From The Wall Street Journal. Please credit The Wall Street Journal when making a reference to this story.

Houdini Exhibit
Is Letting the Trick
Out of the Trunk

Magicians Protest, Threaten
To Start Rival Museum;
A Stunt for the Nimble
By RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 25, 2004; Page A1

A small museum in Harry Houdini's boyhood hometown revealed plans to change an exhibit after 15 years. Then, some angry magicians appeared.

They say the museum in Appleton, Wis., stands to jeopardize their livelihood by unveiling a big trick of their trade. As part of its exhibit, the Outagamie County Historical Society is planning a display of Houdini's signature "Metamorphosis" act in which a magician, handcuffed inside a sack inside a trunk, frees himself and switches places with an assistant standing by the trunk. Visitors will be able to climb inside the trunk to see how it works.

The stunt, popularized by Houdini at the turn of the century, remains the climax of many magic shows from cruise ships to Las Vegas acts. Magicians argue that their code of ethics prohibits revealing such secrets to the public.

After word of the museum's pending changes spread last spring on magician Web sites, magicians started calling and e-mailing the museum to object. Ron Lindberg, a magician who performs under the stage name "Rondini," set up a protest Web site and urged boycotting the museum. One collector of Houdini memorabilia took back artifacts he had loaned the museum. Collectors are now talking about starting a rival museum in Las Vegas.

"Houdini would have hated it," says David Copperfield, the illusionist, famous from his Broadway performances and TV specials, who called the historical society to protest the exhibit.

The museum says it wanted to modernize its Houdini exhibit, a static arrangement of artifacts in glass display cases, to keep pace with other museums, which have become more interactive in recent years. Many of its 45,000 annual visitors requested a more hands-on exhibit, museum officials say. Houdini is a small but important focus of its collection. Another current exhibit: "Tools of Change: The Work, Workers, and Tools of Outagamie County and the Lower Fox River Valley, 1849-1950."


"We had no idea we would have had this reaction," says Terry Bergen, executive director of the Outagamie County Historical Society. "The common words I've heard are betrayal, heresy, how can we commit such an atrocious deed in his house, on sacred ground."

Ms. Bergen and other museum officials met with two of the angry magicians last summer to discuss the matter. The museum says the contentious "Metamorphosis" display, which it plans to open in June and leave up for a decade, is a small part of a broader exhibit that will examine the life and times of Houdini. Houdini, whose real name was Ehrich Weiss, emigrated to Appleton from Budapest at age 4 in 1878, when his father became the town rabbi.

To try to appease the magicians, the museum added a "spoiler alert," warning that secrets will be exposed. The museum changed its floorplan for the exhibit to put the mechanics of the trick in a separate alcove so that visitors wishing to avoid it can.

Typically, for the illusion, also called the "substitution trunk," an assistant puts a handcuffed magician into a sack, which is tied shut and placed inside a locked and chained trunk. The assistant stands by the trunk which has been thoroughly inspected by the audience, and unfurls a cloth, covering the performer and trunk. The two performers, who must coordinate carefully and be speedy and nimble, change places in seconds, with the help of a hidden escape hatch to get in and out of the trunk. Magicians must master undoing handcuffs and getting in and out of a sealed bag before attempting the complicated stunt. Houdini and his wife Bess advertised that they could do the exchange in just three seconds.

In reality, few museum visitors are likely to be able to do the trick anyway because of its acrobatic demands, and they'll be trying a simplified version of it. "Though we doubt seriously that they will be able to achieve the illusion, they will be given the equipment to try," says Ms. Bergen. "Houdini was in great shape, strong and agile and willing to withstand discomfort."

The exhibit's curator, Kimberly Louagie, says she learned how the trick works from public-library books. The required trunk, along with instructions, can be purchased online or in magic stores. Blueprints to build a trunk cost as little as $25 and a complete trunk about $1,000.

The magicians' code of ethics allows a trick's secrets to be told only to those serious about studying magic, and it is unlikely all museum visitors satisfy this requirement. That's why magicians say a museum display is more damaging than books and instructions purchased online.

Learning the secret "robs you of the fun and delight," says Walter "Zaney" Blaney, president emeritus of the World Alliance of Magicians. He helped found the Alliance to prevent magic tricks from being revealed to the public after the Fox TV network ran a series of specials in the late 1990s called "Breaking the Magician's Code," which did just that.

Houdini took steps to carry his magic secrets to his grave. In his will, he left his magic apparatus to his brother, an escape artist who performed under the name Hardeen. Upon Hardeen's death, Houdini instructed that the equipment be "burnt and destroyed." Hardeen, however, passed the bulk of Houdini's artifacts on to a young protégé named Sidney Radner, whom he met at a magic convention in the 1930s. The Appleton museum's old display showcased Mr. Radner's collection.


A poster from the turn of the century advertising a Houdini show and his metamorphosis trick


Today, Mr. Radner, 84 years old, says, "I know secrets about Houdini that nobody knows, and they are going to die with me. I think the mystery is better than the knowing."

Last year, however, the museum, which has had its funding cut in recent years, didn't renew its long-term contract to lease his items, which cost it more than $27,000 in 2003. The museum told him to pack up his Houdini collection.

Angry, Mr. Radner, a retired carpet retailer who splits his time between Holyoke, Mass., and Palm Beach, Fla., cut the museum out of his will and began talks of setting up a rival museum, which are now gaining momentum from the fight over the "Metamorphosis" display. A few months ago, Mr. Radner shipped about 75 boxes of his Houdini goods from Appleton to Las Vegas. He placed the artifacts in the care of Geno Munari, a magic-store-chain owner who until recently also operated a small Houdini exhibit at The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas. Mr. Munari is spearheading the effort to found the rival museum. For now, Mr. Radner's collection sits in a locked and guarded warehouse.

Mr. Radner says he isn't sure what to do with his collection which he says is valued at about $4 million. "I am losing sleep over this," he says. He adds he doesn't want his goods to return to Appleton because "I don't want my name in a museum that has anything to do with exposure" of a trick.

Some magicians urge other collectors to follow Mr. Radner. Last month, another major Houdini collector, Tom Boldt, took back the artifacts he had loaned the Appleton museum and says he is considering displaying them in Las Vegas as well.

Write to Rachel Emma Silverman at rachel.silverman@wsj.com

This topic has been discussed at great length in the "Grand Illusions" forum.