CHAPTER NINE

MY FIGHT FOR MY INVENTION

"A WOMAN SAWN IN HALF" is the most marvellous trick ever invented. The proof of that is to be seen in my books of Press cuttings. I have thousands of notices of this trick, culled from newspapers all over the world. They all agree that the trick is completely baffling and that nothing like it has ever been seen before.

But not only was it before the public eye on the stage when I showed it, it was also receiving equal interest in the courts of law. For nearly two years I was engaged in one lawsuit after another in an effort to protect the invention on which I had spent so much time and money, and which had caused me so much anxiety before it was finally a success.

I had the invention patented internationally and did all I could to see that the secret did not leak out. There were a few people I trusted, and these I allowed to perform the trick, but I determined to fight anyone who tried to steal it. I engaged a prominent patent attorney in the United States to protect my rights, which I estimated at one million dollars. I took every precaution possible to guard against prying eyes back-stage. The entire space used during the performance of the trick was "masked in" on all sides, and all stage employees and other performers on the bill were warned to keep away from the wings while "A Woman Sawn in Half" was being shown.

My act was just receiving its greatest publicity when the first trouble began. Advertisements appeared in the papers saying that an English illusionist was coming to act in U.S.A. and would be performing "A Woman Sawn in Half". He was under contract to Shuberts, who had then organized a circuit of music-halls in opposition to the Keith firm, with whom I was engaged.

As soon as I saw this advertisement I wrote to the Keith office, telling them of the arrangements I had made to prevent any infringement of my patent and asking for their collaboration. This they promised me. But when the English act opened on the Shubert circuit the effect and illusion were very much inferior to mine, and Mr. E. F. Albee, of Keith's, wired me saying:

It isn't worth bothering about.

We did nothing about it.

He played for only one week with Shuberts and then transferred to Another opposition circuit, Pantages. The billing was almost exactly the same as mine, and, although the act did not stand comparison, I decided that the performance of it was damaging to me, and began to take action.

I filed suit in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York against him and Alexander Pantages, asking for an injunction restraining the defendants from exhibiting the act and demanding damages. I felt confident of winning because the Vaudeville Managers' Protective Association, of which Pantages was a member, had decided that I was the only man who had the right to perform the illusion, thereby cutting out both the English and an American illusionist, who had also claimed to be the inventor of the illusion. This decision had been disregarded by Pantages.

Both the English illusionist and myself agreed to stop doing the trick if the other could prove his case. The lawsuit aroused immense interest, especially in the theatrical world, and was an amazingly good advertisement for magic. As one newspaper said, the case was advertising "the good old art of magic and bringing back memories of Hermann and Hartz and Kellar and other great prestidigitateurs". At that time I had six companies touring the act in U.S.A. There were few American towns which had not heard of and seen "A Woman Sawn in Half".

I do not propose to weary my readers with the full story of this series of lawsuits. In America one has to bring actions in each State, and so I was not only engaged in fighting the New York case, but others in Baltimore, Toledo, Kansas, and elsewhere. I won everywhere, and the English version was withdrawn. Some illusionists went on showing the tricks in the smaller towns, but these I had to let go. The lawyers were the winners in these cases, but, though I did not profit much from the damages I obtained, at least I knew that I had been justified, and that my act had received excellent advertisement.

The Englishman left America, and the last I heard of him was that he had invented a new illusion, "Destroying a Woman".

All this happened in 1921, when the music-halls were faced with strong opposition from the films. It was from this quarter that the next threat to my act was to come. A film was made which purported to show exactly how the illusion was performed. Obviously if this film were shown extensively my act would be ruined. I had no choice but to take up the cudgels again and try to stop this new infringement.

I brought a suit in the Special Term of the High Supreme Court in New York City to restrain Walter J. Bird and others from releasing a reel entitled "Magic and Mystery Exposed". At first justice Newburger formally reserved judgment, but in doing so he remarked that he did not consider that I was entitled to a permanent injunction because I had been perpetrating a fraud on the public by advertising the illusion as a surgical operation. That seemed very unfair to me, but I was glad to get a temporary injunction. This was given only on the theory that ownership was not disputed. That yet remained to be seen.

While this lawsuit was proceeding another arose. The Alexander Film Corporation, in conjunction with Clarion Photoplays, produced an exposure of my illusion made by a man named John E. Coutts. This was very much more important than the one I have just been mentioning, and again I had to take action. Within a few weeks the case came before justice Delahanty sitting in the same court as was used for the previous case.

This time I lost, and on exactly the point mentioned by justice Newburger. The defendants denied that the illusion was my invention. They said that the trick was known to the Egyptians 3700 years ago, and showed that it had been performed many times in countries other than the United States. In my view none of their arguments defeated my case, which was that I had thought of a way of performing this seemingly impossible feat and had made a success of it, and that these others were trying to profit by the work I had done.

However, I lost, and I had to take the case to the High Supreme Court of New York, where it would be tried by five judges. If these judges were unanimous in their judgment there could be no further appeal. If they disagreed there was the Federal High Supreme Court left.

The hours I spent waiting for the High Supreme Court decision were the most dramatic of my life. I knew that my professional reputation rested on my success or failure, that I should be a ruined man if I lost. I had behind me cases I had won, and this last important case, which I had lost. I had the strength of my own knowledge that the invention was mine, but I was not at all sure that this would be of much value amongst the intricate arguments between lawyers which would go on for many hours.

The court was thronged for the hearing, for, as I have already mentioned, the case had had a great deal of publicity. Indeed, Clarion Photoplays had just come out with an immense advertisement headed "We win! We win!" in which they said that the act was "swimming in oceans of newspaper publicity from Maine to California". Keith's had booked up the picture on a hundred days' contract. All the people present knew what was at stake and they knew that they were watching a most dramatic scene. They were not disappointed.

The five judges listened with the closest attention to the different arguments. The defendants tried to show that my act and the one exposed were dissimilar, that this act was by no means new, and that I had not invented it, and they advanced a number of other arguments concerning the other cases I had fought. In my affidavit I replied to these statements. There I pointed out that I had the support of the Vaudeville Managers' Protective Society, who had stood beside me against the Englishman and the American; that I had begun work on this trick as long back as 1911; that by advertising an exposure of "Sawing a Woman in Half" the defendants meant my illusion and that their picture was bound to do me harm.

An affidavit from Harry Houdini was read in which he stated that he had known for some time that I was working on this trick, that the theatre world and indeed the general public looked upon this invention as mine, and that the exposure would cause me considerable damage. Servais Leroy and others stated that they believed that the illusion was my invention and that they had not known of any performance of this trick prior to mine. Howard Thurston said that he had watched the original being built and perfected in his own workshop at Whitestone, Long Island.

It was with great relief that I heard the verdict, which Harry, Houdini gave me on the telephone. Justice Victor J. Dowling stated that "The affidavits lead irresistibly to the conclusion that the defendants have sought unfairly and unjustly to profit by plaintiff's success by adopting the name he had given to the illusion and by copying his methods, an unfair competition and unreasonable interference which the courts should and will prevent."

I felt like a man released from a long sentence in gaol. I was justified. I had won the long fight on which so much depended.

So far I have been giving the outline of the long struggle in the courts of law. But there were many interesting sidelines which I must mention. It took a great deal of time and work to make bullets for my lawyers to fire, and this part of the work I really enjoyed because it stimulated my ingenuity. One of the lawyers went so far as to say, "You really ought to have been a lawyer, Mr. Goldin; you have the right mentality for it."

There was one man on whom we could not serve an injunction. He was travelling round the country playing two or three nights' stands and it was impossible to hand him the necessary piece of paper. We discovered that he was financed by his father and decided that we must serve the injunction on the older man, who lived on Long Island. We arranged that my lawyer should pose as a manager of some theatres in the New England States and that he should ring up the man to arrange terms. He suggested that, as he was leaving New York that evening, they should meet at the first Tube station in Coney Island for the contracts to be delivered. So that he would be easily recognized it was arranged that the manager (my lawyer) would have a white handkerchief and be wiping his nose as he descended from the train.

The plot worked beautifully. The man walked up to my lawyer and said, "Are you the manager from the New England States?"

"Yes," answered the lawyer.

"Have you brought the contracts

"No, but I have this for you"--and the lawyer handed him the writ. The man was of a dark complexion, but he turned very pale when he saw what the paper was!

By that time we were in possession of an order from the court which said that anyone caught infringing my effect could be arrested by a policeman for contempt of court. My winning of so many lawsuits had established a precedent on some technical point of law which enabled this to be done. This happened at Merion, Ohio, where the English version was being performed. The principal, luckily for him, was away at the time, but his understudy and his assistants were carried straight from the stage to the police-station.

The firm which had been handling the film was called Cohen Bros., and when we obtained our injunction they already had a considerable amount of money in the bank, royalties received from the film. We tried to attach that for damages, but we could never find Mr. Cohen to serve a writ on him.

We tried our very best for six weeks and then we had a conference to decide what to do next. We had managed to find the man who had exposed the secret of the English version to the film company. I suggested to him, "Why fight? If they give me a royalty of five per cent on the business they have already transacted I shall be satisfied, and they will save, for they will have to pay lawyers more than that."

He agreed that it was a good idea and called up Mr. Cohen on the telephone. Mr. Cohen said he would consider the proposal, and it was arranged that I should call on the next day with my accountant to arrange about a contract.

So for the first time we had a meeting with Mr. Cohen.

I took with me a process-server, who posed as my secretary. It was arranged that when I coughed in a certain manner he was to begin serving.

We were received very courteously by Mr. Cohen, who was interested in the five-per-cent deal. We suggested that we might look at his books, but he refused point-blank to let us do anything of the kind. "I wouldn't show my books to the Pope," he declared.

At that I coughed significantly. Mr. Cohen received the writ, and we left the room feeling that we had scored.

We received our share of the money all right.

That was not the end of my dealing with that firm. Soon after this incident I heard that they were not obeying the court's injunction, but were hiring out the film at times when we could not trap them. I arranged a plot to stop that.

I hired a theatre in a small town in New jersey, paying four hundred dollars rent in advance. I then instructed the manager to write to the firm asking if he might hire the film for a week's entertainment in this theatre. A favourable answer was received from their lawyer. This letter I gave to my lawyers, who immediately got in touch with the firm and their legal advisers. At first they would not agree to a meeting, but when they heard that we had this letter in our possession they were in the office within ten minutes. We had them that time, but we had to recognize that we could not keep on tracking them down all the time, so we entered into a new agreement in which I sold out my interest for a fixed sum.

My legal fights for my great invention "A Woman Sawn in Half" were then at an end and I felt I had had enough litigation to last me a long time. I had upheld my rights and had saved my reputation. Since then I have performed the illusion both in its original form with the box and in the better second version when the woman is in sight of the audience all the time, without the unfair competition which had come so near ruining my act.