Try to escape from the excitement! For those younger readers (or those that aren't obsessed with movie history), Harry Houdini may just be that guy who escaped from chains and died from being punched in the stomach. For you, here's a bit of history. With his sudden fame, Houdini got all sorts of offers to do projects. What he really longed to do was act! That's right, the famous escape-artist was also a movie star in the early days of cinema! The first project he worked on was a 14-Part movie serial called The Master Mystery. Yes, it's kind of silly and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Thanks to the nice people over at Kino Films, I can review this serial from 1919. This is a tricky one to review properly (due to its length and format), but I'll do my best for you here. On the plus side, most of you won't know if I get anything wrong. Let's prepare to master solve...
* The film involves an evil Patent Company (early villains, I guess) trying to steal a product from a scientist. Thankfully, Houdini (not playing himself, but just about) is there to stop them...
* Holy shit- Harry Houdini is being knocked out by a robot! I have finally lived!
* A robot, you say. Oh yeah. Excuse those 'birthing hips' though.
* Here is the main focus of the serial- Houdini being captured. Hire an escape artist...
* The problem is that he gets captured at the end of nearly ever chapter. I should mention again that there are 14 Chapters here!
* You're either the worst hero or the best hero. You're captured 12 times- bad. You escape 12 times- good. Which is he? You decide!
* In a confusing bit, Houdini and his girl fake an argument because they know that they're being overheard. Later, Houdini sees the bad guys arguing and tries to take advantage. THAT, however, was a trick, since they knew that he was faking the fight earlier. My head hurts!
* The climax of the film builds as the villains prepare their master plan from their cave. However...
* Houdini manages to best the robot in combat, revealing the identity of the man in the suit. Hello, 1919 Iron Man! All is well in a nice little wrap-up. The End.
Silent, but odd. The plot of this...um, serial is certainly interesting. It's neat to watch these kind of works to see what was made before all of the cliche (i.e. the damsel in distress, etc) were established. A lot of these movies still fall into the cliche, just because of the attitude of people in that time. The key thing to this one is that Houdini is kind of an odd-looking guy. He's not ugly or anything- he's just very unique-looking. That worked in his favor as a magician and does so here, at least to a certain extent. He always stands out in his scenes, even if he's not that good of an actor. The draw here was, of course, Houdini escaping the death traps. On one hand, that makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, his reputation is as a legitimate escape artist...so he makes a film full of staged escapes. He does seem to legitimately-escape the bindings/locations on-screen, but I just kind of find the idea to be an odd fallacy. If you're into old-school films and obscure films (hello, me), check this out. I would encourage you to watch it over a period of time, as opposed to one sitting. In total, The Master Mystery runs about 5 hours(!!!) and that's even with three of the Chapters (3, 4 and 5) mostly gone to time/nitrate decay. The fact that this thing exists is still cool. Take us away, Houdini in drag...
Next up, I give you a second helping of Houdini. This time, it's a film that he produced...much to his dismay. Stay tuned...
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