CHAPTER NINETEEN

MY MAGIC TALKIES

IF someone asked you what was the name of the first "talkie" you would probably say "The Singing Fool" but you would be wrong. The first talking film was called "Radio Film Telepathy", and it was made by me in the garden of my brother's house in New York in 1918. And it was very much better than the talking films we are accustomed to now. Not only did the people on the screen see and speak, but they also had the senses of hearing, feeling, and smelling.

I have always been interested in the films, and as early as 1902 I saw their possibilities. When I was appearing at the Palace Theatre, one of the items on the bill was the Biograph, which was the elementary form of the moving picture. This had been brought from America by a New York impresario, the late Mr. Ted Marks, to whom I gave the nickname "The Mayor of the Ocean" which stuck to him. This was because he was always travelling across the Atlantic.

Soon after this I appeared in a picture myself. It was made by a Mr. Booth, and I do not remember all the plot. There was one scene which was most successful. I produced an egg from a hen, transformed the egg into a chicken, gave the chicken to the cook, who served it up on the table. When the host began to carve, it suddenly came to life, and after a terrific struggle it flew away. That farcical scene used to bring the house down. When I saw it at the Winter Gardens Theatre, Berlin, two years later, it was still receiving a tremendous reception.

A bright idea came to me when I was playing one of my return engagements at the Palace Theatre in 1907. I had a picture made of my arrival at the stage door of the theatre. This was shown on the screen in the theatre, but when the taxi door opened I walked out on to the stage in the flesh. I turned to the driver, who was still on the screen; there was an argument about the fare, and then the picture stopped and my act began.

But "Radio Film Telepathy" was the big thing. I had the idea for it and I went round asking experts for their help. I said I was willing to give a thousand pounds to anyone who could suggest to me a way of creating this marvellous effect, but they all told me that the idea was an excellent one, but that the thing was impossible.

Among others I went to Mr. Hardeen, Houdini's brother, who was at this time running one of the biggest studios. He laughed and laughed at me. In the end, after I had gone into more detail, he asked me how I could possibly hope to perform the trick without confederates. What would happen if the audience asked for something which I could not give them?

These objections did not worry me. I went ahead and invented the trick by myself, and a very good trick it was, too. This is no longer being performed, and so I will give a full description of it. I consider it one of the most amazing of my inventions.

Imagine that you are sitting in the theatre. You are watching the beginning of a picture. You see a lady sitting at a table reading. I walk on to the stage and shake hands with her. She tells me that she is going to give an exhibition of her mental powers, but she has to keep the audience waiting because her teacher has not yet arrived. I ask her what he looks like and she gives me a full description.

So far it has been quite remarkable, but the sequel is still more amazing. I dress up as the teacher, in a wig, moustache, and goatee, and walk on to the screen. Then, in my own character, I walk on to the stage and shake hands with the teacher, apologizing for being so late.

"That's all right," he answers. "I was rather late myself."

The uncanny part of the performance now begins.

I turn to the audience and ask someone to call a number between one and a hundred. As soon as she hears it, the lady on the screen goes to a blackboard and writes the number clearly upon it.

Next I ask for something to be held up by a member of the audience. The lady looks at it carefully, then she goes to a typewriter and types exactly what she has seen. This is shown in large typewritten letters on the screen.

Another member of the audience sets his watch at a certain time. The teacher hands the lady a large alarm clock and she sets the hands at exactly the hour shown by the watch.

So much for hearing and seeing; smelling was more difficult to arrange. On the stage there are fifteen bottles of different perfumes, each carefully numbered. I put a little perfume, selected by the audience, on a handkerchief, being careful that the lady on the screen does not see the number. I hand her the handkerchief, and immediately she goes to the blackboard and writes down the number of the scent.

Transmission of thought is the next test. I take a pack of cards and allow the cards to run through my fingers. One of the audience tells me when to stop. I give him the remainder of the cards, asking him to count them and to concentrate on the number. Then the lady goes to the typewriter again and types down the very number of which the man has been thinking.

This short description has, I think, given you some idea of this marvellous illusion. Altogether I devised twenty-six tests, and my act became very popular indeed. It was the high-light in Hertig and Seaman's show "Step On It".

The making and performance of this illusion needed enormous concentration and patience. The people spoke behind the screen, and the synchronization had to be very exact. As the audience took part, there were necessary delays, and the machine had to be run at different speeds. After a time I found that instinct guided me through, and there was never a fiasco.

My next effort in this line was even more spectacular, and needed even more care. I perfected the new act in 1924, when I was playing for Sir Oswald Stoll at the London Coliseum. The effect was a very good one.

On the screen a lady is seen walking down a street. I approach her in front of the film and ask her why she is late. She says that she is very sorry but a man has been following her and making advances. This man now appears, and I tell him to go away. He refuses to do so, and I threaten to call the police. Still he does not budge, so I take out a police-whistle and blow it.

The policeman walks on to the film and is about to arrest the unpleasant stranger, when the man draws his gun. I am too quick for him, and shoot. He falls to the ground, and the policeman dashes off to fetch an ambulance.

While the policeman is gone I walk into the screen and become a photograph. The man gets up and threatens me again. I grasp his wrist and force the gun from his hand; then, with a quick twist, I throw him off the picture and he appears on the stage as in real life. Just then the policeman arrives, the man removes his make-up, and behold--it is Horace Goldin!

This excitement has caused the lady to faint, and I offer her a drink, though I am on the stage in person and she is only a shadow on the screen. Then I give her a cigarette and light it for her. Sitting down, she drops a handkerchief. I pick it up and offer it to her, entering the picture to do so. just as she is about to take the handkerchief it becomes a rabbit and then disappears.

A telephone-bell rings and I leave the screen to answer it. On returning, I ask the lady if she would like a drink. She answers that she is only a picture and cannot very well accompany me. "Nonsense," I answer. And I hold out my hand to help her down from the screen. She walks out, the screen remaining intact.

The description gives but a poor idea of how impressive the show really is. I consider it one of the best of my inventions, and, although it was a great deal of trouble to make, I was always most interested in carrying out the effect.

The celebrated American magician Howard Thurston, having seen this trick and being much impressed by it, asked me if I could make him a similar one. He offered me a very handsome fee, and I consented to build him one and to direct the film. This was a big job to take on, for I had never been inside a studio and had no idea of how films were made.

I reckoned that the shot would need to be about 400 feet long, and I called to purchase exactly that amount. The gentleman with whom I had to deal was connected with one of the largest studios in America, and he asked me how many feet of film I wished to develop. I told him 400 feet.

"Then you must take about 5000 feet. There is so much film spoilt that 400 feet would be quite inadequate. Besides, a 400-foot shot is an unheard-of thing. We rarely take one 75 feet long in the studios. We use titles because if there is a slight mistake we do not have to destroy so much film."

I realized that I was starting on a very complicated business, and I decided that I had better take an extra reel of negative. He went on talking, and I told him something of my project. He said that he thought I was quite mad to imagine that I could so synchronize a film and voices as to make it appear that the pictures spoke, but he was sufficiently interested to send his best producer along to watch the film being taken.

We decided that a week of rehearsals would be necessary, and I fixed the day for shooting. I was very patient with Mr. Thurston and his six assistants, though some of the latter were very poor actors, both when miming and when speaking lines. During these rehearsals I had the camera in the room, and I asked the operator to turn the handle all the time. I had this done so that the people would not know when the film was actually being taken, and so would not become nervous. I had arranged a special signal for the operator to start shooting.

The day I had fixed arrived, and we all assembled for the final rehearsal. The film-director was there to see how "talkies" were to be made, and everyone knew what he had to do. I announced that there would be a final rehearsal, but actually I gave the operator the signal to start shooting.

I climbed a ladder and began to direct the "rehearsal". Instead of being very nice to the actors I began to slang them very heartily. I was extremely rude and gingered them up thoroughly. The effect was just as I had hoped, and the act was done much better than ever before. Incidentally, this film was a much better one than the one I had had made for myself. We went through the entire 400 feet of film without a stop, and never had to touch the second reel. The actors never suspected that the film had been taken, and I did not tell them even when it was all over. I left for New York, and said that I would return the next day to shoot the picture.

The film-producer left with me, and he complimented me on the way I had done my work. He said that he had been in films nearly all his life, but that I had taught him a great deal that day.

I had the film developed and a print made. Then I hired a portable projecting-machine and returned for the shooting--as the actors supposed. You can imagine the looks of surprise on their faces when I told them that the film had been taken, and was an enormous success. Some of them would not believe it until I showed them the picture on the screen. It was perfect, and everyone was delighted. We celebrated on champagne, and Thurston thanked me very warmly for all the work I had done.

I stayed another three weeks, rehearsing Thurston for synchronization with the film. Here failure soon showed itself, for there was one part which poor Thurston could never manage successfully. On the film he shoots a man, then he leaves the screen and pulls out the man, apparently dead. We worked at that hour after hour, but we could never do it convincingly. Howard Thurston put on the show for about three weeks, and then had to withdraw it. All our trouble had been wasted.

Since then I have dabbled in films at one time and another. I had a film prologue of my review, "The Tiger God", the first revue ever produced in England. I did not want to have another act sandwiched between my conjuring act and the revue, and this film filled the gap and was very successful. When I set off for the film-studio to take this picture I had no idea what it was going to be about. I hired a car and drove ten miles out of Paris, and in that time I had an inspiration and everything went smoothly.

I was asked to take part in a sketch called "King Solomon's judgment" in Munich some years ago and now I am preparing another magic film for which these others will have been only experiments. I fancy that this new idea is going to be a very great sensation.