I’d like to see something a bit more reliable than Wiki for this.
Regards,
Shodan
I was just being cheeky.
But I do think Exapno’s point stands. Saying “he always had confederates” hardly amounts to “explaining the wonders of Houdini.”
-FrL-
Yeah, I would too. (The cites given in the Wiki article might be a place to start but who can vouch for their reliability?)
Out of curiosity, how do you think he died? What kind of death were you referring to in your first post?
-FrL-
By the time I was dating her, he had “retired” from magic for at least a decade. Back in the day he had gone the whole nine yards, keeping doves for his tricks and so on. He decided to do some magic for a Christmas party, so this was probably a shortcut for him.
It was pretty sad, actually. He loved magic but couldn’t make much money at it. I think he would have been content to perform at parties but he just couldn’t justify it because people wouldn’t pay much. Dividing the little money by the countless hours spent honing his technique, he finally had to let it go. Too bad because he was such a sweet, generous guy who got a real kick out of making people smile. 
But he also said people were a real PITA, begrudging him what little they paid :mad:
While I like magic a lot, I don’t like the fact that in a lot of tricks, the magician is really presenting a lie, e.g. using confederates.
I’ve heard that Bess would kiss him before a trick so she could pass him lock picks with her mouth. So the police had already searched him, found nothing, and then he used a confederate. In my book, that’s fine. The cops’ search was legit, he kissed her in plain sight of an audience trying to figure out his m.o., etc.
And some tricks are based on audience ignorance. On TV there was a show with a masked magician showing how some tricks were done. In one, they encased the magician in blocks of ice, saying he would endure in there, freezing. I thought, ‘Ah, no, it wouldn’t be that cold in there. In Alaska, natives live in igloos, remember?’ :dubious::smack:
Because I am a killjoy, I’ll reveal to the world how Criss Angel’s “Mindfreak” tricks work:
Step 1 - Film the shot several times, one with Angel, another with a dummy, another with a stunt man on wires, whatever is needed.
Step 2 - Pay a bunch of people to be on each shot acting surprised and screaming a lot.
Step 3 - Edit it all together.
Sep 4 - Profit!!
Pulling a woman in half:
One proposed explanation:
My WAG was that some are born without legs or maybe lose them in accidents etc. I figured they have prosthetic legs that might be electronically controlled. So you’d need confederates to not notice that the “legs” are plastic and of course a remote control so the toes will move.
And conversely, Houdini escaped from a number of cells that were supposed to be “escape proof.” If he got out it was a very public failure for the police, who had far more serious reasons to be worried about failure. He did the escape dozens if not hundreds of times, usually as a preliminary publicity stunt to his appearance in a city. I can’t deny that some jailers might have looked the other way but to say that all of them did violates all known history. Have you done any research on Houdini at all, even to a decent biography?
Of course Houdini cheated. He had a multitude of ways of hiding lockpicks on his body and his wife or others could - if given the opportunity, which didn’t always happen - secretly pass them to him if he got a better than usual body search. But he still had to spend the hundreds of hours studying every possible variety of lock so that he knew them literally inside out and backwards (because they were on the outside of the cell so he had to pick them blind). Saying “he used confederates” cheapens the fact that he worked harder at his craft than anybody else. Same with his other escapes. Houdini’s “secret” is that there isn’t a “secret” but deep craft that could exploit multiple ways of gaining a goal.
Steinmeyer’s book gives a combination of explanations for Houdini’s death. He says that the punch burst the appendix and that the resulting peritonitis killed him. One of our doctor Dopers would need to confirm this, but I don’t believe an ordinary punch, even a hard one, could rupture a healthy appendix. How much the punch speeded up the process I can’t say. Snopes confirms this. Other reports say that he and his wife had been complaining of stomach pains for days before the incident and it’s true that Bess was also hospitalized for them. Those may have been early signs of appendicitis or another complaint that weakened him.
I hope this isn’t seen as a threadjack, but I’m remembering a special on Houdini, that really showcases the point that showmanship is really a major part of stage magic.
It was a special, and it was live on WPIX NY, hosted by William Shatner. It was as I recall, something of a significant anniversary of Houdini’s death. This would have been mid-1980’s. It was marvelous, for the re-enactments of Houdini’s life – and the staggering number of things that went wrong during the live performance.
First up were the Pendragon’s. They were famous for being able to perform Houdin’s Metamorphosis, the fastest of all stage magicians. First they did it Houdini’s way – she came out, in a period costume, with great pink ostrich feathers covering her cleavage, he made a big deal about being locked and tied in the trunk. She climbed on the trunk, and led the audience in a count for the switch. And of course, she’s done a costume change somehow in the trunk. Thing is, they did it again immediately afterward, their contemporary way. With no dialog, to a pulsing rock beat. Mrs Pendragon in a, well, very nice one piece spandex thong, that showed her … musculature very nicely, as she posed, locking him in the trunk. She just threw the curtain in the air, the switch was complete before it fell, and she was in trunk complete with costume change. Then, still kneeling in the trunk – she took off her bottoms (or mimed it convincingly,) and refused to stand and take a bow, until the camera cut away.
The show also had Penn and Teller on. They didn’t do magic at all, they just locked some bystander in the trunk, and pushed him into the lake. The whole time, Penn was talking about how he and Teller knew Houdini personally, Har, as he liked to be called by them. I’d never seen Penn and Teller before, I was bewildered – are these guys magicians, comedians, or just loud mouthed asses? Correct answer, all three, and quite popular for it.
That show had everything. Even a seance, trying to contact the spirt of Houdini live on TV, with James Randi (!) present – lying on a gurney(!!) – he’d injured his back seriously practicing the milk can escape, but that’s no reason he could’nt be part of the show.
I’m thinking now that stage magic isn’t really dead. Or at least, was live and kicking hard back in the mid-'80’s.
Snopes disagrees with both accounts. Their answer is that he died of appendicitis several days after his last show and that the punch he received didn’t contribute. The doctors blamed the appendicitis on the punch, but modern doctors believe this is unlikely (though it may have contributed to his refusal to be treated).
You can see Penn and Teller’s bit here – classic comedy. If you like angry, insulting comedy.
But I can’t find the Pendragon’s particular performance, but you can find them doing their Metamorhphosis. I even taped this, way back when, but this will unlikely be available on DVD now a days, IMDB doesn’t even have an entry.
I know Houdini was doing his stuff a long time ago, but did many jail cells really have access to the keyholes from the inside?
Yes, and even much more modern cells do.
Ignorance fought! 
That last link was very revelatory.
Correction: Only one is a loud-mouthed ass. The other is just an ass.
I feel quite fortunate having seen Penn & Teller’s “Asparagus Show” in San Francisco decades ago before they hit the big-time. It was in a tiny theater and we were in the front row. Teller came to the edge of the stage to do his sleight of hand artistry so we were much closer than usual for seeing such things. Damn, the guy is good.
Penn & Teller are definitely obnoxious (of only half loudmouthed) asses. In fact, they appear to such in real life, not just on stage, though they use it as part of their acts. What they did in that clip is rather subtle and rather clever, though. Think about it - in the guise of complaining (with rather transparent lies and exaggerations) that anyone would dare try to imitate or better Houdini, they actually perform a trick that both undermines and bests Houdini as well as the audience, who don’t even realize that they’ve seen a trick until it’s over. P&T were standing on a NYC harbor facing the Statue of Liberty. They took a confederate from the audience, locked him in chains, put him in a box, and pushed the box into the water. Clearly the man did not drown. But where we would have seen Houdini escape, we have no idea what happened to the man. He didn’t climb out of the water anywhere in view of the camera (or, presumably, the live audience). The camera kept filming much longer than he could have stayed underwater. There was no obvious place for him to hide; no way it seems he could have escaped. He did. He must have. But there is no big reveal, no aha moment, just the dawning realization that P&T pulled one over on us before we even knew it.
Of course, the fact that the audience didn’t know it was a trick until it was over is part of what made the trick possible. Were the manacles actually locked? Of course they were; a member of the audience told us so. Was there anything else in the box? Of course not; a member of the audience inspected it. Was the guy actually in the box when it was pushed in the water? Of course he was; we heard him screaming about it. But all of these "of course"s become suspect, once you realize that the guy was a confederate. Maybe he was never actually chained up. Maybe there was a SCUBA mask and tank in that crate. Maybe there was a false bottom on the box that he exited through, either before (through various standard stage magic tricks) or after is was dunked. There’s all sorts of ways that P&T could have pulled off that trick, thanks to the diversionary setup they gave it.
Which just emphasizes, of couse, that the delivery is what makes for a good magic act, not just the tricks themselves.
Wait a minute- is the couple in A Bug’s Life modeled on the Pendragons? He’s a magician, she turns from a drab moth into a butterfly? They even call the trick “metamorphosis” in the movie. :smack:
Urm … no, Houdini named the trick where he switch places with his wife “The Metamorphosis.” The Pendragons are just famous for doing it the fastest of any other couple. Mr Pendragon even tells you, start timing me when I get in the trunk, because that’s when I start getting out. He basically blows the lid off the mystery, when the lady stands on the trunk, and slowly covers and uncovers herself with the curtain, before you see the switch. He tells you – that is all misdirection, he’s already escaped. So you see, giving the secret doesn’t make you a killjoy.
I just watched Metamorphosis for the first time, and it seems completely obvious to me. Are any of you seriously in doubt about this? All it needs is a false back on the trunk, and a bottomless bag inside. Even her outfit is clearly already under the other leotard. . .
Eh, I’m not gonna bother quoting:
Anyways, what’s the deal about magicians’ lying? Isn’t that their job? The whole concept is that they are about to try and deceive you.
As far as confederates: I think that just bugs people because they want a complicated solutions for an apparently complicated trick. But that’s the point of magic. The person being a confederate is usually one of the last things people think of, and, ergo, the best.