The Escape-Acts of Houdini

In a previous article1 it was postulated that Houdini, for years world-famed on the vaudeville stage as an Escape Artist, was conditioned to his peculiar vocation by a morbid mother-fixation. For, as implied, his performances “constituted a manifest symbolization of the birth mechanisms with his interplay upon exposures in water, concealments in baskets, boxes, and receptacles, and final struggles for release.”

The recent publication of Houdini's Escapes2 offers an opportunity for a further glimpse into his methods as an expert in extrication and self-release, as he was known. Many of his efforts were so hazardous and nerve-wracking that no one, even if familiar with the modus operandi, would have the courage, physical ability, and temerity necessary to attempt to duplicate them. For Houdini, who gained his greatest reputation as the man who could get out of anything, was able to cope with unexpected situations and to overcome obstacles that might, and did, prove disastrous to imitators.

His mind was constantly on the alert for fresh escape-ideas. On hearing of some new device applicable for his purpose, he immediately added it to his armamentarium, adapting to it more difficult features. There seemingly was no end to his research and experimentation. Possessed of great physical strength and agility, familiar with every conceivable type of lock and handcuff, adept in the principles of mechanical construction, with a keen, inquiring personality and a mastery of the craft of showmanship, he was indeed a veritable creative genius of the art of escape.

An exceedingly intense seriousness and unhesitating acceptance of the constant physical endurances which many of his acts demanded, added to his restless quest for improvisations on the escape-act, would seem quite conclusively to stamp his behavior as emotionally inspired and over-determined. Many examples of this passionate, unyielding devotion to his life-work can be cited.