The focus shifts to personal tragedy, as well as Houdini’s singular obsession with debunking mediums and spiritualists, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s wife.Following HISTORY’s broadcast airing of the larger-than-life miniseries event on September 1 and 2, Houdini will be available on Digital HD the following day on September 3rd.
Houdini becomes more linear in part two as it chugs along toward Houdini’s final works - and early demise - in a way that feels thematically and visually removed from part one. Speculation that Houdini worked as a spy is presented here as fact, and the showman is seen predicting the Russian Revolution (one of several winking, and mostly unnecessary, historical additions). The miniseries also touches briefly on his shows in Europe - alongside right-hand man Jim Collins ( Evan Jones) - during which he meets Kaiser Wilhelm II ( Gyula Mesterhazy) and Tsar Nicholas Romanov II ( Simon Nader). Punctuating those tricks are ups and downs in his marriage to wife, Bess (a lovely Kristen Connolly), and episodes that illustrate his dependence on his mother, Cecilia ( Eszter Onodi). Many of his most well-known stunts are shown, including the Vanishing Elephant and the Chinese Water Torture Cell, which Brody acts out with infectious zest, fully embracing the part of showman. Under the direction of Uli Edel (who made 2008 foreign-language Oscar nominee The Baader Meinhof Complex), that voiceover ties together what is otherwise a fast-paced, somewhat scattered storytelling showcase of Houdini’s evolving tricks and trade, as the magician improves his act and grows ever more daring. Meyer), the miniseries also embraces the fictional by having Houdini narrate via a voiceover that features knowing eye-rollers like: “I would come home but, I’m all tied up.” Adapted by Nicholas Meyer from the 1976 book Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait (written by his father, Bernard C.
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