Dirk Arthur Passes Away

 

Las Vegas Magician Dies

Dirk Arthur, long time Las Vegas Magician died in his sleep Monday Oct 16, 2023. He was the last of the magicians to use Cats, as in Tigers and such. 20 years ago, in October of 2003 famed Illusionist, Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy was attacked on stage by one of his tigers. The event left him partially paralyzed. It was the end of their careers. 

It also signaled the end for many acts that used exotic animals. One by one, those who had been using tigers in their shows, were moving on. The industry was making demands of those who did have tigers and lions to try and prevent further accidents. In one case, the Fercos Brothers had to put a large chain link barrier up in between the stage and the audience to prevent the animals from going among the people.

Dirk Arthur was the last hold out of all of these acts. He retained his animals and did his best to continue performing with them. Though venues became harder to come by because of the negative effects of Roy Horn's accident and constant protests by animal rights activists. 

By all accounts, Dirk Arthur had great passion for his animals, took excellent care of them. The height of his career came in the 1990s when he made several appearances on NBCs Worlds Greatest Magic Specials produced by Gary Ouellett. Arthur was a Las Vegas staple for many years. He was preparing to purchase a theater in Branson MO, to start a new show out there. Dirk Arthur was 63 years old. 

Remembering The Magi On HIs Birthday

 

Websters Dictionary lists the definition of MAGI as, "A Persian Priest or wise man, another definition is sorcerer, or related to magic.  Cesareo Pelaez was born Oct 16th, 1932, he was destined to be a magi from the start. He would fulfill that definition being a wiseman, sorcerer, the kind related to our magic.

Cesareo was certainly many things to many people: teacher, professor, instructor, coach, director, mentor, friend, magician, and magi. I'm sure he was other things as well. He was leader of sorts to a 'rag tag' group of individuals who got together in the late 1970s to pool their resources to buy a theater. What? Yes you read that right, buy a theater! And again, whether they realized it or not, their next endeavor would be working creating, building and then performing in a magic show, a theatrical magic show, a must-cast magic show unlike anything that has been on the stage for 50 years.    If you are a newbie to the world of magic, the theater that was purchased was The Cabot St. Cinema Theatre, the show they created was Le Grand David and his own Spectacular Magic Company. In time they would purchase a second theater, The Larcom Theater, and produce a second completely different show, Le Grand David in Concert. And though the show was his idea, he wasn't even the STAR, he turned that over to David Bull, who would be Le Grand David. Cesareo chose the stage name, Marco the Magi. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, this show of theirs continued for 36 years, up until the year when Cesareo passed. He died before the Season was over. But the company chose to finish out the season in tribute to their leader and friend.

It takes a special person not only to come up with such things, but to motivate others, outsiders, to pick up that dream as well and run with it. That was Cesareo.

He was one of two people I met in the world of magic that had a life-changing affect on me. And oddly, it wasn't so much the magic that had anything to do with the life change. It was just something he said to me that seemed to clear out the fog and cobwebs of confusion. I know if it wasn't for Cesareo, there would be no blog today. Without his encouragement, I wouldn't have started painting again. At least not as soon as I did. Without his encouragement, I wouldn't have begun to write.

So today I say, Happy Birthday to my friend who left us back in 2012.

The Aftermath of Playing Houdini

 

The Aftermath of Playing HOUDINI

In 1998, actor Johnathon Schaech took on the role of Harry Houdini. It was his first lead role in his career. The movie debuted on the TNT network Dec 6, 1998. I remember it well. I recorded it onto a VHS tape, which I still have. I've watched the movie many many times. Though not perfect by any stretch, I thought Johnathon did a fine job as Houdini. Interestingly, a young Mark Ruffalo would play Theo Hardeen in the movie, long before becoming The Incredible Hulk.

The opening of this movie is one of my favorites of all the various Houdini movies. It opens with Houdini's 1906 escape from the Old DC Jail and the cell that once held the assassin of President Garfield, Charles Guiteau. That scene really delivers Houdini in a way that others didn't. 

There is much to like about this movie. The fact that Johnathon Schaech portrays a different side of Houdini than previous movies is to me refreshing. This Houdini is strong, ready to take on the world, much like the real man. But the movie makes one fatal error, and I'll leave it up to you to figure out if you see it. But suffice to say, it's not the fictionalized ending the movie, which I will admit I didn't mind at all. 

I recall that after his portrayal of Houdini, Johnathan got invited to attend one of the Official Houdini Seances. I'll have to see if I can dig up anything on that for my next podcast.

Recently, I stumbled upon a TV show where Johnathon talks about his experience AFTER making the movie. Specifically, the night of the movie's premier at the Austin Film Festival. Apparently, that night did not go as well as he or anyone else hoped. But rather than go into his experience, I'm going to post the video below. 

He does consult a psychic medium, and think of that what you will, but suffice to say, hearing his story and how it affected him personally is sadly emotional. I think he's carried this weight of not doing a good job in his portrayal. I can say, as a Houdini Historian, his was one of the better portrayals, and though the movie, like many, has it's fictionalized moments, I still enjoy watching it. I think he did Houdini right and if ole Harry would have anything to say, he would shake Mr. Schaech's hand and thank him for a job well done.

Please watch the video for yourselves...

The Amazing Fogel -The Worlds Greatest Mindreader

 

Maurice Fogel was to Europe and Great Britain what Dunninger was to the United States. He was the first solo-mentalist in Great Britain. But he took his act in directions that others dare not go. Where some magicians attempted the very dangers Bullet Catch, Fogel did it with a firing squad of 6 marksmen and caught 6 bullets in his mouth! 

That might seem like the ultimate of sensational routines, but Fogel didn't stop there. Later in his career, he took the Bullet Catch in a new direction, this time making it a Russian Roulette Routine. Again, often 6 marksmen, 6 rifles. But one rifle was empty. The weapons were spun on a carousel so no one knew which was the empty rifle. The marksmen were instructed to shoot at a large target containing china plates that was directly behind Fogel. ONE marksmen was chosen to shoot straight at Fogel's forehead! 3-2-1 FIRE! and plates would come crashing down, and Fogel would be unharmed.

OR so you might think. On several occasions things went bad and Fogel was actually shot. Once in the head, once in the chest. And one time, he avoided death because the marksmen refused to shoot his rifle, which as it turned out, was actually loaded. 

A final sensational piece of showmanship came from a routine he developed called Cheating the Gallows. In this, four rope nooses were inspected and proven to be real. A fifth was shown to have a break away section, so that if you put that one on, it would impossible for someone to hang, due to the section that would break. Cardboard tubes were placed over the section where the 'break' was located on each rope. They were mixed up and a committee chose  single rope. If it was 1-4, Fogel would hang himself in from of his live audience. If it was number 5, the rope would break and he would be safe. The rope was hung from the gallows. Maurice Fogel stood on top of a chair and placed the noose around his neck. 1, 2, 3, Fogel jumped from the chair....

the rope...

broke! and Fogel dropped to the stage safely! No record of this ever having gone wrong, thankfully!

To learn more about Maurice Fogel, check out podcast episode 94

Houdini 1953 A Strange Edit

 

I love the movie, HOUDINI, with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. It's a very fictionalized version of Houdini's life. Yet, even the fictional stuff has a grain of truth to it. But my one single issue with the movie, comes early on. It's very bad edit in the movie, and the only one of it's kind in the whole film.

Houdini and Bess are in bed, it's their wedding night. Houdini is working on a new trick. He gets Bess to climb inside a box. She sticks HER legs out one her face and hands out the other side. Houdini closes the lid. The camera doesn't cut away. He steps out of the room and back in carrying a large saw for cutting lumber. Keep in mind the camera doesn't cut away. . Tony Curtis lifts the saw and begins to cut, he is about HALF WAY DOWN. Janet Leigh screams! The saw is about to her waist. She screams! THEN 

there is a very abupt edit.....And now the blade is apparently through Bess/Janet light.

Now, one of the reason's I love this movie is that Tony Curtis preforms most of the magic himself. In the opening scene, he performs a vanishing Milk pitcher routine. He follows with an ashes routine. Later he does an escape from some Hamburg 8 cuffs. He and Janet Leigh actually present the Metamorphosis routine. They do a broom suspension routine. There is a clip of Tony levitating a woman, another clip of Tony shooting a ribbon through Bess. Tony does a wonderful Steel Straight jacket escape, there are other routines that were filmed but that got cut from the movie. There are still photos of Tony doing effects that never made it into the movie. Surprisingly, there is even a still photo of Tony making an Elephant Disappear. It appears as a photo from the cover of a newspaper. 

Some of the routines are presented straight through. Some routines have multiple edits. But ONLY the Sawing routine has a very abrupt edit. I often wondered if something happened during the filming and maybe that was why they cut. I also wondered if the reason for edit was they faked the scene. But as it turns out, the only thing that happened visually was the blade moves upwards suddenly and then back down. Perhaps there was an audio issue which was it was cut the way it was. 

And then the solution or the answer. It was found in the trailer for the movie. The entire cutting/sawing scene is there, with no abrupt edits. And you can see for yourself there is nothing unusual that happens except for the sawing going high and then back down. It's clearly the same shot as the movie because a dark section of the front board, matches the one from the scene. BUT it wasn't the only time they shot the scene apparently. The promo photo at the top of the page is from the scene, but a different take. On this take, the front panel that Tony saws through is different. This is the sign that the scene was reshot or that there were multiple shots. 

Check out the video below...

The exact spot is at 40seconds into the video...