Houdini

About Houdini

Houdini is a 1998 American biographical drama television film about the life of the magician Harry Houdini, written and directed by Pen Densham. It stars Johnathon Schaech, Stacy Edwards, Paul Sorvino and David Warner. It debuted on TNT on December 6, 1998.

Article

Contents

Plot

The film details the life, relationships and exploits of the famous magician.

Cast

Johnathon Schaech as Harry Houdini

Emile Hirsch as Young Harry Houdini

Stacy Edwards as Bess Houdini

Paul Sorvino as Blackburn

Rhea Perlman as Esther

David Warner as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Mark Ruffalo as Theo

Grace Zabriskie as Mrs. Weiss

Ron Perlman as Booking Agent

Karl Makinen as Jim Collins

Judy Geeson as Lady Doyle

George Segal as Beck

Home release

The DVD is available as part of the burn-on-demand Warner Archive service.

Article from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), where it is maintained by volunteer editors.

Notable quotes

“Rosabelle — answer — tell — pray, answer — look — tell — answer, answer — tell.”
— The secret message devised with his wife to test spiritualist séances should he or she die. In their secret stage-code it spells out the word: "BELIEVE". Quoted in Death and the Magician : The Mystery of Houdini (1981) by Raymund Fitzsimons, p. 166
“I'm tired of fighting, Dash. I guess this thing is going to get me.”
— Last words, to his brother Theo, in Grace Hospital of Detroit, Michigan (30 October 1926), quoted in Houdini, The Man Who Walked Through Walls (1959) by William Lindsay Gresham, p. 286, and in Final Séance : The Strange Friendship between Houdini and Conan Doyle (2001) by Massimo Polidoro, p. 204
“I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building.”
— As quoted in The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini‎ (1993) by Ruth Brandon, p. 153

Quotes via (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.