BURST
When the great escape artist Harry Houdini announced plans to perform at the Orpheum Theatre in 1923, The Vancouver Sun issued a challenge to him: perform a death-defying escape in public outside the Sun offices.
Houdini accepted.
“Telegraphing from Winnipeg yesterday, he offers to free himself from a straitjacket wrapped around him by any member or members of the Vancouver police force, while suspended in mid-air, head downward,” said the Sun on Feb. 27, 1923.
“After the straps, ropes and sleeves have been pulled as tight as the power of the officers can make them, the trussed man in the jacket will be hoisted by a rope looped around his ankles.”
The rope would be attached to a beam above the sidewalk, and Houdini would be lifted three storeys in the air, upside down. When he reached the right height, he promised to “liberate himself and toss the straitjacket to the ground.”
The big event was set for noon on Thursday, March 1, 1923. Two police detectives only identified as Ricci and Sinclair were chosen to bind him, and Sun photographer W.J. Moore was to document the event.
Houdini offered a challenge himself to the 10,000 people who were expected to watch the stunt.
“This wizard is really anxious for someone, other than himself, to find out just how he does it,” said a story in The Sun.
“So he said last night, ‘Tell the camera fiends this: I’ll give a prize of $15 for the first, $10 for the second and $5 for the three best pictures they can take of me while I’m hanging by the ankles and wiggling out of that straitjacket which detectives Ricci and Sinclair promise to make burglar proof.’”
The Vancouver Archives has a W.J. Moore photo of the event, with Houdini dangling in the air above throngs of people, almost all of them men wearing hats.
A film crew is taping the proceedings from a platform set up above The Sun sign at 123 West Pender, where the paper was located until 1937.
“Just three minutes and 39 seconds were taken up when the straitjacket fell fluttering to the sidewalk below,” reported The Sun. “A cheer arose and swelled into a roar. Houdini had escaped!”
Film of the escape was shown that night at the Orpheum, where Houdini headed up a vaudeville bill. Houdini came out into the audience to watch the film with them.
“The film was evidently pleasing to the magician,” said The Sun. “At its conclusion, he faced the audience with a smile of satisfaction, exclaiming, ‘Isn’t that a wonderful crowd!'”
He often dangled outside a newspaper office to drum up publicity. He’d already done it twice that month: on Feb. 7 outside the Minneapolis Tribune, and on Feb. 19 outside the Winnipeg Free Press.
The shtick was the same each time: he’d get the local cops to bind him, wriggle out, then perform at a theatre at night.
Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24, 1874. When he was four, his family emigrated to the U.S., first to Appleton, Wis., and later to New York.
His father was a rabbi, but young Erik (whose name was Germanized to Ehrich Weiss in the U.S.) was infatuated with showbiz. His New York Times obituary said he joined a travelling circus at nine as a contortionist and trapeze artist.
Inspired by the autobiography of French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, he adopted the stage name Harry Houdini.
“From 1885 to 1900, he played all over the United States, in museums, music halls, circuses, and medicine shows, gradually improving his technique and giving up his purely contortionistic and acrobatic feats,” said the Times.
“In 1900, he made his first visit abroad, and in London his sensational escapes from handcuffs at Scotland Yard won him a six-month engagement at the Alhambra.”
Houdini died only three years after his Vancouver appearance, after a McGill University student unexpectedly punched him in the stomach.
The punch ruptured his appendix, but Houdini carried on with his performances for three days before collapsing. He was taken to a hospital in Detroit, where his appendix was removed.
But the poison from his ruptured appendix had spread. On Oct. 31, 1926, the great escape artist died at 52.
