Nemo, but the film died in production. As resilient as ever, Houdini jumped into the film industry by starting a production company, the Film Development Company (FDC), which performed automatic film processing.
In the summer of 1918, Houdini began filming a series called “The Master Mystery.” The series was a total of fifteen episodes, each of which featured Houdini escaping from a new, terrifying predicament. The public can see slightly more of how Houdini does his tricks on film than they had been allowed to see during Houdini’s live performances. In one film Houdini is seen picking a lock with a piece of an umbrella and some string. In another they see him using his toes as if they were fingers. In January of 1919, the serial was released, and although it aired in many countries, reviewers didn’t think much of Houdini as an actor, describing him as having very little range. His escapes, however, were praised as thrilling, even though the audience had no way to know if Houdini was actually performing them or if film manipulation was merely making it seem so. Houdini ran into legal problems collecting his share of the serial’s profits, however, and eventually fought and won a four-year battle in court against the company that produced the movie.
By late 1918, Houdini’s company the FDC had begun experiencing serious financial trouble. Houdini was especially worried about this business’s failure because he had involved friends and family; his brother Dash had left his performing career to manage the company full time, and his friend and mentor Keller had purchased many shares.
In spring of 1919, Houdini and Bess moved from New York to Los Angeles in order to star in a serial called The Grim Game. The film again depicted Houdini escaping from unbelievably life-threatening situations. During the filming, an actual, unplanned plane crash is filmed, although Houdini wasn’t actually in any danger during the crash, as his “midair stunt” was filmed on the ground. The film was well received as a thriller, and Houdini was signed to another movie called Terror Island. Most of that movie was shot on California’s wild Catalina Island. The film’s gimmicky presentation caused contempt from reviewers, although Houdini was as usual quite pleased with it.
At the end of 1919, Houdini departed the United States for Europe, intending to work on his film career. The Master Mystery had been a hit in England, and Houdini earned huge salaries performing there, although some audiences complained that they wanted Houdini to spend more time performing tricks and less time speaking about his film career and other endeavors. Houdini decided to produce his own movies, in which he would of course star. He shot scenes for a movie about counterfeiting that he intended to make.
In the summer of 1920 Houdini returned to the U.S. He devoted himself entirely to his movies, not performing onstage at all for the next year and a half. During this time, Houdini produced and starred in a movie called The Man from Beyond. The plot centers on a character who is revived after having been frozen in ice for one hundred years. The man, whose initials are HH like Harry Houdini’s, recognizes that a woman about to be married to another man is a descendant of his former fiancée and performs many death-defying stunts to win her over and escape enemies of their union . The movie contains Spiritualistic elements, and it is unclear in the movie if Houdini is receptive to the religion, or if he is just using its wild popularity to score viewers. Houdini certainly worked very hard to publicize the film; he formed four touring companies to promote the film and toured himself to promote it.