I remember watching this film and thinking that Mr Kietel is the perfect Houdini and I would rather be watching him playing the lead in another area of his life.


Fun kids film however - those two girls only officially admitted they faked the fairys in their 70's as they said their grandchildren were being tease that their "gran believes in fairys" -


randi talks about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oveXCII3w30

What I have never been able to figure out about the photographs was how someone did not spot the similarities between the fairies in the pictures and the book(s) they were cut out from. Many people thought they had been cut out from something, as one of them clearly had a pin holding it in place. My guess would be that he probably dismissed them as fakes early on.

I have to admit that I have never seen any reference to Houdini mentioning the Cottingley fairies or an opinion on them. I do know that he demonstrated how ghost images were faked in photographs of the day. There is only one picture, as far as I know, that Houdini could not explain, and all that showed was an unusual streak of light.

I think it was just a nice twist in the story line. When Hollywood says that something is "based upon a true story," it doesn't mean that what they show on the screen is true. Just think about how many stories start "A priest, a minister and a rabbi walked into a bar." I know that there have been many occasions upon which a priest, a minister and a rabbi have walked into a bar. I've witnessed several of them myself. But I don't think that all the stories that start out that way are true.

I believe there is a footnote in A Magician Among the Spirits by Houdini.
It also appears in the Houdini section of the Case for and Against Psychical Belief.
*In speaking of Spirit photography, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle usually brings up as proof positive, that his fairy photographs are genuine. According to the London Star, December 20, 1921, there were many interesting developments regarding these:
"Messrs. Price and Sons, the well known firm of candle makers, inform us that the fairies in this photograph are an exact reproduction of a famous poster they have used for years, to advertise their night lights.
"'I admit on these fairies there are wings, whereas our fairies have no wings,' said a representative of the firm to a Star reporter, 'but, with thisexception, the figures correspond line for line with our own drawing.'"

Going a little off topic here, but remember the TV movie "The Great Houdini"? Even though it was highly fictionalized, it was really well made. And what a cast: Paul Michael Glaser, Sally Struthers, Adrienne Barbeau, Ruth Gordon, Peter Cushing, Vivian Vance, and Bill Bixby. Now that's some star power!

Then there were the supporting players: Geoffrey Lewis as Dr. Crandon, Maureen O'Sullivan as Lady Doyle, Clive Revill as Dundas Slater, and Patrick Culliton as Franz Kukol. Harry Blackstone Jr. appeared as a gendarme and comedy writer Snag Werris played a vaudeville comic.
The script was written by Peter Benchley (Jaws--the son of the great Robert Benchley--and by Melville Shavelson, who wrote and directed some great movies, my favorite being the Seven Little Foys.

Posted: Dec 4, 2009 8:55pm
And Wilfred Hyde-White as Supt. Melville!!!
And nobody knew he was playing the real "M."

I didn't know Benchley and Shavelson wrote it; that would explain why I remember it so well, even though it's been years since I've seen it.

I'm pretty sure "The Seven Little Foys" is the first Bob Hope movie I ever saw, although I certainly knew Hope from television. I love that movie.

Joe Libby