Theodore hardeen11/1/2023 ![]() ![]() I guess Naldi is the only woman to have worked opposite both Houdini and Barrymore, and under Hitchcock (twice). Disappointingly too, Nita “tits out” Naldi as the film’s resident femme fatale, doesn’t get to vamp him - that might have shaken him loose. ![]() Maybe because the plot this time requires him to display instability, uncertainty and pathos, a certain self-consciousness has set in. Oddly, Houdini’s acting seems to have regressed slightly since THE MASTER MYSTERY, in which he’s quite credible. Still, it’s exciting to be able to see the escapologist in action, even if he’s just squirming free from wet bedsheets via a display of scientific wriggling, or stopping a boat going over Niagara by the simple expedient of climbing out and keeping one foot on the bottom. Elsewhere in the plot he gets to perform some escapes, though not particularly gripping ones to look at (serial THE MASTER MYSTERY has his best screen getaway). This exploration of mystical hooey is played straight-faced by Houdini, though he never really credited the supernatural and would set up shop as a professional debunker. HH drops in a bit of product placement for his sparring partner at the time, Arthur Conan Doyle ~ ![]() ![]() Fortunately for him, the first woman he meets strongly resembles his lost love, and may in fact be her reincarnation. It uses the same frozen-alive plot idea as CAPTAIN AMERICA and BUCK ROGERS, with Houdini frozen at sea after being abandoned by unsympathetic skipper Luis Alberni (Louis Louis of the Hotel Louis from EASY LIVING). Harry Houdini co-wrote and produced and starred in THE MAN FROM BEYOND in 1922. ![]()
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