When I was seven or eight, I was enthralled with Harry Houdini. I read several books on Houdini and remember seeing Tony Curtis in the 1953 movie Houdini. So, I couldn't pass up Death Defying Acts, starring Guy Pearce as Houdini and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Mary McGarvie, a psychic trying to con $10,000 out of Houdini. Knowing a fair amount about Houdini, this "what if" story about the last period of his life was a little hard to square with his biographies. The film explores Houdini's obsession with the after-life and discrediting fake spiritualists.
Pearce does a decent Houdini. He has the physique Houdini was known for and really looks the part. Saoirse Ronan is wonderful as the psychic's daughter and partner in crime. The character of fake psychic Mary McGarvie seems a little undeveloped. The movie amounts to a romance with some sparkling performances that's far from the documented history of Harry Houdini.
If you're interested in reading about Houdini, I would recommend The Secret Life of Houdini, The Making of America's First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. Houdini was an amazing man. He was an escape artist, pilot, movie star, fake spiritualist exposer, and maybe even a secret agent.
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