Harry Houdini's secrets: how the great illusionist actually did his tricks

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

August 26, 1907 famous illusionist Harry Houdini once again shocked the audience: chained in chains, he was thrown into the water, and he was able to get out in 57 seconds! These were Houdini's signature tricks: getting out of locked boxes under water and a Chinese water torture chamber, walking through brick walls, freeing himself from a straitjacket in limbo, getting out of a locked prison cell while being handcuffed, and so on. his followers have repeatedly stated secrets, but are all the secrets of Houdini really revealed or is this just another hoax?

Harry Houdini's real name is Eric Weiss. He claimed to be born in the United States, but in fact was born in Hungary, in the family of a rabbi, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was 4 years old. From his youth, he was fond of complex mechanisms and the device of locks, to which he easily picked up the master keys. At the age of 11, he dropped out of school and entered a locksmith's shop, where he honed his skills to the level of mastery.

One of the first numbers in his arsenal was Liberation from the Shackles. He became famous thanks to a successful publicity stunt: he came to the chief of police in Chicago and said that he could get out of a locked prison cell in handcuffs. The illusionist did this trick in the presence of reporters in a matter of minutes. Later, he repeated the same trick in the main prisons of Europe and the United States, as well as in Butyrka prison and the Peter and Paul Fortress while touring Russia in 1903.

Most of Houdini's tricks were really skillful: he knew everything there was to know about locks, keys, and handcuffs. Some handcuffs opened even without a key or wire loop - it was enough to knock them on a hard surface. During a preliminary visit to the prison, Houdini's wife distracted the attention of the police, while the magician, meanwhile, examined the locks on the cell doors in order to pick up a miniature master key for them. He either hid it in his mouth, or received it from his wife during a farewell handshake or a kiss "for good luck" before a dangerous stunt.

Houdini handled his muscles skillfully: when he was chained or put on a straitjacket, he tensed the muscles and then relaxed them, resulting in gaps, and freeing his hands became a matter of technique. Sometimes he had to dislocate the bones in the joints. He got out of the milk can due to the fact that the locks, which could not be opened from the outside, were easily pushed out from the inside along with the lid. Just like one of the sides of the box, in which the illusionist was lowered under the water: the 2 lower boards were not nailed, and they could be pushed back.

However, sometimes Houdini not only demonstrated skill, but also resorted to various tricks. For example, during the trick with the disappearance of the elephant in the circus, an optical illusion was used: the elephant was covered with a white veil - and it disappeared. In fact, there was another blanket under the white - made of black velvet, identical to the back curtains on the stage. Against a black background, the box with a black blanket was invisible. The appearance of an assistant from a huge radio box is also a simple trick: the radio was on a table with a double table top, inside which the girl was hiding. When Houdini tuned the radio to the "desired wave", the "dream girl" appeared out of the box.

Walking through a brick wall was also just a cunning trick: on the stage, right on the carpet, workers erected a 3-meter wall in front of the audience. Houdini invited from the audience those who wanted to be convinced of its strength. The wall stood perpendicular to the audience, the illusionist entered from one side, then the curtain was lowered for a minute, and when it was raised, the magician was already on the other side of the wall. The key was that under the carpet there was a narrow hole under the wall.

The great magician never revealed his secrets. Once he promised to do this in his will, with the condition that it would be opened and made public on the day of his centenary. In 1974, the excitement rose: everyone was waiting for the promised confessions, but it turned out that Houdini again twisted the public around the finger: there were no revelations there. Journalists called it "the last trick of the brilliant mystifier." And the illusionist explained his main secret as follows: “In all cases, the main thing for me is to overcome fear, … the main thing is to maintain absolute calmness and self-control. In this case, one has to act almost at lightning speed and with the greatest precision. If you give in to panic even for a second, death will become inevitable."

Harry Houdini, despite the "miracles" that he demonstrated, did not believe in spiritualism and exposed the tricks of mediums, which is why he quarreled with his friend Arthur Conan Doyle: 5 little-known facts about the weirdness of world famous writers