 |
| Detroit Free Press, Oct. 17, 1926 |
Below is an advertisement for the Garrick from that same issue of the Free Press. Note that Houdini's show was succeeding the play Abie's Irish Rose (which makes for a good trivia question). Opening day, Sunday, October 24, was the only day Houdini would perform.
How did the newspaper get so much detail about the 3 in 1? Must have been the advance guy HH hired to advertise the show ahead of the group.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is just standard advance publicity. Makes me wonder if the 3 Shows in One had a pressbook. That would be a phenomenal thing to find.
Delete
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff John as always. I especially appreciate seeing the photograph from Mr. Hinson’s collection of Harry performing on stage. Of all the mysteries surrounding Houdini, the one I’ve never heard explained or seldom even discussed, was why such a photogenic performer who loved the camera and left behind more images than perhaps any vaudeville performer of his era, had so few photographs taken while performing on stage. Especially since he used newspapers copiously for publicity and they all had photographers. Could it be that he preferred to “stage“ his photos rather than have photos taken while on “stage“?
It could be it was just technically difficult back then to take a photo inside a theater during an actual performance. A photo of that scale needed to be staged and lit and set up with stationary cameras, etc. And everyone had to stand perfectly still for the long exposure time. A normal handheld camera shooting images in motion inside a theater probably wouldn't capture much of anything.
DeleteThe few 3 in 1 photos we know of look staged to me, like Radio 1950 with Dorothy. The only stage photo of HH is strange. The stage is filled with props, and that's not how a magic show works. The magician performs an effect, the prop is removed afterwards, and the next prop is introduced. There is no clutter of props on the stage.
DeleteThe technical photography lighting difficulties would certainly add issues. Just for a lark I went to YouTube this afternoon to see if there was old footage of any vaudeville acts performing on stage and this link took me to a 39 seconds clip of various vaudeville acts of the 1920s. The last few seconds show Houdini performing close up magic on stage! I just got lucky.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/f_CTD231Occ
Nice! That footage of HH wasn't captured onstage during a performance. That's from a short he made.
Delete