He
collaborated with H.P. Lovecraft and became the sworn enemy of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle. In the nearly eighty-eight years since his death, nobody has approached
Harry Houdini’s fame and accomplishment as an illusionist and escape artist,
while perhaps only the Amazing Randi has equaled him as a debunker of psychic
phonies. Yet, despite some vintage stills and a brief flirtation with those
new-fangled moving pictures, his live performances were almost solely the stuff
of memory. Yet, the fascination with Houdini persists. The man in chains takes
center stage once again when the two-night miniseries Houdini premieres this Labor Day on the History Channel (promo here).
As
we meet young Erik Weisz (soon to be Ehrich Weiss and eventually Harry
Houdini), it is clear he is a mother’s boy, with deep-seated father issues.
These themes will constantly return over the two nights like swallows to San
Juan Capistrano. Due to his youthful confidence, the future Houdini is
convinced his facility for magic tricks will bear great fruit eventually.
Naturally, he spends years scuffling, but at least he meets his future wife
Bess through those down-market gigs. However, when Houdini’s handcuff escape
starts generating buzz, he re-invents himself as an escape artist and his
career ignites.
Screenwriter
Nicholas Meyer (The Seven Percent
Solution novel and screenplay) takes viewers on a mostly breezy jaunt
through Houdini’s colorful life, largely sticking to the facts, or in the case
of Houdini’s supposed work with the American and British Secret Services, well
reported suppositions. Whether it is true or not, Tim Pigott-Smith looks like
he is having a ball playing British spymaster William Melville, the original “M.”
It is also allows for some entertaining intrigue, as when Houdini thoroughly
befuddles the Czar and his fellow faker, Rasputin.
The
second night is necessarily darker, progressing as it must towards the
inevitable, with the bulk of the drama devoted to Houdini’s drive to debunk false
mediums using parlor tricks to fleece the grieving. There is very little that
could be considered truly genre-centric in the séance sessions, but the
trappings will still have a bit of appeal to fans.
Although
he is considerably taller than the spark-pluggish Houdini, Adrien Brody’s
gaunt, sad-eyed persona fits the escape artist rather well. He also looks like
he put in the time when it came to the crunch sit-ups. As Bess, Kristen Connolly’s
earthy energy plays off him well, even if their chemistry is a little flat. While
he has little dramatic heavy lifting to do, Evan Jones’s earnestness also wears
well on Jim Collins, Houdini’s assistant and chief co-conspirator.
There
are a lot of fun sequences in Houdini (the
disappearing elephant is particularly well staged), but the visually stylized
punch-to-gut symbolic motif is way over done and the effects look terrible on
screen. Still, the mini addresses Houdini’s Jewish heritage in respectful,
sympathetic terms, which must have been a strange change of pace for director
Uli Edel, whose highly problematic terrorist apologia Baader Meinhof Complex suggests killing Jews is nothing to get
upset about.
