When it’s not cluttering the joint with clunky exposition and asides (“Some things can hit you in the gut worse than any punch,” Houdini says in one of the 5 million scenes foreshadowing his death), “Houdini” is a well-shot, decently acted and beautifully costumed chronicle of all the daring exploits. This led him, as we are reminded ad nauseam during the above-mentioned voice-over, to both court and defy death. Houdini was famously attached to his mother, and at least as depicted here, permanently traumatized by a disapproving father, seen only briefly as a rabbi so Old Country he refuses to learn English. This is particularly so toward the end of the series, when the death of Houdini’s mother leads him to wage a public (and slightly ironic) campaign against fake mediums, including the wife of Arthur Conan Doyle.īut the psychology explored in “Houdini” is so obvious and garden variety that it squanders Brody’s talents. Though never allowed to explore Houdini’s real talent - to remain calm under extreme pressure and to never drop the tiny gadgets that would free him - Brody lends a haunted/obsessive air to the proceedings. Along the way, he acquires a wife, Bess (Kristen Connolly), to increasingly fret about his safety, and an assistant, Jim (Evan Jones), to create the many ingenious devices that allowed Houdini to be Houdini. Magic led him to vaudeville and what would become his signature ability: to free himself from any locked device under increasingly adverse conditions. We meet the illusionist as he jumps, chained, into an ice-covered river only to be transported back, through artful flashback and ruminative voice-over through his Early Years, in which young Erik was instantly drawn to the mystery of and public enthusiasm for magic.

No one exploited the public’s desire to be thrilled by deception more than the man born Erik Weisz. But then this is a drama, and History has been smudging the lines of scholarship for a while now, especially since it got into the docudrama business. Not all the escapades featured are historically documented, at least as they are presented here.

Houdini brody