Houdini (1953)
Trivia
A talented amateur magician, Tony Curtis performed most of his own tricks in this film.
The movie contains several factual errors, the most telling of which is the dramatization of Harry Houdini's death. In the film he almost drowns in the torture tank trick and dies on the stage in the arms of his wife. In real life he was punched in the stomach by a college student who had heard that Houdini could withstand any blow without harm. This did, indeed, rupture his appendix. He later collapsed on stage, was taken to the hospital and died there.
Harry Houdini's real name was Weiss (the German word for the color white), and he is played here by Tony Curtis, whose real name is Schwartz (schwarz is the German word for the color black).
Although Houdini didn't die onstage at a Halloween performance, as this film would have you believe, he did, indeed, die on Halloween, 1926, several weeks after his last stage performance. To this day, in Houdini's memory, October 31st is celebrated as International Magic Day.
Three years before this film was made, 20th-Century Fox was negotiating with Houdini's family to make a picture called "The Life of Houdini" and starring Burt Lancaster in the title role.
Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis appeared together in five films: Houdini (1953), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), The Vikings (1958), The Perfect Furlough (1958), and Who Was That Lady? (1960).
In an interview made in his home studio on Thursday June 1st 1995, Mike Oldfield told that the song "Moonlight Shadow", which is probably his best known song and most successful single, was originally inspired by this movie.
To get publicity, Houdini (played by Tony Curtis) dangled from a flagpole upside down while escaping from a straight jacket. In the 1965 movie The Great Race, the publicity seeking The Great Leslie, also played by Tony Curtis, dangles upside down from a balloon while escaping from a straight jacket.
The studio intended to give top billing to Janet Leigh, who was a bigger name than her co-star Tony Curtis. Leigh insisted on second billing to then-husband Curtis, reflecting the social norms of the time that a married woman's husband came first and the woman second.
Although portrayed as a school girl in the film, Bess Houdini was actually working in her own act at Coney Island when she met Houdini.
