The Right Way to Do Wrong (2 page)

Magic in Houdini's day was no better than it is now, and Houdini's not afraid to say so. Most performers go from trick to trick and “content themselves with mere doing,” as Houdini bluntly puts it. Houdini, who had seen and known the greats of magic, offers alternatives.

You also get to meet the brawler Houdini, the braggart alpha male who tolerated no imitators and who would rip into the competition like a fighting cock. You may find Houdini's ranting against copyists a bit grating, but it's easy to understand his rage. Magic is a niche form of showbiz. Magicians don't enjoy systematic protections for their original work, the way, say, musicians do. If you compose a song and somebody else records it, that person owes you credit and royalties. But magicians like Houdini put years into developing material that mutton-heads ripped off overnight. It pissed him off. So I'm not surprised that Houdini is scrappy on that point.

Magicians fool their audiences. But only for a little while, only in the theater. After the curtain call, you may wonder how the magician seemed to produce a ghost, but you don't believe the show proved ghosts are real. You have been mystified, not suckered. This distinction was a moral point for Houdini, and much of his writing was devoted to exposing people who were passing off tricks as reality.

At the end of the 1900s, big American cities were getting bigger and more anonymous, and the class of urban stealth-criminals grew: burglars, pickpockets, shoplifters, and confidence operators, who depended more on guile than brute force. Houdini was in a good position to get the inside dope on such operations. For the sake of his publicity-stunt jailbreaks, he cultivated warm
relationships with police all over the US and Europe, and his police friends let him interview criminals. They were flattered by the attention of the most famous stage performer in the world, and proudly spilled their methods. Houdini recounts the most amusing and thought provoking of those confessions in
The Right Way to do Wrong
, from which we present choice selections. It's always struck me as a blueprint for a great television series.

Why do we care so much about crime in a world as secure as the one you and I live in? As Houdini explains, understanding skullduggery helps protect us from becoming victims. But I think there's a sunnier reason: we lead safe, well-fed lives, and the animal part of our nature hasn't grasped that yet. Part of us still hungers to chase our steak through the forest and kill it with our own sharp teeth. So the people who love to read about crime and violence are generally gentle folk like you and me. We watch forensic dissections on TV while we enjoy our dinner, and that's just as it should be. In
The Right Way To Do Wrong
my favorite scam is the one in the jewelry store with the chewing gum. Watch for it.

Just southeast of Houdini's interest in crooks is his love of the disgusting and sensational sideshow arts like stone-eating and beer-spouting, which he wrote about in
Miracle Mongers and their Methods
. I do not recommend pursuing a new career based on Houdini's colorful instructions in these wonders. Remember, a magician's art is to make dull reality look like fascinating impossibility. Houdini called this “mystification,” and added with balls the size of Gibraltar, “but I do tricks that
nobody
can find out.”

So as you read, whether it's the rough or the refined
Houdini, please remember that though you love him (and you will) he was a showman, a brand-builder, not a historian. Tacitus, the ancient Roman writer of histories—and before you decide this paragraph was written by a ghostwriter, I admit I once taught high-school Latin—said “
Fingunt simul creduntque
,” “They make it up, and at the same time, they believe it.” That's frequently true of Houdini. It's inevitably true of anyone who builds a brand. It's certainly true of me as I write this. And if you listen to yourself tell the stories that make life worthwhile, you'll probably find it's true of you, too.

THE RIGHT WAY TO DO WRONG

IN WINNING YOUR AUDIENCE, REMEMBER THAT “Manners make fortunes,” so don't be impertinent.

An old trick well done is far better than a new trick with no effect.

Never tell the audience how good you are; they will soon find that out for themselves.

Nothing can give greater delight to the gentler sex than to have some flowers handed to them that you have produced from a hat or paper cone.

Rabbit tricks are positive successes.

Never work to fool a magician; always work to your audience. You may think your trick is old, but it is always new to members of your audience.

An old trick in a new dress is always a pleasant change.

When practicing a new trick, try it in front of a looking glass, accompanying your moves with your entire patter.

Don't drag your tricks, but work as quickly as you can, bearing in mind the Latin proverb, “Make haste slowly.”

When your audience is far distant from you, pantomime work will be well appreciated.

Well-chosen remarks on topics of the day are always in order.

The newspapers generally commented more on Heller's wit than on his magic.

Always have a short sentence ready in case a trick should go wrong. One magician, who has the misfortune to blunder often, says, “Ladies and gentlemen, mistakes will happen, and that is one of them.”

Walk right out on stage, and tell your tale to your audience, and perhaps many will believe it.

It is far more difficult to give a trial show to a house full of seats and one manager than to a packed house and no manager.

THE GREAT TROUBLE WITH MAGICIANS IS THE fact that they believe when they have bought a certain trick or piece of apparatus, and know the method of procedure, that they are full-fledged mystifiers. The fact really is, it is not the trick itself, neither is it the mere handling of it, but a successful presentation depends on the address in connection with the presentation. It is historically recorded that Demosthenes, having an impediment in his speech, placed pebbles in his mouth and spoke to the rolling waves. During nearly all my lifetime I have had occasion to address large audiences, and a pertinent fact comes to mind. In October, 1900, at the Berlin Winter Garden, which is really a type of railroad station, I was the only one who could be heard all over the house. At the New York Hippodrome, where I performed for two consecutive seasons, my voice carried to all parts of that vast audience. As a matter of fact, I was told that I could be heard out in the lobby. The acoustic properties were wonderful in the Hippodrome, but there is something about a man's personality that is lost when in a huge place; just as the man who is accustomed to speaking in a small circle is lost when he gets on the stage and vice versa. I have no objections to giving magicians
the secret of my manner of address and what I regard is the right speaking voice.

Incidentally, once upon a time, my grammar was corrected by a newspaper man. It was on my first trip on the Orpheum Circuit, and strange to say, our beloved Dean, Harry Kellar, had a similar experience. Allan Dale in one of his criticisms corrected him in the same manner. Mr. Kellar's remark was: “When I done this trick,” etc. In the criticism, Allan Dale said, “I did, Mr. Kellar, I did, Mr. Kellar, I did, Mr. Kellar.” Kellar informed me that he took the hint and went under training. I do not believe that Allan Dale knows to this day how grateful Kellar was for the criticism. When an artist, even a magician, is corrected by a critic, he should not be dismayed nor look upon it as wasted. He should consider it a friendly favor and look upon it the same as I have always looked upon criticism. Constructive criticism is wonderfully helpful. Imagine having a great big newspaper man watch the performance and then write a criticism free of charge. Why, it is a wonderfully beneficial thing as I look at it.

If you were to engage a critic to correct your performance he would charge hundreds of dollars; so, instead of letting the criticism go to waste, or becoming antagonistic, the newspaperman's correction of your performance should be gratefully accepted. When I had an engagement at an extensive place where I was afraid my voice would not carry, I would actually go in training for that place. I would run around the block in the morning at a dogtrot and get my lungs in good condition, for it is a fact that in my work I require wonderful lungs to use in my physical manifestations before an audience. I would also take long walks, away from habitation and address
an imaginary audience. I remember in Moscow, Russia, 1903, I went to the racetrack and delivered my speech to my imaginary audience with all the gestures, and in the course of my remarks I said, “I defy the police departments of the world to hold me. I challenge any police official to handcuff me.” And strange as it may appear, one of the spy detectives, or secret policemen, overheard me. In about twenty minutes, as I was roaming around the race track, I was surrounded by policemen, thinking that I was a mad man, and when I gave them an explanation they just roared with laughter. Thereupon, I used them as my audience and they made corrections regarding my speech, for which I was thankful. In 1900, on my first trip to England, I had the good fortune to meet quite a number of the legitimate stars.

Among others I met Herman Vezin, the understudy of Sir Henry Irving. I was, at that time, called “The Syllable Accenting American,” because I would spell my words, figuratively, that they should be carried to the gallery. I never spoke to the first row. My method of addressing an audience, as a result of experience, was as follows: I would walk down to the footlights, actually put one foot over the electric globes as if I were going to spring among the people, and then hurl my voice, saying “Ladies and gentlemen.” I was told by a number of men that in the Boston Polyclinic and various other schools they would illustrate my method, and then the class would go to Keith's Theatre to hear my enunciation and manner of delivery.

When you can make the men in the gallery hear each syllable, the audience in front, or downstairs, are also most effectually served. When you introduce an
experiment, apply yourself seriously. Don't think because you perform a trick well, or the apparatus is detection-proof from the viewpoint of an ordinary audience, that you have conquered the world of mystery, and that you reign supreme. Work with determination that you intend to make them believe what you say. Say it as if you mean it and believe it yourself. If you believe your own claim to miracle doing and are sincere in your work, you are bound to succeed. The reasons magicians do not forge to the front more than they do now, is because they are content themselves with a mere doing, and imagine they have the act complete; that all they have to do is lay the apparatus on the table and go from one trick to the other. The experiment and apparatus are both of secondary consideration. Your determination to improve the seriousness of your endeavors means success, and if you are a natural comedian (I do not mean a buffoon, or something which does not become your personality) you may easily inject a tinge of humor in your work. But do not strain that point; it should come naturally and with ease, or be left alone. Herrmann's method with an audience was: As soon as he appeared to their gaze, he bowed and smiled all the way to the footlights, as if he were tickled to death to have the honor of appearing before them, and the effect on his audience was salutatory and he won their sympathy forthwith. Dean Kellar's method was to walk in just the same as he would into a house party, welcoming all. He knew he was presenting a line of feats that the majority might have known, but he handled each number beautifully and he knew that the audience loved to see him do it. Therefore, everything he presented inspired the audience to a feeling of kindliness
and likeableness to him in appreciation of his work. If you want to be a success, make up your mind that your address to the audience will be the most important item of your performance.

Houdini explains “one of the most interesting contests that ever fell to his lot,” an episode involving a handcuff performer named Kleppini in June 1902. French Letter handcuffs open when the correct word is entered in their mechanism
.

WE WERE TOURING HOLLAND, WHEN A FRIEND sent me a bill and newspaper clipping, announcing in huge, fat type that Kleppini was about to appear at Circus Sidoli, in Dortmund, Germany, after returning from Holland, where he had defeated the American, Houdini, at his own game. Kleppini further claimed that I had handcuffed him, only to see him escape, while I had met with defeat when handcuffed by him.

This was more than pride could endure. I had a heated argument with my Herr Director, Althoff, who at first refused to allow me to follow up Kleppini and force him to retract; but when I said it was leave of absence or quit for good, he yielded, granted me five days' leave, and I left at once for Dortmund.