Houdini
by George Marshall
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DVD details
Actor: Janet Leigh, Tony CurtisDirector: George Marshall
Brand: Legend Films
Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo
Composer: Roy Webb
Editor: George Tomasini
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-03
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: LF00020
Studio: Legend Films
Product features:
- Tony Curtis gives a winning performance as the great Houdini, the struggling circus performer who emerged as the world's most captivating magician and escape artist. From his beginnings as a "wild man" carnival act to the internationally famous feat of escaping from a locked trunk in an ice-jammed river, Houdini effectively captures the amazing life and courage of this fascinating man.
DVD Reviews of Houdini
DVD Review: Enjoy it for the acting & theatrics, but not for its accuracy
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is a very enjoyable if not completely accurate rendition of Harry Houdini's life. Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, young and in love in real life, do a great job of playing Harry and Bess Houdini. An amateur magician himself, Curtis gives a great performance in the first really good role of his career. There will be many to come. What's accurate about this film? Most of the escapes shown in the film such as when Houdini allowed himself to be hung upside down outside of a tall building while confined in a strait jacket, his offering and succeeding to escape from any pair of handcuffs that his audiences could produce, and his decision to go through with being locked in a box submerged in water while he himself is bound in chains.
What's inaccurate in the film? It's more a matter of what is omitted. The film does mention Houdini's running battle with spiritualists. What it doesn't mention is Houdini's tiff with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over the whole issue. The depth and length of this disagreement is considerable, though, and it's understandable that in a film not of documentary length that it had to be left out.
Sadly enough, the film has only a trailer as an extra feature.
A commentary track, an actual documentary, or even - if it was possible - to include the excellent 1976 made-for-TV film "The Great Houdini" with Paul Michael Glaser in the title role would have made for a better package. That 70's version of Houdini's life gives more details about what made the man tick, even if there is something about its atmosphere that transports one back to the days of disco. At any rate, when it comes to classics from Paramount, I'll take them any way I can get them.
Description of Houdini
Tony Curtis gives a winning performance as the great Houdini, the struggling circus performer who emerged as the world s most captivating magician and escape artist. From his beginnings as a wild man carnival act to the internationally famous feat of escaping from a locked trunk in an ice-jammed river, Houdini effectively captures the amazing life and courage of this fascinating man. Also stars the beautiful Janet Leigh as Houdini s supportive wife who lovingly stood by his side throughout his legendary career.Tony Curtis will amaze and astound you with one of his best performances as Harry Houdini, "the man of 10,000 tricks." Houdini has nothing up its sleeve, but the charismatic Curtis and Janet Leigh ("Hollywood?s Most Exciting Young Lovers," proclaims the film?s original trailer, the sole bonus feature on this disc), as Houdini?s wife, Bess, levitate this conventional, albeit enormously entertaining 1953 biopic that follows the legendary magician and escape artist from his days as a sideshow attraction to international stardom. Houdini dedicates his life to giving audiences "bigger and bigger thrills," and the film?s best scenes recreate Houdini?s act and death-defying escapes, including a harrowing plunge into the frozen Detroit River while locked in a trunk. Houdini?s fate is well-known, and while the film plays loose with the facts, it does conjure up an eerie foreboding by the time he takes the stage for his final, ill-fated Halloween performance. After Houdini?s first strait-jacket escape, an elderly magician urges him, "It?s isn?t a trick. Drop it. It will make you famous, but it will kill you." At long last available on DVD, Houdini is old fashioned movie magic that?s no trick and all treat.--Donald Liebenson
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