I saw this movie on TV when I was a kid in the 70s and became fascinated with Houdini (I was especially fascinated by the scene where he is trapped under the ice-covered Detroit River).
However, having read the excellent biography by Kenneth Silverman, and seeing the movie again, I realize that it is only very, very loosely based on Houdini's actual life. Very few of the events that are depicted in the movie actually occurred.
Examples (from my memory of the biography) - Houdini did not meet his wife Bess while playing a "Wild Man" in a freak show, he did not take some time off from performing magic to work in a lock manufacturing plant, there was no mystical German magician who Houdini sought out in his European travels, he never had a German personal assistant, and he did not die on stage performing a trick that Bess had asked him not to perform. In addition it does not cover a number of other topics, such as the fact that Houdini was a pioneer aviator.
On the other hand, it gets some basic details right: his close relationship with his mother, his efforts to contact her after death through psychic mediums, and his efforts to expose fraudulent psychics.
On balance, I generally like what they did in terms of weaving a few factual details into an otherwise fictionalized account of Houdini. However anyone seeking to separate myth and fact about Houdini should check out the Silverman biography.
However, having read the excellent biography by Kenneth Silverman, and seeing the movie again, I realize that it is only very, very loosely based on Houdini's actual life. Very few of the events that are depicted in the movie actually occurred.
Examples (from my memory of the biography) - Houdini did not meet his wife Bess while playing a "Wild Man" in a freak show, he did not take some time off from performing magic to work in a lock manufacturing plant, there was no mystical German magician who Houdini sought out in his European travels, he never had a German personal assistant, and he did not die on stage performing a trick that Bess had asked him not to perform. In addition it does not cover a number of other topics, such as the fact that Houdini was a pioneer aviator.
On the other hand, it gets some basic details right: his close relationship with his mother, his efforts to contact her after death through psychic mediums, and his efforts to expose fraudulent psychics.
On balance, I generally like what they did in terms of weaving a few factual details into an otherwise fictionalized account of Houdini. However anyone seeking to separate myth and fact about Houdini should check out the Silverman biography.