HOUDINI'S MOVIES COMING TO DVD!

Great news for fans of Houdini’s silent movie career (like myself)! On April 8, 2008, Kino International will release ALL of Houdini’s surviving silent films in a single DVD box set.

Houdini The Movie Star will include The Master Mystery (Episodes 1-15), Terror Island, The Man From Beyond, and, for the first time ever on any home video format, Haldane of the Secret Service.

And there’s more. The set will also include a 5 minute fragment from The Grim Game (at the moment, the last “lost” Houdini film), filmed records of Houdini escapes from 1907 to 1923, audio recording of Houdini speaking, excerpts from the NY Censor Board files (not sure what this is), Slippery Jim, a 1910 Houdini-inspired comedy, footage of Metamorphosis being performed by Houdini s brother Hardeen, photo galleries, and film notes.

Houdini The Movie Star can be pre-ordered now on Amazon.com.

The Houdini Chronicles

Houdini certainly seems to be popular with poets these days. Last year we got two Houdini inspired books of poetry (Sleeping With Houdini and The Anatomy of Keys). Now only a few weeks into 2008 we get another.

According to the description on Amazon.com, The Houdini Chronicles by Hope Maxwell-Snyder is a volume of poetry written in three voices and “depicts a love affair between Harry Houdini and his muse, who falls in love with him after seeing his picture on the Internet. Their relationship questions traditional roles and explores boundaries with humor and melancholy.”

The Houdini Chronicles is published by Somondoco Press and can be purchased on Amazon.

Presto! First new Houdini book of 08 appears

The first new Houdini book of 2008 is now shipping from Amazon. Saddelback Education Publishers HOUDINI is the latest release in their Graphic Biography series. These fully illustrated 32-page softcovers teach students about historical figures in a comic book format.

This is actually not a new book. It’s a reprint of a 1984 “pocket biography” released by Academic Industries. However, in that edition the illustrations were pen and ink, while here they are in full color. The book is also in a larger format.

This article first appeared on Houdini Lives.