Unlike Walking Through A Brick Wall, we actually don't know for certain how Houdini vanished his elephant. But we know it wasn't as shown above. In fact, even the presentation is incorrect here. Houdini vanished his elephant from a large cabinet, not from behind a screen. The best theories of how Houdini may have accomplished this feat appear in Jim Steinmeyer's brilliant Hiding The Elephant and Patrick Culliton's essential Houdini The Key.
Curiously, even though "R.D. Adams" offered explanations that today appear to be false, both Leonard Hicks and Houdini's close friend Joseph Rinn claimed Adams' did indeed reveal the correct methods.
Related:
"Huge roller spring pulls up curtain in flash while audience blinks eyes when magician fires gun." LOL! Boy! He had everything timed to a "T", didn't he? Why, he even knew when the audience was most apt to blink, & did all his dirty work at those points. ROTFL! :D
ReplyDeleteI don't consider Steinmeyer and Culliton's explanation of Houdini's Vanishing Elephant to be theories. I think they're spot on. The HH Elephant Vanish was an evolution of Charles Morritt's Disappearing Donkey.
ReplyDeleteWell, until we know for certain, by definition any explanation has to be consider a theory. Heck, we don't even know what the cabinet looked like. A photo of that could change everything. But I accept their explanations as almost certainly correct.
DeleteHere's a brand new story from The Daily Mail. The author, too, believes the Morrit story (as do most of us). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-471954/The-Yorkshire-man-taught-Houdini-make-elephant-disappear.html
ReplyDeleteThat's actually a pretty old story (2007). But, yeah, the Morritt design is what Jim Steinmeyer championed in his book and is what many, if not most, now believe. But did you see my recent 100 year post? It's not universally accepted.
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