Houdini

Tony Curtis stars as Harry Houdini, vaudeville magician turned world famous escape artist, and Janet Leigh is his assistant and wife Bess in this splashy, colorful 1953 bio-pic that takes liberties with the truth. In this version, Houdini is the only son of a widowed European Jew, meeting Bess while playing a wild man in a carnival sideshow (a showbiz version of "meet-cute"). Houdini makes his reputation by escaping from a Scotland Yard prison and becomes famous for making death-defying escapes in full view of the public. While the professional accomplishments portrayed in director George Marshall's Houdini are true (including his obsession with spiritualists and his campaign to expose frauds and con artists posing as mediums), much of the personal and biographical details are completely fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The charming Curtis is here flamboyant and self-promoting but essentially generous and good-hearted, while the real-life Houdini was arrogant and vindictive. And while Houdini died from a ruptured appendix in the aftermath of a failed stunt, he did not die onstage as portrayed in the film. Given those caveats (common to all Hollywood bio-pics of the Golden Age), this is an enjoyable movie featuring a winning performance by Curtis—a handsome matinee idol in his first starring role in a major Hollywood drama—and spunky support by Leigh, his real-life wife and a major star in her own right at the time. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)