Houdini, on History
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Well... everyone's heard of Harry Houdini (real name Erik Weisz). He was a world-famous magician/illusionist and the greatest escape artist in history. There have been several movies about him, over the years: a theatrical film in 1953, TV movies in 1976 and 1998. But as far as I recall, the only thing I've ever seen about him was "Young Harry Houdini," a 1987 installment of The Wonderful World of Disney. I'm sure I liked that better than this 2014 miniseries (though I don't remember it well, and I'd like to see it again someday). "Houdini" has decent production values and acting, and it wasn't what I would call boring. But it also included a number of apocryphal plot points. (Not that I'd know that if I didn't read it online, because I'm no expert on Harry Houdini. Still, it would be nice for something airing on the History Channel to bear a closer resemblance to actual history.) And I just felt that the the occasional jumping around in chronology didn't really work here as well as the writers might have hoped it would. For me, it just had the effect of making most of the stuff that happened seem kind of random and disconnected. I've also read some critical complaints about the narration, which I can't disagree with.

Anyway, Erik was born in Budapest in 1974, and moved with his parents and brothers to Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1978. (Wikipedia mentions multiple brothers, but the miniseries only shows us one.) Later they moved to New York City. We see Erik (his name now spelled Ehrich Weiss) and his brother, Dash, taking an interest in magic as children, and eventually making a small-time career of it together, as adults. Ehrich (Adrien Brody) now calls himself Harry Houdini, named after a French magician named Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. Before long, Harry meets a singer named Bess, and they marry a week later. She becomes part of Harry's act, leaving Dash to go solo. A while after that, Harry hires a guy named Jim Collins to become his assistant and help design the mechanical devices he uses in his escapes.

Throughout the miniseries, we see various escapes and illusions, and we see how most of them are done. We also see Harry getting a bigger ego as he becomes increasingly famous, and a need to constantly push himself to create grander and more dangerous (potentially life-threatening) stunts, in order to maintain his fame. All of which leads to a certain degree of strain on his marriage. But we also see a constant devotion to his mother (who speaks no English). And, um, eventually Harry gets recruited for espionage work, though we don't see much of that. The second half of the miniseries is mostly about his debunking of mediums, after his mother dies. Actually he was hoping to find one who was real, and could help him make contact with his mother, but they were all fakes. This included the wife of Arthur Conan Doyle (who himself believed Houdini to have supernatural powers). And eventually we see Houdini's death, in 1926.

Um... so, I guess it was all vaguely interesting. I could have done without some of the x-ray visuals, but in general the escapes and illusions were fun to watch. There were some genuinely good moments peppered throughout the miniseries. (I think my favorite line was something a debunked medium known as Margery said to him, something I found rather chilling.) And Bess was a more interesting character than she could have been (though also less interesting than she could have been; there was one point very briefly when I thought it would be fun if she became the movie's focus and it turned into Reefer Madness or something... but it didn't). And... I don't really know what else to say. I guess I can't exactly say I'm glad I watched it, but I also can't say I'm sorry I watched it. (But it's safe to say I won't ever be watching it again.)