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...

The Magic Detective T-Shirt Can Be Yours...

 

Well, after much delay (on my part) the Official Magic Detective T-Shirts are available to purchase. I'm very excited to be able to offer these to my readers of the blog and listeners of the podcast. I teamed up with a fellow who knows a great deal about the printing business and does an excellent job in his branding business, Billy Diamond from Branding for Entertainers. He will be printing these awesome looking tees. 

I think this is just the first t-shirt of a series. I'm considering doing a run of my artwork on t-shirts. And I may be offering other 'swag' down the road. For now, your purchase of the shirt helps me to cover the cost of producing the podcast as well as helps me add more books to the library for future podcasts!

Here is the link for your own Magic Detective T-shirt https://tinyurl.com/4vt4v84v