Houdini

In this 1998 tv biography of Houdini, Johnathon Schaech passionately, and incidentally attractively, stars in the title role. "Houdini" is the perspective of his life by his wife, Bessie Houdini, 10 years after his death during a publicized "last seance," through which she hopes to communicate with him. It is an emotional, love-stricken wife's memories of her obsessed, but loving, late husband. As such, this movie is not a detailed documentary of his life, but an emotionally, romantic reminiscing of the life of the man. As a love-story, Houdini has effectively worked its magic.

It is filled with much admiration, sentiment, and emotional angst as expected from a loving, but emotionally-conflicted widow at the time of her husband's death. Bessie's portrayal seems focused on her mounting discomfort and tension over the course of decades of their marriage due to her late husband's obsessesive life's work to entertain with death-defying feats and his driven attempts to unmask spiritual charlatans as he attempts to communicate with his late mother.

"Houdini" does little to educate us on the many details and exploits of the late master magician, as I had originally expected. I realized, in hindsight, that this interpretation of Houdini's life makes no attempt to provide a significant and detailed retelling of his life's obsessions, but provides just enough information to provide a background to the relationships with the significant women in his life, primarily with his wife and secondly with his mother.

Compared to two other Houdini biographies I remembered from watching on tv many years ago (namely, 1953 or 1957 "Houdini" starring Tony Curtis and 1976 "The Great Houdini" starring Paul Michael Glaser) I find it a more passionate portrayal of the great illusionist and escape artist and offers greater emotional depths that the other two films did not provide; in those portrayals, they attempt to pack in as much information as possible, but unfortunately, some erroneous info. as well. "Houdini" fortunately debunks a popular myth that he did died on stage immediately after failing to escape during an act; in reality, he had died days after his last performance in a hospital, on Halloween of 1926.

Pen Densham, director, writer, & executive producer, turned out an interesting and entertaining & romantic biography. Johnathon Schaech gives a newly alluring and passionate dimension to Houdini, and possibly the most multi-dimensional role, as well, he has yet portrayed. Stacy Edwards sympathetically portrays the worriedly tormented, alcoholic, at times shrewish, but loving wife. Other supporting cast members, Paul Sorvino as Blackburn (radio show host), Rhea Perlman as Esther (spiritualist), George Segal as Martin Beck (Houdini's manager), Mark Ruffalo as Theo (Houdini's brother), and Grace Zabriskie as Cecelia Weiss (Houdini's, a.k.a. Erich Weiss', mother) turned in from suitable to quite good performances, particularly for a tv film.

...but he can't escape mediocre movie adaptations of his life. This version is merely adequate when it could have been more. Huge amounts of his career are glossed over (his mixed-religion marriage, his brief movie career in Hollywood, his piloting skills, and even many of his escapes), and the focus is mostly on his romance with Bess Weiss. As such, much of this plays out as a soap opera rather than as the biography of the world's greatest performer. His wife's a drunk (until the end, when that plot element is forgotten), his mother is a harsh tyrant (except we don't see anything to really suggest that), and his brother is a whining ingrate. In other words, it's dreadfully rushed: we're left to assume much, both about Houdini's career and his family life, rather than be shown it. Oddly, the revelation of how Houdini did the milk bottle escape in the middle comes across as unnecessary padding when time could have been spent telling us some of the important stuff. The best parts are the bigger actors in minor roles: Rhea Perlman as a psychic, Paul Sorvino as a glory-hungry radio announcer, George Segal as Houdini's manager, and David Warner as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (although they screw up his relationship with Houdini as well). The ending, with Houdini appearing unseen at his wife's 10th anniversary seance to contact him, redeems much of the movie with a truly romantic ending, though - they actually spend about 12 minutes on it. Unfortunately, by that time we've seen so much of Houdini's Wife the Drunken Shrew that this touching ending is a bit out of place. But hey, at least they (mostly) got how Houdini died correct, which is more than one can say about the previous '53 and '76 versions.

I'll be honest- I only sat to watch this movie because I ADORE Jonathan Schaech so I would've been fine with whatever came on the screen. Fortunately, it was an entertaining story even as the previous reviewer mentioned it did feel very rushed. I at least learned a little bit about his illusions.

The biggest trick the writer/directer pulls on us is to hang this fantasy on one of the century's great showbusiness characters. Houdini, the short, wiry-haired immigrant, who spell-bound audiences with the intensity of his eyes and his haunting intimation of his'powers'; angry, petulant, vain and childish, the man puppy-loved his mother till the day he died, indeed, adolescent is perhaps the word to explain his emotional range; but so thrilling, so charismatic was he, audiences would sit electrified, staring at the theatre curtain for an hour, two hours, while behind it, Houdini was struggling manacles, boxes, milk cans... So far away from any attempt at showing us anything about the real man, and with Jonathon Schaech's bland performance not holding the film together, the writer then doesn't even seem to enjoy the world of vaudeville and illusion very much, but spends more time on the seances and the soap-opera domestics. I'm not angry at this movie because I'm a purist who believes Houdini's life is sacrosanct, but that the man and his life are so fascinating, and so full of episodes revealing and suspenseful, that a fictional version of the story can only fail by comparison.

This is a TV movie covering the career, life and afterlife of the illusionist Harry Houdini. It is a romanticized skeletal treatment, covering the basics of the man (raised in poverty, self taught magician, life long mother issues, medium debunker) without any real depth or showing anything new. It is a well done enough production, recreating some of Houdini's daring feats, and the acting is decent (and Jonathon Schaech certainly looks fit enough to pull off Houdini's escapes and high tolerance for pain) but ultimately it is a frame without a portrait, non revealing of the Ehrich Weiss behind the Harry Houdini.

Favorite Line: "I fell in love with Ehrich Weiss; I put up with Harry Houdini."

Worth a rent if you have a mildly curious about Houdini itch to scratch and an hour and a half free.