Telegrams From the Dead

Believe it or not, rap was a big-time phenomenon in 19th-century America, with several articles published about "rappers" and the "rap-o-mania" then sweeping the country. Of course, this kind of rap was literal: the sounds one might hear seated around a table at a meeting of Spiritualists during a seance. Narrated by actress Ellen Burstyn, Telegrams From the Dead is a very entertaining entry in The American Experience series which traces the history of spiritualism from 1855-1888. At the center of the story are a pair of teenage girls named Katie and Margaret Fox who, in 1855, claimed they heard mysterious sounds which they attributed to the presence of spirits (in 1888, they would admit that they were, in fact, cracking their toe joints). Before it was over, everything from "The Speaking Trumpet" to the "Spirit Cabinet Act" would have its run in the popular imagination, while real magicians like Houdini would routinely duplicate these magical happenings, thereby exposing the charlatans. So popular was the Spiritualist movement--whose seances were part science experiment and part religious ritual--that it attracted the interests of Mary Todd Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass and Queen Victoria. Dramatic recreations and eerie sound effects are skillfully combined with interview clips of author/practitioner The Amazing Randi, among others, to produce a rousing good hour of history and razzle dazzle. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)