Breaking the ice in 1959

On the eve of the publication of Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls, this article appeared in the Detroit Free Press. I think we can classify this as the first public debunking of the famed trapped under the ice story. I like that the article credits the man who did the research for Gresham, the great Robert Lund (above), best known for his American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan.

Detroit Free Press, Aug. 2, 1959.

Ironically, this article ends with a new myth about how Houdini may have escaped from the Mirror Handcuffs. It's Houdini myth whack-a-mole!

Of course, the best depiction of the under-the-ice myth is in the 1953 Houdini biopic starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Coincidently, that sequence is the topic of the next "Deconstructing Houdini '53," which I will be posting this Saturday.

Related:

• Houdini freezes the Detroit river in 1912
• Punching a new hole in the ice story
• The first great Houdini biography