Haldane of the Secret Service (1923)

User Rating:

5.2/10   

Director:

Harry Houdini

Release Date:

30 September 1923 (USA)

Genre:

Crime

Plot:

Heath Haldane (Houdini) tracks down a vicious gang of counterfeiters, narrowly missing death several times. He must rescue Adele Ormsby, whom he loves despite her pending marriage. |

Plot Keywords:

Melodrama

Cast

Harry Houdini	...	Heath Haldane
Gladys Leslie	...	Adele Ormsby
William Humphrey	...	Edward Ormsby / Fuh Wong / Dr. Yu
Richard Carlyle	...	Joe Ivors
Edward Boulden	...	Raoul Usher (as Edward Bouldin)
Jane Jennings	...	Mrs. Clara Usher
Charles Fang	...	Ah Sing
Myrtle Morse	...	Andrea Dayton
Irving Brooks	...	Bruce Dayton

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Houdini Picture Corporation

Trivia:

A print of this film survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archives.

Straight-ahead international crime melodrama

Houdini seems to be making a bid for himself as leading man of moving pictures, as there isn't a pair of handcuffs in the film's six reels. At one point he is surround by the bad guy's henchmen and knocked unconscious and then - after their leader says "You know what to do with him!" -- thrown in the river...but is not bound in chains, stuffed in a sack, locked in a trunk etc. The film's sets and costumes are great, and the location footage in NYC, London and Paris are nice to see. The story and plot is contained in main dialog inter-titles, and feels like one of those silent films that was a stage play first, with a lot of scenes of people standing around doing exposition via inter-titles. At best this film is an interesting curiosity, and the surviving print looks great and is complete.