Highly Overrated But Still Good

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Another outrageously ignored, underrated and neglected biopic excellently staged on film with great performances everywhere, especially by Paul Michael Glaser, Sally Struthers and Ruth Gordon as the three main characters in the complicated relationships between son, mother and wife, the two latter having problems with each other, the wife coming between the mother and son and the mother always intruding in his marriage even after her death. The best scene is the first London scene, when Houdini accidentally meets Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Peter Cushing, not very like the real Doyle) and the director of Scotland Yard (the old incorrigible Wilfred Hyde-White) with consequences. The development of the relationship between Houdini and Doyle is true to history, they actually became almost enemies after having started as true friends understanding each other, while Houdini never could accept Doyle's weakness for elves. The spiritualistic part of the story though gives Doyle the right, who survived Houdini with five years, and this is actually the most interesting part of his story. All the tricks with his constantly risking his life twice a day ("and thrice on Saturdays") is all too well known, so not more than necessarily much celluloid is spent on all that, while the drama is his personal relationships. The domestic family scenes and the one in Budapest are priceless for very convincing insights, especially the Jewish wedding scene at home. The jewel in the crown however is the fantastic performance by Vivian Vance as the nurse and indispensable factotum who actually both introduces the drama and finishes it, in a very clearly surveyable interesting and skillful composition to explain the extraordinary life of one of the greatest magicians ever.

An extremely well made TV-movie directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Paul Michael Glaser as Harry Houdini. The films tracks the great magician's rise to fame in the early 1900s, his smashing success in London (where he befriends author Arthur Conan Doyle), and his ultimate demise in 1926. Covering Houdini's obsession with debunking spiritualists of the day, the film has quite a number of creepy séance scenes. Glaser is quite energetic in the title role and he's well paired with Sally Struthers as his infinitely patient wife Bess. Ruth Gordon is miscast as Houdini's meddlesome and highly intolerant mother. It's a role better suited for Shelley Winters. Director Shavelson (along with co-writer Peter Benchley) moves things along briskly. The supporting cast includes Adrienne Barbeau, Jack Carter, Peter Cushing (as Conan Doyle), Maureen O'Sullivan and Vivian Vance, who steals her scenes as the Houdini's wise-cracking live-in nurse.

This made-for-TV movie didn't do much for the careers of Paul Michael Glaser and Sally Struthers, who were starring in successful TV series at the time but didn't go on to bigger careers. It is simply a darker remake of the 1953 "Houdini," which starred Tony Curtis as legendary magician Harry Houdini and Janet Leigh as his wife. It's no more accurate than the previous film, and it's inferior in almost every way. Its only advantage is the physicality of action star Glaser in the title role. Houdini, like all the great escape artists of his day, was as much an athlete as an illusionist. Glaser looks like an athlete, which Curtis did not.

This is by far the best movie about Houdini. Paul Michael Glaser was wonderful as Houdini, Sally Struthers was excellent, and Vivian Vance was terrific as the Nurse. Would love to get this movie pre-recorded but have not been able to find it.