Harry Houdini

How did Harry Houdini do his signature "Metamorphosis" escape, in which he was handcuffed inside a sack and locked in a trunk and yet somehow managed to switch places with an assistant on the outside? Visitors to an exhibit that opened Wednesday at the Outagamie Museum in Houdini's hometown found out the secret. Among other things, visitors learned, the trunk has a side panel that allows someone inside to sneak out. The disclosure has some in the business tied up in knots.

EXCLUSIVE: A modern Harry Houdini movie has long been a tantalizing possibility for film fans: the elaborate escapes, the trans-Pacific aviation, that (possibly) punching-related death. The last major film about the Euro-born magician came out more than a half-century ago, and it wasn't exactly faithful to his life. But there's new momentum on one of the projects around town about the colorful escape artist. “Houdini,” a movie that Lionsgate's Summit is developing based on a biography called “The Secret Life of Houdini,” has attracted the interest of Golden Globe nominee Joe Wright.

The legendary magician and escape artist Harry Houdini is the focus of a groundbreaking exhibition, complete with more than 150 artifacts, including historical film clips, posters and the original props. Skirball Center. 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Opens Thursday, runs through Sept. 4. Tours begin Sunday. Open noon-5 p.m. Tues-Fri. and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. $10. (310) 440-4500. http://www.skirball.org.

If only these stage sorcerers could reach into a black top hat and pull out a home for their magical paraphernalia. Short of cash and abracadabra moments, the Society of American Magicians is struggling to find a public venue for its vast collection of antique stage illusions. After a freak accident forced the closure of the group's Hall of Fame and Magic Museum in Hollywood, the society moved its trove of tricks into a Pico Rivera self-storage center. "We'd love to reopen the museum.

Ehrich Weiss, the Budapest-born son of an immigrant family, ran away from home at 12 to join the circus. Not the least bit interested in becoming a rabbi like his father, he wanted to be an entertainer. Although Weiss was already an accomplished trapeze artist in a neighborhood circus, he soon turned around and headed back home. But it was only a matter of time before the whole world knew who he was. Reinventing himself as Harry Houdini, the rabbi's son became a celebrity as an escape artist, and, by the time of his death in 1926 — on Halloween — a legend.

When I was a child I developed a brief but passionate interest in two shamanic figures, Houdini and Rasputin. In my mind they seemed two sides of the same coin, the Mad Monk a dark, primeval figure shambling out of the great Siberian wastes, Houdini the mysteriously cheerful prankster, more daemon than demon, first cousin to Chaplin's malignly chirpy tramp. I can date this interest from the Tony Curtis movie based on Houdini's life, which was made in 1952.

MUSIC Local avant-garde rock trio Autolux provides the soundtrack to "Into the Night: Music and Magic," which includes performances from Superhumanoids and KCRW-FM DJ Anthony Valadez. The evening's entertainment features strolling magicians, a screening of the Harry Houdini serial "Master Mystery" (1920) and access to the galleries. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fri. $15. (310) 440-4500. http://www.skirball.org.

The eminent film producer Ray Stark appears to be having a difficult time finding an exciting plot in the life of Harry Houdini. This is about as demanding as discovering a sports theme in the Babe Ruth story ("Houdini, the Movie: Many Have Escaped Already," Film Clips, Oct. 11). Houdini, one of 10 children of a failed Hungarian rabbi, rose from a poor home in Appleton, Wis., to become the unchallenged king of all the magicians who ever lived, and his name is still invoked to describe various impossibilities achieved by those performers today who emulate his feats.

David Blaine is browsing at a major auction house here, and he's got a problem. All sorts of magicians' memorabilia is going to be auctioned the next day, but he can't make it back. "I have a real problem," he explains apologetically to the woman at the front desk. "I want to bid on some of this stuff, but I'm going to be in a block of ice all day tomorrow, 12 to 18 hours." She's unfazed.

The city Department of Water and Power will pay two Hollywood museums $75,000 each to settle a dispute over artifacts allegedly contaminated by toxic PCBs in a 2004 electrical transformer fire. Leaders of the nonprofit Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters and the Society of American Magicians agreed Thursday to drop their lawsuit against the city after Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White indicated that she was prepared to rule the contamination was not as severe as the two groups claimed.

MUSIC Local avant-garde rock trio Autolux provides the soundtrack to "Into the Night: Music and Magic," which includes performances from Superhumanoids and KCRW-FM DJ Anthony Valadez. The evening's entertainment features strolling magicians, a screening of the Harry Houdini serial "Master Mystery" (1920) and access to the galleries. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Fri. $15. (310) 440-4500. http://www.skirball.org.

The legendary magician and escape artist Harry Houdini is the focus of a groundbreaking exhibition, complete with more than 150 artifacts, including historical film clips, posters and the original props. Skirball Center. 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Opens Thursday, runs through Sept. 4. Tours begin Sunday. Open noon-5 p.m. Tues-Fri. and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. $10. (310) 440-4500. http://www.skirball.org.

Ehrich Weiss, the Budapest-born son of an immigrant family, ran away from home at 12 to join the circus. Not the least bit interested in becoming a rabbi like his father, he wanted to be an entertainer. Although Weiss was already an accomplished trapeze artist in a neighborhood circus, he soon turned around and headed back home. But it was only a matter of time before the whole world knew who he was. Reinventing himself as Harry Houdini, the rabbi's son became a celebrity as an escape artist, and, by the time of his death in 1926 — on Halloween — a legend.

Dorothy Young was a 17-year-old New York City tourist in 1925 when she spotted an ad placed by master illusionist Harry Houdini seeking "girl dancer for Broadway show and tour of the United States. " She scurried to the tryouts and shyly hid in the back before being summoned to audition by Houdini and his manager. After breaking out in a Charleston, she was hired on the spot. When her mother and father, a minister, refused to allow her to join the traveling stage show, Houdini persuaded her parents that he and his wife "would look after me as their very own daughter, which they did," Young recalled in a 2000 oral history.

James Cameron has set his return trip to Pandora. Fox announced Wednesday that "Avatar 2" and "Avatar 3," the sequels to last year's science-fiction blockbuster, will be Cameron's next films, with the director beginning work on the scripts in early 2011. Production on "Avatar 2" could begin as soon as late 2011, with the movie likely in theaters in December 2014, the studio said. Fox said that Cameron has not made a decision about whether to shoot the two films back to back but that he could, which would allow "Avatar 3" to come out as early as December 2015.

The city Department of Water and Power will pay two Hollywood museums $75,000 each to settle a dispute over artifacts allegedly contaminated by toxic PCBs in a 2004 electrical transformer fire. Leaders of the nonprofit Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters and the Society of American Magicians agreed Thursday to drop their lawsuit against the city after Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White indicated that she was prepared to rule the contamination was not as severe as the two groups claimed.

EXCLUSIVE: A modern Harry Houdini movie has long been a tantalizing possibility for film fans: the elaborate escapes, the trans-Pacific aviation, that (possibly) punching-related death. The last major film about the Euro-born magician came out more than a half-century ago, and it wasn't exactly faithful to his life. But there's new momentum on one of the projects around town about the colorful escape artist. “Houdini,” a movie that Lionsgate's Summit is developing based on a biography called “The Secret Life of Houdini,” has attracted the interest of Golden Globe nominee Joe Wright.

On Oct 24, 1926, one week before Halloween, my late husband, Dr. Daniel Cohn, house physician at the Detroit Statler Hotel, was summoned in the middle of the night for an emergency call on Harry Houdini. The magician had arrived by train from Montreal for his first show at the Garrick Theatre. It turned out to be his last. Before Houdini left Montreal, a McGill student, without giving the magician time to tighten his muscles, had punched him repeatedly to test his ability to withstand abdominal blows.

Legendary escape artist Harry Houdini mystified audiences with his daring stunts, but his death on Halloween 1926 was even more mysterious. Houdini, buried in Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, had been struck in the abdomen before he died, leading some to suspect foul play. Today, relatives of both Houdini -- born Erich Weiss -- and one of the magician's archenemies are planning to call for the exhumation of Houdini's remains for clues to his death.

HARRY HOUDINI, born Ehrich Weiss in 1874, was the leading figure of magic's golden age. The son of an impoverished immigrant rabbi, he rose to become wealthy and almost unimaginably famous, an obsessive student of his art and its first global superstar. He was a short, strong, stocky, bowlegged man with small feet and a very large head. He learned sleight of hand but was never that good at it: Instead, he caught the world's imagination with seemingly impossible escapes.