Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

jc-osms Here's a bright, colourful, entertaining if not always factually accurate biopic of the great escapologist Harry Houdini. Tony Curtis plays the part with great brio as you'd expect and is well supported by his fretful but usually supportive wife played coincidentally by his real life wife of the time Janet Leigh.Of course being a Hollywood screen biography, it plays pretty loosely with the facts, most obviously with his apparent death scene in the last reel just after he's broken out of his not-quite death- defying water torture escape. Maybe the director thought that the reputed story of a young student punching him in the stomach unawares was a bit tawdry but this substitute conclusion seemed over-melodramatic in the extreme.Otherwise, while I'm no expert on Houdini's career I did recognise other familiar incidents in the entertainer's life, including breaking out of a London prison, the straitjacket escape suspended outside a New York skyscraper and the plunge under the ice sealed in a safe although you have to wonder how he could possibly miss the big hole cut in the ice right above him through which the safe was dropped. The movie also takes in his interest in spiritualism as he attempts to connect with his mother in the afterlife after her death.These quibbles apart, the movie was energetic and highly watchable as befits its subject. Curtis and Leigh make a handsome couple and the sets variously including recreations of a carnival show- ground, jail and vaudeville theatres are also easy on the eye.In short, this film was fine escapist entertainment - sorry!

thejcowboy22 Many years ago on my Honeymoon with first Wife in tow, I went to the quaint town of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Besides the adjacent famous falls, there were plenty of souvenir shops, carnival rides,motels etc.. I stumbled upon the Houdini museum smack dab in the middle of town. I had one of the most enjoyable times of my life as the tour guide showed all of the "great masters", Houdini's contraptions. The guide explained how Harry Houdini escaped using misdirection and manipulation in his acts to dazzled audiences throughout the U.S. and the World. As for the film, I found Tony Curtis had the personality to carry the film and his lovely Wife Janet Leigh as Bess was the perfect compliment to the outrageous death defying acts through out the movie. Throw in Torin Thatcher as his aid Otto for support who was at Houdini's side to the end. There plenty of inaccuracies with the screenplay but the scenes moved nicely with superb cinematography and vibrant colors. The straight jacket scene is worth watching as well as the run in with the German Government as Houdini demands to put in one of their safes. Houdini even puts Scotland Yard to the test as to break out of there inescapable prison cells. Just a captivating movie. Producer George Pal always makes his Movies captivating.

secondtake Houdini (1953)You might think this is an odd pairing in an odd biopic, Tony Curtis as the brilliant escape artist and Janet Leigh as his assistant and wife. But it works. Yes, it is a somewhat glitzy, and totally entertaining version of the man's life, but it is solid and well done. And the colors are dazzling throughout. There's no escaping that.Curtis is a true star already, and he is his usual charming self. I don't have a clue what Houdini was like in person, but there is a suspicion while watching that Curtis keeps it all a little light and breezy. In fact the whole movie is kind of airy, even when the young couple struggles to get their lives going. Leigh is cheerfully supportive, most of the time, and ends up in a formulaic role. Luckily she gives it enough energy to make it work.When it comes down to it, there is little to say without comparing this to Houdini's known biography. And in fact the movie keeps pretty close to what is widely known. But of course the details are all a mush in order to make a kind of fairy tale of the whole thing. That's okay as long as you see it as such.If you want lots of detail on all this you should find the TCM article, the long one, on the web. I hope they'll forgive me stealing this one paragraph:--Casting newlyweds Curtis and Leigh was a publicity coup for Paramount, as the public was fascinated by the young marrieds and was eager to see them together on screen. Both were under contract to other studios, so Paramount had to negotiate loan-outs, Curtis from Universal, Leigh from MGM. As a result of the complex contracts, according to Curtis's autobiography, "The studios got a lot of money for it, but we just got our regular salaries."--This is a true Technicolor job in the old academy 4:3 format, one of the last before widescreen swept the industry in the next year. Behind the camera is the well respected Ernest Laszlo ("Impact," "D.O.A.," and "Stalag 17") who does a great job with the camera but for some reason lit everything brightly and evenly. The result is lack of mood--and many of the scenes are begging for mood, like the flea-bitten carnivals. There are some notable sequences, like the underwater stuff, and the magic tricks required some photographic slight of hand as well.So director George Marshall, known for cranking out lots of well made if unimaginative films, has another. It's good, and if you like the two main actors or the subject--or all three--you'll really enjoy it.

zublyon Not very good. I did enjoy this movie when I was a teenager and, at the time, had recently read Houdini's biography. But upon viewing this film again (on Turner Classic movies), it's obvious how poorly it was done. Aside from the fact that virtually nothing in the film has anything to do with the actual life of Harry Houdini, the performances are unconvincing, the directing and writing sophomoric. Curtis playacts each emotion, his performance totally lacking any naturalism or semblance of reality. The Director, George Marshall, forsakes true emotion for sentimentalism. and, most importantly, as I said before, none of the scenes are historically accurate. Watch it only as a trivial tribute to a great person.