Comments on: Harry Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle

By: Andrew Millard

Andrew Millard — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:47:00 +0000

If no one has previously mentioned, William Shatner was the co-author of a novel on this topic: Believe. I enjoyed it a lot.

By: rabidpotatochip

rabidpotatochip — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:22:00 +0000

At any rate, I think that I prefer their congenial gullibility to the billions of smug internet commenters who think that everything is fake.

Your post is an obvious photoshop.

By: mandoran

mandoran — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:02:00 +0000

How is Fortean the opposite of Skeptic?

By: mccrum

mccrum — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:44:00 +0000

Oh no, I have. I can only conclude you haven’t actually taken off Trek glasses to view him as the rest of us do.

Seriously, this is worth discussing? And in that shirt?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BYNdTHjstI

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:25:00 +0000

Personally, I was never really impressed by Holmes’s skills – while he was and is an endearing character, his reasoning often seemed far-fetched and like guesswork, like guided by a supernatural sense for picking the correct line of thought.

I’m not at all surprised to hear that Doyle believed in psychic phenomena.

By: Ruth Starke

Ruth Starke — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 06:18:00 +0000

Spoken with the benefit of hindsight and a 21st century consciousness. These were the very early days of photography. Kodak and other experts could prove no tampering with the photographic plates. People saw what they wanted to see.

By: James Veitch

James Veitch — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:43:00 +0000

Last I’d heard, Straczynski was working on a script based around their friendship.

By: planettom

planettom — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:42:00 +0000

Seconded that FAIRY TALE: A TRUE STORY is worth watching. It’s pretty clever that, though the movie does depict fairies as real, it clearly shows that the photos were faked.

The crux of the movie is that the hoax is more along the lines of what Houdini did — add a little magic to the world — as opposed to the fake spiritualists who were preying on the grief of parents for their dead sons killed in WWI.

And as you say, Harvey Keitel as Houdini is inspired.

I have a reproduction of the notebook that Arthur Conan Doyle’s father kept in the asylum, where he sketched fairies (that he may have believed he actually saw), excerpts of which are shown in the movie.

PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES (1997) is another movie inspired by the Cottingley fairies. I haven’t seen it, but apparently it’s much less of a movie for kids.

By: EvilSpirit

EvilSpirit — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:50:00 +0000

I can only conclude you haven’t been paying attention for the last 15 years or so.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:40:00 +0000

A… pity… yes. But!… a pity for… whom?

Seriously, would you want to be in a small room with William Shatner going overboard on his acting for two hours? I can only assume he’d have something to do with the script as well, which wouldn’t bode well for those attending either.

Let’s just leave him in those Priceline commercials, I think we’re all a little better off.

By: Halloween_Jack

Halloween_Jack — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:19:00 +0000

Fun fact: at one point, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy talked about doing a two-man stage play of them playing Houdini and Doyle, respectively. Pity it fell through.

By: $19428857

$19428857 — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:10:00 +0000

For a different take on the relationship, FairyTale: A True Story is fictionalized account of the Cottingley fairies, featuring Harvey Keitel as Houdini (seriously brilliant physical casting) and Peter O’Toole as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A sweet movie for the faerie besotted child in your life, like my daughter, who LOVES this movie. Not intolerable for many adult tastes, especially those of us for whom Hallmark Card commercials are like crack, and Anglophiles. The friendship between Doyle and Houdini is not the main story, but it is there, as is the conflict between their views on mediums and the occult. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119095/

By: Flesh of Sadie

Flesh of Sadie — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:57:00 +0000

Just last week I found out there was a Cricket League of Extraordinary Gentlemen including Doyle, Wodehouse, Barrie, Kipling, Milne, Jerome, et al.

http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/allahakbarries-c-c/

By: CGulow

CGulow — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:47:00 +0000

Awesome! Thanks for posting this.

By: Marktech

Marktech — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:58:00 +0000

The story of the Cottingley fairies has always fascinated me. How anyone over the age of four could possibly mistake those obvious paper cutouts for three-dimensional beings is mindboggling.

Chopped. I can tell from the pixies.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:37:00 +0000

Most literary critics agree that the Sherlock Holmes series started going downhill around the time that Holmes gave up on the whole “deduction” thing in lieu of holding seances to interview murder victims.

By: WaylonWillie

WaylonWillie — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:35:00 +0000

Thanks for posting this! I remember a great story from one of Houdini’s bios where Houdini performs the “look-I-can-take-off-my-thumb!” trick that everyone learns in 5th grade, and Mrs. Conan Doyle passes out in astonishment. Silverman’s bio of Houdini is a great read if anyone gets into this (I’m not a historian though, so am only assessing it from a reader’s point of view….)

By: Brian Ruh - ブライアン・ルー

Brian Ruh - ブライアン・ルー — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:30:00 +0000

The story of people running away from a train on film is probably just an oft-reported legend. It undoubtedly caused reactions, but no widespread panic. See “Lumière’s Arrival of the Train: Cinema’s Founding Myth” by Martin Loiperdinger in The Moving Image 4.1 (2004) 89-11.

By: David Pescovitz

David Pescovitz — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:24:00 +0000

+1 to that, Antinous!

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:16:00 +0000

One of the first movies showed a train coming at the screen, and people ran out of the theater in terror. People aren’t very good at parsing unfamiliar things. At any rate, I think that I prefer their congenial gullibility to the billions of smug internet commenters who think that everything is fake.

By: Wally Ballou

Wally Ballou — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:09:00 +0000

Looks interesting. The story of the Cottingley fairies has always fascinated me. How anyone over the age of four could possibly mistake those obvious paper cutouts for three-dimensional beings is mindboggling.

By: Lobster

Lobster — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:07:00 +0000

Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain palled around, too. Tesla invented a machine that made Twain poop!