How Edinburgh was held captive by Houdini

The greatest escape artist the world had ever seen was in town and, incredibly, he wanted to share his immense wealth with the city's poor and pitiful children.

Word spread like wildfire. Any child who did not have a pair of boots to his or her name should make their way to the theatre where Houdini was performing and receive a fine pair of boots.

In return, Harry Houdini, billed as the "world-famous self-liberator" and the "handcuff king" would, of course, bask in the glow of some very good publicity.

"He was so shocked at the bare feet of the kiddies that he had them all into the theatre, and fitted them then and there with 500 pairs of boots," wrote Houdini's friend, Sherlock Holmes' creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. "He was never too busy to give a special free performance for the youngsters . . . he was the greatest publicity agent that ever lived."

It is almost a century ago, yet even now the name Harry Houdini can conjure up vivid images of an apparently superhuman escapologist with the ability to free himself from almost any lock, knot of chains or nailed box, even better if it had been plunged deep underwater with him inside.

Now a semi-factual story of Harry Houdini's times in Edinburgh is to be played out on the silver screen in a major budget film starring Australian actor Guy Pearce as Houdini and almost certainly Rachel Weisz as the fictional spiritualist he attempts to unmask as a con-woman.

Filming of the 10 million production, Death Defying Acts, is due to begin early next year, when Australian director Gillian Armstrong will turn Glasgow-born Brian Ward and fellow scriptwriter Tony Grisoni's intriguing tale into a blockbuster movie. "Nearly all the film is set in Scotland, and around 95 per cent of it will be shot in Scotland," says Brian, 51, who wrote the recent US hit The Interpreter starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. The production, he adds, would be "a massive boost for Edinburgh".

Houdini certainly had strong links with the Scottish capital: from an intriguing friendship with Conan Doyle, a fervent believer in spiritualism as opposed to Houdini's scathing dismissal, to his sell-out appearances at the Gaiety Theatre in Leith and The Empire Palace - now the Festival Theatre - from 1905 until 1920.

Clearly Edinburgh audiences took the diminutive Hungarian-born seventh son of a Jewish rabbi to their hearts, packing theatres to see him head the variety show bill, bringing locks, boxes and anything else they could use to secure the great Houdini and win upwards of 100.

Houdini was happy to accept one impossible-sounding challenge from four determined employees of a local building contractor: "Houdini has accepted a challenge from four employees of Mr Adam Currie, Building Contractor, Newington Works, Edinburgh, to escape from a strong box. Constructed in full view of the audience, the lid will be nailed down, and the box roped up, also in full view of the audience," says one advert from April 1914 for another Empire appearance.

According to the later review from the Scotsman in December 1910: "Three expert joiners challenged the performer to escape from a large and strong wooden box or chest which they specially constructed, the condition being that after Houdini had entered it they would nail down the lid, rope the box and nail the ropes to the wood."

The box with Houdini inside, was then placed behind a canvas screen while the audience watched and waited. "It was almost 12 minutes before the drapery in front of the pavilion was swept aside and Houdini appeared, showing the box apparently intact and in the same condition as before he entered it," says the review. "He said jocularly, the only difference was that whereas before he was inside, now he was outside."

So it, like every other attempt to halt Houdini, failed. He never did have to pay out to a successful challenger.

Spectacular though his achievements were, it is possible his Edinburgh shows may not have been exactly riveting all of the time.

"In his day, he was quite something," says Mick Hanzick, a skilled locksmith and one of the country's leading authorities on Houdini's life. "He was doing things that no-one else was doing and he became famous exceptionally quickly. However, the audience would have to sit and watch him being tied up or locked inside a box, then sit for maybe ten or 15 minutes just looking at the box with nothing else happening.

"Today there would be lasers, music, dancing girls. Of course they watched in the hope that he would fail. He didn't."

THE movie, says scriptwriter Brian, "takes certain facts in his life and turns them into fiction. It places him in Edinburgh in 1926, the year of his death, and centres around not just the great escapes, but his other obsession - the debunking of psychics. The fact it is set in Edinburgh is the most important point."

He died almost 80 years ago, but Brian believes there is still a huge amount of interest in the Houdini story, even if it does have a fictional element. "His name is part of our language," he says. "He was the first great superstar."

Adverts and theatre reviews of Houdini's Edinburgh appearances can be found by subscribing to The Scotman's unique digital archive service, found on archive.scotsman.com.

Showman cut his teeth on mother's pantry

HARRY HOUDINI was born Ehrich Weisz in Hungary in 1874, moving to America with his parents at the age of four.

He first showed his talent for cracking locks when he broke into his mother's pantry to steal apples.

He changed his name at the age of 15 as a tribute to the French magician Jean Robert-Houdin, adding the letter "i" to his name. As a showman, he became world famous for escaping from buried coffins, burglar-proof safes and even a death row prison cell. He was also the first man to fly a plane in Australia.

He died on Hallowe'en, 1926 after collapsing on stage following a punch to the stomach from a member of the audience.