It is a travesty that this production is from "The History Channel"- there's more factual content in stories front The Onion. There's more fantasy in this production than in Houdini's own self-made mythology... And he was the king of self-promotion, creating a much better fictional background than creators of this junk food television. I shudder to think of the people who are "learning" history from this network... When the Tony Curtis movie came out in the 50's, America "learned" how Houdini died performing the Chinese Water Torture Escape- an illusion not even on the bill the night he received the blows to his stomach that ultimately proved fatal. He died in the hospital a week after his final performance of peritonitis, brought on my a ruptured appendix. And, yet, that is now part of popular culture. But at least that one was a theatrical release. This masquerades as fact, and that's disturbing. The fact that is so poorly written just exacerbates the problem. I feel bad for Adrien Brody's participation; he's much too fine an actor to be associated with this sad piece of theater.
Review of Houdini
