WHERE IN THE WORLD...

Where in the world did Paul Curry get the title for his most famous card trick, Out of this World? New York magician Paul Curry invented Out of this World in 1942 and it quickly became a favourite of magicians. Fred Braue ran a poll of the Five Best Tricks in Hugard’s Magic Monthly in 1947. Out of this World got the most votes for a single trick, coming third in the top five. Today, over 80 years since its creation. Out of this World is still regarded as unbeatable for its combination of extraordinary effect and simple-to-do method.

The method is so simple that Paul Curry thought little of the trick when he invented it. He was inspired by a trick of Walter Gibson’s called Pay Off (The Phoenix issue 1, February 1942). He and his friend John Scarne saw Audley Walsh perform it, liked it, and set about trying to come up with variations. Curry came up with Out of this World and put it on the market for a dollar only a month after Gibson’s trick debuted in The Phoenix. Curry said it took only 15 minutes to figure the trick out and he didn’t think the method that deceptive but he tried it on his wife and it worked. ‘To this day,’ Curry said, ‘I don’t quite understand why it should fool magicians.’ (Hugard’s Magic Monthly, December 1948). John Scarne’s variation on Gibson’s Pay Off was said to be so difficult ‘even Johnny couldn’t do it.’

Richard Wiseman recently staged a show about Paul Curry, The Invention of Magic, at the Edinburgh Fringe. It paid tribute to Curry's ingenuity. It was this show that set me wondering where Curry got the title for his most famous trick.

The phrase ‘Out of this World’ wasn’t new in 1942, but it certainly wasn’t as common as it is now. Where, I wondered might Curry have heard this novel phrase. We can track the frequency of words and phrases published in books using Google’s Ngram Viewer. The NGram charts shows a rise post 1940.

Here is a chart listing use of the phrase ‘Out of this World’ in US newspapers between 1934 and 1956. It’s not a complete representation of the entire archive but it’s pretty good.

Paul Curry lived in New York and if we examine newpapers in that area, we get this:

There’s a noticeable bump as we head towards and past 1940. When I looked at what was happening in New York, I found something interesting. 'Out of this World’ might have been familiar to New Yorkers because in 1941 it was announced that the famous Mask and Wig Club would present a new production, their 54th, in New York and it was called ‘Out of this World.’

Did Paul Curry see it? There’s no evidence that he did. But the Mask and Wig productions were incredibly popular. They had a new production every year. Later they would even be featured on the Ed Sullivan TV show. And writers Richard Levinson and Bill Link, would write six of their productions before becoming famous for creating the shabby detective Columbo.

Those writers loved magic which explains why it was featured several times in the show. Terri Rogers told me a story. She met one of the Columbo writers, I can't recall which, on a cruise ship she was booked for. Terri was booked for her ventriloquism act but she would often perform magic informally. It was during one of the magic sessions that Terri got talking to the writer who explained that he and his writing partner were so intrigued by Robert Harbin's Zig Zag Illusion that they had one brought to the set for filming. Just so they could examine the prop for themselves. In another version of this story, when the props were delivered the two writers immediately ran down to the set to see the trick. But the illusion wasn't there. The production had ordered the wrong prop. (Magic Magazine, March 2015).

Outside the world of magic, the phrase ‘Out of this World’ became more well known after this time because it was used in several high-profile media productions. 1945 gave us Out of this World the musical, a Hollywood movie starring Eddie Bracken and Veronica Lake. Bing Crosby dubbed the voice of the less musical Eddie Bracken.

The title song had been recorded a year earlier by Jo Stafford. The music was composed by Harold Arlen, who also composed for The Wizard of Oz, and lyrics were written by New Yorker Johnny Mercer who would go on to write classics like Moon River and Days of Wine and Roses. Maybe most interesting for magicians is the Arlen and Mercer has collaborated on The Old Black Magic the same year Paul Curry released Out of this World.

In 1947 we have the thrilling Out of This World radio series. Or one episode at least, a story about a ventriloquist adapted from the British movie Dead of Night (1945). The show featured a spooky Out of this World intro.

These items have nothing to do with Paul Curry. The phrase ‘Out of this World’ could well have been a bit of cool slang that found a place in the language during the 1940s. We shouldn’t forget that Paul Curry was 25 years old when he released Out of this World. Not that anyone ever described him as cool. Curry did not have a university education. He began his career working in the mailroom of the medical insurance company Blue Cross. He stuck to it and rose in the ranks to become vice president in 1964, retiring ten years later. The trick, Out of this World, has been published in books on magic for the public but before that had remained firmly in the domain of magicians for several decades.

Fred Braue wrote in the May 1946 edition of Hugard’s Magic Monthly: ‘So far as we know, no one has yet pirated "Out of this World". Everyone protects Curry on this one, and that's good.’ As we’ll see in a moment, this desire to protect the secret of Out of this World did not last forever.

One year after Curry became vice president of Blue Cross, Paul Curry wrote a magic book for the public called Magician’s Magic. I loved that book, not least because Paul Curry gave a full explanation of Out of this World. But many of the magicians of the time disliked the book, not just because they considered Curry had gone too far in releasing magic secrets to the public but because its contents were also serialised in newspapers.

Francis Haxton, writing to Stewart James, said:

I went into Davenports today to get my copies of the GENII and while I was there Bob Harbin came in. While we were talking to he and Pat Page, Betty Davenport having joined us, Bob Harbin picked a book off the counter, this being Paul Curry's Magicians Magic. After looking through it he spoke very disparaging of Curry for putting this out to the public and said that it was a hotch potch of material - it does not appeal to me either does not compare with the Curry material I am familiar with. John Young, reviewing the book in The Magic Circular, wrote: As Martin Gardner points out in his introduction, this book has been written for the Layman. In that event the professional or amateur magician may be pardoned for expressing concern at some of the disclosures that occur in the book. Admittedly, the sawing in half, the levitation with cranked bar, Stodare's Sphinx and the broom levitation have been described many times before, but one can only hope that those laymen who read the description of Paul Curry's own excellent "OUT OF THIS WORLD" will find the description too detailed to remember.

Bayard Grimshaw, writing in The Stage, and annoyed by a press article promoting Curry’s book, was blunter:

Can anyone explain to me just where the difference lies between picking a man's pocket and " lifting" his wallet, and robbing him of a part of his livelihood for personal gain? Which is what this amounts to.

Paul Curry addressed the question of exposing magic in the book, saying:

Exposing the secrets of professional magicians merely for the sake of letting someone know how tricks are done has little to recommend it. Revealing the prosaic and mechanical means by which a delightful and entertaining illusion has been worked out is deplored and opposed by magicians’ societies for the same reason that parents had rather not have their children made aware, at too early an age, that Santa Claus is partly made up of a false beard and two plump pillows. In the performance of magic, as in the beneficence of Santa, the effect succeeds only as long as the element of wonder is preserved.

He also explained what drew him to magic as a young boy when he saw the head on sword illusion performed at a fairground sideshow and why he decided to write a book about magic:

It was, the boy thought, the most wonderful thing he had seen in all of his nine years. On this day, however, something new was added. Possibly because of the end-of-season falloff in attendance, the barker promised that anyone buying a ticket would be permitted to step up on the platform and see how the trick was done. The youngster couldn’t believe that he had heard correctly. A chance to learn the answer to the wonderful puzzle that had been tantalizing him all summer! He was off like a shot, only to return quickly, half-dragging a reluctant father who dutifully bought two tickets and lifted his son onto the platform so that the boy could steal a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how a head could be made to exist without a body.

And now that the long-awaited secret was revealed, the boy found himself entranced by the sheer brilliance of it all. Why, he wondered, was there so much talk about Edison and Marconi and other so-called great men, when there were geniuses around who could in¬ vent real miracles such as this?

As it turned out, the boy would never forget that first glimpse into the world of magic. The fascination of that moment was to remain with him always, never lessening, but, in fact, deepening as his years and his knowledge of the subject increased.

Then one day there came the idea of sharing some of the things he had learned, an idea that others might also be caught up in the fascination of this most ancient of the arts — the art of magic.

And that is why he wrote this book.

I found Magician's Magic at my local library in the late 60s. It was far from the first book I read on magic, but the writing style conveyed Curry’s enthusiasm for the subject in the same way that Henry Hay had in The Amateur Magician’s Handbook.

Magician’s Magic featured some stage illusions that had inspired Curry including the head on sword trick he saw at the sideshow, but it also contained many of Curry’s own inventions, the jewel in the crown being Curry’s full handling of Out of this World. It was in this book that Paul Curry created something of a myth when he told the story of magician Harry Green baffling Winston Churchill with Out of this World:

It seems that one evening during World War II a group of Winston Churchill’s friends arranged a dinner party in an attempt to lighten, if only for an hour or so, the burdensome responsibilities that went with being a wartime prime minister.

The dinner proved to be a pleasant, relaxing, and welcome interlude in Churchill’s hectic, almost round-the-clock, schedule. But eventually duty called and even as “Winnie” lighted his after-dinner cigar, he realized he was behind time and at that moment he should have been on his way to an evening session of parliament. However, friends prevailed upon the Prime Minister to linger a moment or two, just long enough to permit magician Harry Green to demonstrate a new and baffling card trick.

The card trick was Out of this World and Churchill was so baffled he asked Harry Green to do it six times:

Finally giving it up, Churchill left to keep his belated appointment. The London Times, in reporting the incident, noted that when he finally arrived at parliament at 2 A.M., the Prime Minister was “befogged.”

Curry repeated the story in the book Worlds Beyond in 2001:

My warmest memory concerning this trick goes back to a day during World War II, when the mail brought a note and a newspaper clipping from a magician friend in London. “Congratulations,” the note read, “You’ve done something Hitler couldn’t do - you fooled Winnie.” The clipping from the London Times told how actor-magician Harry Green had, at Prime Minister Churchill’s insistence, performed “Out of This World” six times in a row. Still baffled, the report states, Churchill finally left for Parliament where his delayed arrival prompted the story. It’s something, I think, to know that an effort of yours occupied the thoughts, however briefly, of one of the world’s greatest men - particularly at a time when diversions could not have come easily.

The true story of Harry Green and Winston Churchill is a little different. I told it in Cardopolis 20 but I’ll repeat it here.

The incident occurred in June 1946. The war was over, Churchill had been ousted as Prime Minister and was now Leader of the Opposition. He had attended a show called Fifty-Fifty, a farce starring actor Harry Green who was also famous for his card tricks. According to Hannen Swaffer’s account in The People (June 30th, 1946), it was at a party after the show that Harry Green performed Out of this World. ‘Winston, one of a party of ten taken by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, his kinsmen, to see “Fifty-Fifty,” went behind the scenes, met the company and then supped with the Greens and the other guests in a private room at the Savoy. Afterwards, Harry produced a pack of cards, shuffled them, and then said to Churchill, “Lay them down in what order you like, backs up and in two rows – trying to put the reds in one row and the blacks in the other.” ‘When Winston had done his guessing, Harry turned the cards over. All the reds and all the blacks were in separate rows!’

Hannen Swaffer was a well-known newspaper columnist and drama critic. He was also a magic enthusiast, serving at one time on the committee of Will Goldston’s Magicians’ Club. He was probably aware of Out of this World, one of the most popular card tricks of the time and sold by UK dealers. He went on to say: ‘Churchill made him repeat the trick six times and then do others, hour after hour, over and over again. It was perhaps with his head full of millions and billions that, at 2.30 in the morning, he felt really capable of going down to criticise the Budget.’

Swaffer said that Churchill had been noted for his recent ‘absenteeism” from Parliament and so it was a surprise when, left ‘befogged’ by Harry Green, instead of going home he turned up at Parliament at 2.30 in the morning! He wasn’t late for work; he was exceedingly early. And perhaps a little worse for wear after a night out on the town.

The ‘millions and billions’ refers to an interesting line that Green used during the presentation. After the trick, he said to Churchill, “If you had bet £1 on being right over the first card, Mr. Churchill, and then doubled your bet each time, you would have won something like £2,000,000,000.” That might be an idea for anyone who wants to apply a gambling presentation to the trick.

Harry Green, real name Henry Blitzer, was, like Paul Curry, from New York. As an actor, he had appeared in many movies and moved to England where he became a popular figure in British entertainment, having his own TV series and even running a club called The Jack of Clubs in Berwick Street, London. You can see Harry Green and the club here Harry Green.

A PARTING OF THE WAYS

As Fred Braue had noted, magicians kept the secret of Out of this World to themselves for many years. Prior to Magician’s Magic, you’ll find the trick referred to in books for the public but all you’re told is that it is brilliant and you can buy it from a magic store for a dollar. For example, Bruce Elliott, writing in Professional Magic Made Easy (1959), said: 'I recommend that you purchase this miraculous seeming trick, since I am not at liberty to reveal it here.’

Paul Curry released Out of this World to the public in 1965, but Paul Clive, a magician in Blackpool, had beat him to it. Paul Clive described the trick under the title of The Parting of the Ways in his book Card Tricks Without Skill. This book was first published in 1946, while Out of this World was being hailed by magicians as the world’s greatest card trick. However, the trick did not appear in Clive’s 1946 book but it did appear in the revised 1959 edition published for the public by Faber & Faber at the same time that Bruce Elliott was saying it was not his to reveal.

Clive did credit Curry, and even give the original title, but there’s no indication he got permission to describe it. Neither did there seem any objection to its description in any of the complimentary reviews of the book I’ve read in the magic press. Card Tricks Without Skill was another book I read as a kid. But I totally overlooked The Parting of the Ways. Maybe it was the way Clive described it. The description in Magician’s Magic was much more inspiring, possibly because of the tale about it baffling Winston Churchill, and that’s where I learned it.

PAUL CLIVE

Time for a little side quest. I met Paul Clive. He ran a magic and novelty shop on the North Pier at Blackpool. As a teenager, I spent a lot of time frequenting the magic shops of Blackpool: The Mark Lewis Magic Studio, Murray’s Magic Mart, and the Paul Clive Magic Shop. I’d read Clive’s book and knew who he was when I saw him but I was far too shy to engage in conversation.

I spent a lot of time in his shop because behind him were a couple of shelves of second-hand magic books. He’d pass them to me, one at a time, to allow me to browse through them in the hope I would buy one. The first thing I’d look at was the pencilled price on the first page. I couldn’t afford most of these, but there was the thrill of browsing their pages and seeing all the illustrations for tricks I’d yet to understand.

While I browsed, Paul Clive walked slowly behind the counter producing bird calls with a little device he had in his mouth called a Ventrilo. People in the shop would pause and wonder where the chirping sounds were coming from. I should add that Paul Clive bore no resemblance to a showman, performer or prankster. The idea that the bird calls came from him was never considered. Eventually, he’d reveal the secret and sell another Ventrilo to a tourist.

I’ve since learned more about Paul Clive. He had been a salesman, selling canned goods, and doing magic shows in his free time. He moved to Blackpool in 1931 and had the shop on the North Pier since at least 1947, and a business address, Paul Clive & Co Ltd, in Cocker Street, Blackpool, since 1949. From there he marketed his ‘Witchcraft’ brand of tricks directly to magicians and wholesaled them to magic and novelty shops across the UK.

Card Tricks Without Skill was originally self-published, and featured some photographs, including photographs of his wife and daughters to whom the book was dedicated The book was universally praised and reputedly sold 3000 copies in 5 months. One year later, 1947, another 3,000 copies were sold of what was called ‘the second edition’ though it might have been a simple reprint. Those are incredible numbers for a book aimed solely at magicians. It was the expanded edition of 1959 that featured Out of this World.

The version I had was the 1968 paperback edition from Faber & Faber. No photographs and a little dull if I’m honest, at least compared to other magic books published by Faber & Faber, even though the tricks were well chosen.

Clive travelled to the USA, around 1949, with his wife Muriel and daughters Gloria and Francis. That trip was announced in Abracadabra as, ‘Starting 18th March, Paul Clive is to make a series of appearances on television in San Francisco.’ He must have liked it because he stayed there, living and performing in the San Francisco area for some years before returning to England in 1958.

A biography of Paul Clive appeared in The Berkeley Gazette (March 2nd, 1949) where it described him as, ‘a round faced chubby Britisher with a delightful personality and keen sense of humor not generally associated with an Englishman’ In addition to performing he operated a magic and novelty store as he had in Blackpool.

Paul Clive told Goodliffe Neale that magician and ventriloquist Douglas Craggs was his brother, a claim also made in the Berkeley Gazette article though Paul Clive also says his father was a John Clive, a chief inspector at Scotland Yard. So maybe Clive was joking with Goodliffe Neale when he said that to avoid confusion it was Paul who changed his name by deed poll. Anyway, when back in England Paul Clive brought out the 1959 edition of his book and added to his income by performing magic and pitching tricks, at homes and garden exhibitions.

That’s enough of a digression. Let’s get back to where we started. Out of this World wasn’t the first trick Paul Curry published. In 1937 he marketed Touch, a prediction effect that proved incredibly popular with magicians. By 1939 his friends were calling him a ‘magical genius.’ One of them, Oscar Weigle, wrote about Curry’s idea of the perfect effect (Genii August 1939), and it wasn’t Out of this World:

A group of us New York magical enthusiasts were having a typical Saturday afternoon gabfest over sandwiches and coffee at a local cafeteria recently, when friend Paul Curry, a magical genius if ever there was one, remarked on what he considered the perfect card effect. A card would be placed face down on the table. The spectator would be asked what he would like that card to be. Having named a card, the one on the table would be turned around and it would be the same!

I wonder if this connects with his development of the Curry Turnover Change which was published the same year (More Card Manipulations No 2). 1941 saw the publication of Curry’s first booklet for magicians, Something Borrowed, Something New. In the Foreword to the book Curry gives us an insight into his thinking in devising tricks:

My purpose, then, was to attempt to make more practical those tricks which I liked best and which I considered open to improvement. In some cases, this meant strengthening a method to allow for a better effect. In other instances, it was the effect which required the going over. in all cases, I tried to make a change for the better. I hope I have succeeded.

The effects in Something Borrowed, Something New are notably very direct. Take the following as an example:

THINK OF A CARD

A spectator fans thru a pack of cards, thinks of one, and the deck is placed aside. The mentalist, after painful (?) concentration, names the thought-of card!

The Curry Turnover Change is described there along with nine excellent uses for it. There is also an effect called Potpourri. Readers of Magician’s Magic will recognise it as The Joker Knows. It was one of my favourite tricks from the book.

Paul Curry’s magic was not only direct but there was always a novel core principle at work that made the effect possible. There was minimum effort for maximum effect. He explored familiar territory but took different routes. The shortest route too and that’s what makes his tricks so practical. I’ve taken a long and winding route to get to the point of this article. Was Paul Curry inspired by a university theatre production in choosing a name for the world’s greatest card trick? I don’t have any concrete evidence that he did. But, like Harry Green’s performance for Winston Churchill, it makes a good story and I like to believe that it might be true.

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HOUDINI AND THE SEA MONSTER

Houdini escapes from the belly of a sea monster!  I was a teenager when I first read this sensational tale in Milbourne Christopher’s Houdini: The Untold Story (1969). The book described an event that took place in 1911 after a ‘sea monster,’ sometimes described as a ‘cross between an octopus and a whale,’ was found on the beach near Boston. Local businessmen challenged Houdini to escape from inside the carcass and he accepted. I read several accounts of the stunt, all were vague and none of them gave details of the mysterious creature that had washed up on the shore. This was very annoying because, in addition to magic, I was also thoroughly absorbed by cryptozoological mysteries, and avidly read books on the Loch Ness monster, the Abominable Snowman and dinosaurs that roamed the jungles of the Congo. What the hell was that sea monster?

When Milbourne Christopher referred to the sea monster, he used quotation marks. I confess I didn’t take any notice of them at the time or even realise their significance, an oversight that many chroniclers of Houdini’s exploits have also made. The story is briefly but tantalisingly referenced in many books. Occasionally quotes are used but often they are not. Harold Kellock, in the biography authorised by Houdini’s wife, describes the creature as ‘a sort of crossbreed of whale and octopus.’ He also has the escape taking place offshore with Houdini being lowered into the water  and inside the ‘dark, meaty dungeon.’

Particularly perplexing for me was that none of the Houdini books had a photograph of the ’sea monster’ or, as you might expect, one of the great escapologist standing triumphantly beside it. For a kid obsessed by monsters, that was very irritating. Then along came the Internet.

Houdini's sea monster haunted me for decades but all became clearer in 2011 when Campaign Outsider published a photo of the creature online.

The photo came from The Boston Post (Sept 25th, 1911). Why this photo did not appear against any of the published accounts in magic books is an interesting question. But, following the lead given by Campaign Outsider, and delving into the digital archives of Boston newspapers, here is what I’ve been able to put together about Houdini and the Sea Monster.

On Sunday, August 13th the sea monster was brought into Boston Harbour by the steamer S. S. Prince Arthur. The Prince Arthur made daily trips between Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Boston, a distance of some 300 miles. And the creature, openly identified as a giant turtle by the Boston press, who covered just about every aspect of the story, had been harpooned in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, by Captain George DuBois. The Captain said the seven-foot turtle put up quite a fight and that it was a struggle to get it into his small, powered dory boat. The intention seems to have been to take the turtle to Boston where it could be cut up and sold for meat to restaurants, to make turtle soup. Turtle soup was a popular dish at the time. The then President of the United States, William Taft, was said to have hired his chef because of his skill at making this favourite dish.

This turtle did not become soup, a more ignominious fate awaited the poor beast. Instead, it was exhibited as a ‘Sea Monster’ at the Boston pier known as Long Wharf. The creature was now reported as weighing 1,000lbs, and resembled a cross between a seal and a turtle. Some of the press seemed keen to tell their readers that this was more than a turtle. ‘Persons interested in strange forms of life will doubtless make a point of seeing it. To school children it will prove especially interesting.’

It wasn’t long before those interested in zoology became curious about the ‘sea monster.’ Professor Henshaw and his team at the Agassiz Natural History Museum at Harvard College identified the creature as a 500lb a turtle, spargias coriacea, a species that originated in the ‘Southern Waters, near the Caribbean Sea’ and was said to rarely come north. It’s from the family of leatherback turtles.

The professors had the turtle embalmed, possibly for the museum, but somehow it remained on exhibit at  Long Wharf. While the capture of a large turtle might have been rare it was not unprecedented. In July 1906, the Boston Post reported the landing of a ‘monster keel-back turtle in the Georges fishing grounds near Cape Cod. It took fourteen men to pull this nearly eight-foot turtle into the boat after it had been harpooned. Even while wounded its powerful flippers and snapping beak meant it was still dangerous. Rather than try to finish the creature off they let it die on deck. 

The year before Houdini’s escape, 1910, the Boston Sunday Post featured a story about a ‘Giant Turtle’ captured 65 miles off Highland Light, Cape Cod, that was said to weigh over 1,100lbs and was taken to Gloucester for exhibition. Quite a few giant turtles, like the one above, ended up on exhibition. One crew were paid $250 for their dead turtle, the idea being that some prospective Barnum would put it on display. Despite this, newspapers were still fond of portraying their capture as a battle between fishermen and sea monsters. It made a better story than saying they’d harpooned a turtle that was lost having wandered too far north.

One month after the Long Wharf sea monster went on exhibition, the 36-year-old Houdini arrived in Boston to play B. F. Keith’s Theatre. As was his custom, to drum up business for the show, Houdini announced that he would accept challenges from the local townsfolk ‘to furnish any sort of a box, can, package or bag specially constructed with a view to holding him captive, from which he will escape.’ The only stipulation was that he be given 24 hours notice so that the challenge could be advertised in the newspapers.

John F. Masters issued such a challenge on the 25th September. He dared Houdini to escape from inside Long Wharf’s famous sea monster, which was now reported as, ‘weighing more than 1,500lbs, and estimated to be about 500 years old.’ John F. Masters managed the business of the Dominion Atlantic Railway Steamship Company at Long Wharf, the owners of the Prince Arthur, the ship that brought the turtle to Boston and had arranged for its exhibition. More significantly, Masters also worked in tourism and you’ll find his name in many of Nova Scotia’s tourist ads and brochures. The challenge clearly had promotional advantages for Masters, the steamship company and the local area. 

Masters called in other local businessmen to support him, and all got a name check in The Boston Post article announcing the challenge. And this is where we get our only glimpse of the ‘Freak Sea Monster,’ a photograph that clearly shows it is a turtle. A big turtle for sure but not a cross between a whale and an octopus or any other chimeric creature you might imagine when seeing the words ‘Sea Monster.’ The teenage me would have been very disappointed.

Houdini responded to Masters’ challenge. ‘This is the most original challenge I have ever accepted. If you bring your sea monster to the stage of B. F. Keith’s Theatre on Tuesday evening, Sept. 26. 1911. I will submit to the conditions you name.’ One of those conditions was that he have enough ventilation while inside the carcass. ‘As the inside of a fish or turtle is not the most desirable place to be for any length of time.’ 

The challenge actually took place on the afternoon of Tuesday, 26th September. Crowds of people followed the sea monster, ‘an exceedingly evil looking brute,’ as it was paraded through the streets and the one mile distance from Long Wharf to B. F. Keith’s Theatre on Mason Street.

The turtle was on stage when Houdini read out the details of the challenge to a packed theatre. As Houdini was finishing, John F. Masters ‘sprang to his feet’ and asked permission to read a legal document he had drawn up for Houdini to sign before undertaking the stunt. The document stated that as the turtle had been embalmed using arsenic Houdini took all responsibility and relieved the challengers and their heirs for evermore. Houdini took this unforeseen demand in his stride and bravely signed his life away.

This eleventh hour revelation is a small stroke of genius. And I think we can be confident that it was dreamt up by Houdini not Masters. Houdini went off stage to change his clothes and returned wearing ‘blue jumpers, and armed with three handkerchiefs and two bottles of strong perfume.’ He sprayed the perfume inside the turtle. A gang of sea skippers then proceeded to chain and manacle Houdini, the details of which were reported.

‘Houdini was bound hand and foot with handcuffs and leg irons and was then placed inside the big monster. The belly of the monster was then laced tightly with strong chain. The eyelets through which the chain was passed being three inches apart. After being laced in, the chains were locked by numerous locks and then strapped around the monster were more chains which in turn were locked.’

Houdini’s assistants Franz Kukol and Jim Collins were there to place Houdini inside the turtle. ‘It was a tight squeeze.’ Already gasping for breath, Houdini asked them to hurry. Bess Houdini watched from the wings. The turtle was left belly up, ‘so that Houdini could get a little air by pressing his lips against the chains.’ A red curtained cabinet was placed around Houdini and the turtle, and the orchestra began to play.

15 minutes later, Houdini came bounding from inside the cabinet, his hair mussed, and his face drenched in sweat.  The packed audience cheered and the challenging committee congratulated him. Still apparently suffering from his suffocating ordeal, Houdini called for the windows and doors of the theatre to be opened so that fresh air could be let in. Whenever this escape is mentioned, so too is Houdini’s struggle for breath having been almost overcome by the embalming fumes. 

Newspapers reported that Houdini’s escape was much quicker than the three days Jonah spent inside a whale. Before the event was over, Houdini announced that another challenge would be met the next day. Two locals had invited Houdini to escape from a restraint used to incapacitate the insane. This time the escape would be ‘in full view of the audience.’ And so, with the promise of another captivating challenge, Houdini kept his public enthralled.

Two days after Houdini’s escape, the turtle was back at its regular job: ’Sea Monster which challenged Houdini now on exhibition at Long Wharf. Admission 10 cents.’

Houdini and the Sea Monster gives us a detailed insight into how Houdini constructed a challenge, and how not only the press of the day but historians of later years reported it.  Even before Houdini arrived on the scene the turtle was referred to as a sea monster. Houdini and the journalists were often in the same business, selling stories and entertainment. Though I do detect a little more scepticism from The Boston Herald than The Boston Post. Historians while dedicated to uncovering the reality of the past are also susceptible to a little myth making. Better to not look too deeply into the mystery of the sea monster if you want to tell a good story. Oddly, Houdini himself doesn't seem to have made much of his escape from the sea monster. It does not appear to be an event he boasted about. The stunt served its purpose, and was only one of several challenges performed during his engagement in Boston, but perhaps it was something he didn't want anyone digging into. We can only speculate. 

However, the sea monster is a splendid example of a Houdini challenge that is unique to the location. Houdini surrounds the challenge of the unknown with his tried and tested work with handcuffs, chains and locks.  He counters uncertainty be creating a firm base from which to operate. The novel challenge also provides unique staging opportunities. The parade of the sea monster to the venue. The last-minute signing of a document absolving the challengers of responsibility. The possibility of being poisoned and the final call to throw open the doors and windows to let in fresh air.  This is a professional at the top of his game and who knows exactly how to extract the maximum from any performance. He did all this for one show. For Houdini, every stunt brought new opportunities.

Houdini’s greatest talent was his showmanship. The best of his challenges tell the story of a hero who struggles, almost fails and then succeeds, sometimes at great cost. We can find this pattern in some of Houdini’s best-known escapes, like the Daily Mirror Handcuff Challenge where he almost fails, dramatically cuts himself free of his coat and then escapes only to bear the scars for the rest of his life. At least that is how the event has been retold. The sea monster has all those elements and more. It’s a story where myth meets legend, Monster vs Houdini. A battle between man and beast embroidered by the public's imagination. Houdini created stories and played them out on stage. Stories that pitted the human spirit against whatever could be thrown against it. Stories that survive even today, keeping his memory alive and transforming a life into legend.

FINALLY

Giant turtles still find their way north. Just this month one washed up at Cape Cod. Luckily it was pushed back into the waters before any Barnum could lay hands on it. You can read about it here.

If you are interested in Houdini, then do visit Wild About Harry, the incredible blog from John Cox. John has posted a couple of times about this story including some pages from an unproduced movie script about Houdini in which the sea monster makes an appearance.

The photographs of Houdini in this article are credited to the State Library Victoria in Australia, specifically the Will Alma collection. This is a tremendous resource for anyone interested in magic and its history. And you will find it here.

If you are interested in the history of magic, you might want to check out a book I worked on with David Copperfield, Richard Wiseman and Homer Liwag. It's called David Copperfield's History of Magic and is available from 26th October just about anywhere they sell books, including Amazon. David Copperfield has an astonishing collection of Houdini equipment at his museum in Las Vegas and if you ever have the opportunity to visit, grasp that opportunity with both hands. It is simply breathtaking. 

CARDOPOLIS ISSUE 20 - OUT NOW

 

Cardopolis Issue 20 is available now. It is free and you can subscribe here. Inside you'll find Bob Ostin's Paper Prison, a magician's view of a card cheating move and a different take on Paul Curry's Out of this World.