The 1998 made-for-TV movie “Houdini,” starring Johnathon Schaech, is available on DVD. My favorite part is the opening scene in which the Great One is chained up almost totally naked in a jail cell and gets gagged with a leather face covering!
Do you have any favorite movies featuring locking metal bondage?
There have been a number of theatrical and TV movies about The Great One over the years. This is not a comprehensive list, but I think these are all the major ones. Which is your favorite actor who played the famed escape artist?
The classic 1953 movie, called “Houdini,” stars Tony Curtis:
There was also a 1998 movie called “Houdini” starring Johnathon Schaech:
“The Great Houdinis” (aka “The Great Houdini”) is a made-for-TV movie from 1976 starring Paul Michael Glaser from Starsky and Hutch.
There was also a two-part, four-hour TV miniseries on the History Channel in 2014 called “Houdini” starring Adrien Brody
Somewhere I have a picture collage of all four of these guys, but I can’t find it.
Special thanks to my Fire Island housemate David!
Houdini died on this day today (Halloween, Oct. 31) back in 1926, in Detroit, and this afternoon (Halloween day, 2018) I paid a visit to his gravesite in Queens, New York.
Houdini rests amongst his relatives in an elaborate family plot at Machpelah Cemetery in Glendale. From Manhattan, it was an hour-long trip on the subway and then a 20-minute hike.
As a tribute to Houdini, I left a pair of police-issue Smith and Wesson Model 100-1 handcuffs that I had specially engraved with his name. I made sure to double-lock the cuffs before leaving them.
Smith & Wesson Model 100-1, nickel
Engraved, too. I wore these while beating off this past week, in honor of the great one.
These items are on display at Disneyland in California.
