Thursday, October 5, 2017

Houdini


THE GRIM GAME-1919-In an elaborate plan to save a newspaper reporter Hanson (magician/escape artist Harry Houdini) and the paper's owner, also Hanson's uncle devise a plan wherein Hanson will be arrested for the (faked) murder of the uncle. Things don't go as planned and the uncle is really murdered and Hanson is arrested and jailed. He spends the rest of the movie eluding his captors and trying to save his kidnapped girlfriend (Ann Forest). Since it's Houdini he escapes from various traps including a straitjacket while hanging off the side of a building. Somehow he and his girlfriend even manage to walk away from a plane crash they are in while looking for the real murderer! 

Once considered a lost film, THE GRIM GAME was restored with the help of TCM in 2016 after a copy had been found a few years earlier. It features an actual mid-air collision that wasn't suppose to happen (no one was hurt). 

This is one of 5 movies the great Houdini appeared in from 1919-1923. He died in 1926 at age 52. Director Irvin Willat also directed FALSE FACES (1919) which features Lon Chaney.  

 

Thanks for reading!


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