"Tell me," I begged, "are the feats you do on the screen different to those you do enact before the footlights?"
"Entirely different," was the reply.
"In fact, some of the biggest critics have said that I am more wonderful on the screen than on the stage. That, I consider, is one of the greatest compliments ever paid me. But it has taken years of training to produce the tricks, or problems, I do in my films."
Houdini has made, to date, three pictures. The first of these, "The Master Mystery," a serial, is now enjoying enormous popularity all over the country. The remaining two, "The Grim Game," and "Terror Island," are feature pictures, and are still unreleased by Paramount Artcraft though this year will see the first-named on our screens. In the making of "The Master Mystery," Houdini sustained seven black eyes and a broken wrist. He also broke his wrist whilst making "The Grim Game."
A TENSE MOMENT
"During the screening of this picture I thought at one time in the course of the action, that my end had come," he told me. "I was 3,000 feet up in an aeroplane, circling over another machine. The plan was for me to drop from my 'plane into the cockpit of the other by means of a rope. I was dangling from the rope-end ready for the leap. Suddenly a strong wind turned the lower plane upwards, the two machines crashed together—nearly amputating my limbs—the propellers locked in a deadly embrace, and we were spun round and round and round." Houdini pronounced the latter words with a peculiarly apt "whirring" intonation, graphically illustrating them by the circular action of the arms. "But," he continued, "by a miracle, the 'planes were righted into a half-glide, and, though they were smashed into splinters by their terrific impact, I managed to escape unhurt. As usual, Houdini became undone!" concluded the narrator with a laugh.
HIS GREATEST STUNT
"What do you consider the greatest stunt you have done for the screen?" I asked, when I had recovered my breath.
"Another incident in the same picture," answered Houdini. "I stood in the archway of a prison, thus——" Here he took up a crouching position in the corner of the room, and enacted the whole thing for my benefit. "A heavily loaded lorry, going at twenty-two or four miles an hour rolled by me. I threw myself on the ground, completely rolling over between the fast revolving fore and hind wheels, over and over, till I caught the transmission bar, and hung there for very dear life! Thus was I carried to the aid of the heroine. Though my words may not convey very much, this was my greatest stunt. It allowed for no rehearsals—I said to the camera-man, 'Get this now or never!' And had I made the slightest false move I should have been crippled for life, if not killed."
In spite of the risks he has taken before the camera, Houdini has a profound love and admiration for the "movies."