Unknown Houdini Illusion For the 1927 Tour

While doing research earlier in the year for my Maro Project, I came upon the photo above. At the time, I didn't make the historical connection. The photo is of magician John Grdina standing with a Production Cabinet built and used by Edward Maro. He purchased the cabinet from Mrs. Maro after the death of her husband.

The photo appeared in the Linking Ring and actually has caption underneath that is incorrect. But one thing it did say was that the cabinet was sold to Houdini. Houdini was a collector, so at first I didn't think much of this other than to say it was the only connection I could find of Houdini to Maro.

But then today I discovered a very small mention of the cabinet in the May 1962 issue of MUM. In the article on John Grdina, it says "He loaned Houdini his 3-sided Maro Spirit Cabinet, which you might have seen presented had Houdini lived for another season."

I think the cabinet that Leslie Guest in the MUM article is speaking of is Maro's The Mystery of Aryan Illusion, which is the cabinet in the photo above. The cabinet above is a production box. Here is how John Grdina used it according to the Oct 1960 issue of The Linking Ring. "He opened his act by producing his wife from the cabinet after first showing it empty." In that same paragraph it says "He later sold the cabinet to Houdini."

Because of how deceptive this illusion is, it can be presented as a spirit cabinet. In fact, Maro may have presented it that way, which would explain the square fabric window in the middle of the door. Maro was known for presenting a lot of spirit effects in his shows.

I have not been able to find a photo of Houdini with the cabinet, but two different references to Houdini and the cabinet are enough for me to believe he got this for his 1927 '3 In One Show' Tour. Whether or not he purchased it or it was on loan, I don't know because there are conflicting accounts. But I do know Grdina was trying to sell it as he had placed numerous ads in magic periodicals trying to unload it. He was apparently trying to downsize his act and go to a more portable and practical type of act. Below is an ad that appeared in the Feb 1913 issue of The Sphinx.

Cool Graphic On The History of Famous Stage Illusions

Here is a very cool graphic created by Sébastien Ocana from Paris France. I had a little trouble getting the image up on my site, so I had to break it into several shorter images. I hope you like it. IF you'd like to contact Sebastien, you can reach him at sebocana75@gmail.com Here is the original link to his graphic. http://www.socana.fr/portfolio/infographie-grandes-illusions-en-magie/   This image was used with his permission.

Maro's Ghost!

 

I’ve only shared this story with one other person. Looking back, it might have been an ideal Halloween story to share. At any rate, I’ll share with you the story of my experience with Maro’s Ghost.

Back on September 19^th, I was in Leland Michigan performing at the Old Art Building, also known as the W.T. Best Theatre. I was there to present two magic shows during the day and one lecture on the Great Maro in the evening. When I had arrived one of the folks there told me the story of the ghost in the building. They jokingly wondered if it was Maro. I was even told that an outdoor video camera once captured images of mysterious orbs in the yard area one weekend. I chuckled, as I usually do at such things.

Fast forward to the afternoon performances and the first show went quite smoothly. The second show was coming up and I was busy resetting props and making sure everything was where it needed to be. Once everything was set, I looked out to see how many people were there. We held the curtain an extra minute or two to allow for more folks to come in.

At showtime I opened with one of my signature routines. A magic routine that I have been doing for well over 20 years. All was going well until near the end of the routine when something happened that never happened before. By the way, the trick was a giant version of the Linking Rings using Hula Hoops. The calamity that happened at the end of the routine was that all 4 hoops seemed to knot themselves together. I don’t know how else to describe it. They were interlocked in such a way that I couldn’t get them apart at all. I pulled and tugged and finally held them up in the clump as if that was the end. I doubt the audience knew what had happened. But in my mind I was befuddled.

After the show, I went back to the clump of hoops to figure out what had caused them to join together in such an odd fashion. But, as I picked them up, they were once again four separate hoops, not stuck together, not joined in anyway.

I have since attempted to get the hoops tied/knotted up in the same way and cannot duplicate it no matter how I try. I have a specific series of movements that are identical every time and it simply does not allow for this odd occurrence. Yet, that afternoon, something unusual did happen.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog articles, the evening’s lecture on Maro went off without incident. Everything went perfectly. But then again, Maro was the star of that program. Do I really think it was a ghost? No. But it has left me scratching my head ever since.

I wonder if anyone read my article about Maro in the November Linking Ring? I've not seen it and would love to know how it turned out. The next episode of The Magic Detective Youtube Show will have video from Leland Michigan. And I think I've finally figured out the proper format for doing that show. The show will go up on Youtube as it has in the past and the blog will contain further information not covered on the show. And I'll include a link to the video, but I won't be embedding the video in the articles anymore. Hopefully that works out better than I've done it in the past!