Houdini

Previously on Houdini.

One way or another, we all want to escape.

Let's see you get out of these.

When ordinary life shackles us, we need to get away.

You don't get out, I keep you here overnight.

Fair enough.

But not me.

Unlike other people, J don't escape life.

I escape death.

A magician is not really a magician. He is an actor...

pretending to be a magician.

Rasputin says you are full of-

Full of-

Ah. I get the general idea.

If not for my mother, I would've gone nowhere.

You're gonna have to do better than that if you wanna be the greatest magician in the world.

Yeah?

- Whats your name, busier? - Jim Collins from Macon, Georgia.

I can escape from almost anything.

Houdini's the most famous man in America. He now makes more money than the president.

I'm Sir William Melville, his British counterpart in MI5.

What more natural cover than a traveling entertainer.

Mr. Houdini!

Fear is how I know I'm alive.

I will now attempt to catch the bullet.

Just 'cause there's nobody out there doesn't mean that the ones that are...

don't deserve the best of the Great Houdini.

- Nowadays, folks are going to moving pictures. - Ah, movies.

- What are you mixed up in? - Is it a girl?

Why can't you tell me? I'm your wife, aren't I?

You're the wife of the Great Houdini!

- Harry? - Hell of a way to make a living.

Fantastic!

Here's your new competition.

Not doin' anything.

He's makin' 'em laugh.

That's all right. My audience loves me.

They'll come back.

I just need something new.

What about the elephant?

It's not an escape. Needs to be an escape.

Laugh again, and you're fired.

Smaller theater. Please.

Escapes can't get smaller. They have to get bigger.

People expect more from the Great Houdini, not less.

- Maybe people are tired of escapes. - Huh?

You've done enough of them.

What kind of tobacco is that?

Mexican.

- Pepe gave it to me. - Who? Pepe?

What? From the band?

Smells weird.

He said it would help with my nerves.

He's right.

What the heck is bigger?

Play the Grand Canyon, why don't you?

Yeah, get me room 202.

Jim...

bring up some ice.

No, I mean a lot of ice.

- Evenin', Mrs. H. - What the hell is going on in here?

- Language, honey, please. - What are you doing?

- Ah, thanks, Jim. - You got it, boss.

If I can't bring the folks to the theater...

I gotta bring the theater to the folks.

- What does that mean? - If movies can go outdoors, so can I.

Oh, Christ, Harry.

- I gotta pee. - Yeah, five more minutes, honey. it's all yours.

We've been married 19 years. You can watch me pee.

I don't want to watch you pee.

Ah!

I expected the Mississippi to be cold...

but this was ridiculous.

That's that.

Maybe they could cut a hole in the ice.

- Harry, no. - Are you kiddin'? You'd kill yourself.

What? Twelve, 15 feet should do it.

- Honey, don't worry. - Oh, “honey,” my ass.

You want me to stick around to find out if I'm a widow?

You may be crazy, Harry, but I'm not.

- Sweetheart, please. - Go lo hell, Harry.

Fifteen feet?

Make ii 12.

Honey, it's just a little ice.

Put an ad in the paper and tell people...

you're gonna do something crazy Tuesday at noon...

and a thousand people will show up Tuesday at noon.

Throw in a chance of me getting killed, and you have to beat 'em back with a stick.

It was the wrong moment to start thinking.

If! started to think, I might forget who I was.

The Great Houdini.

Is he still down there?

The current had pushed me back so far...

I couldn't find my escape.

When we reach for greatness, sometimes we stumble.

We risk drowning in our ambition.

I'm a lucky man though.

'Cause whenever! found myself flailing in the darkness...

there was always one person there to save me.

Erich.

I told everyone I saw you, Ma, guiding me back.

And sure enough, we've been sold out ever since.

- She called me a liar. - She knows you too well.

Yeah. But, look, it's in the paper, Ma. Look.

“Houdini Guided By Mother's Voice To Safety!”

That's how I told it. That makes it true.

Yes, true as his name's Harry Houdini, Mom.

- We don't fight, Ma. - We don't fight.

All this rivalry stuff- it's just for publicity.

People want to pay to see who's better, right?

Which they already know, huh?

- Oh, is that right? - Jumped off any bridges lately, Dash?

- Oh, that's a good one. - Looks like you're running out of bridges, Harry.

What you gonna do next? Escape out of a barrel coming off the Niagara Falls?

Please don't say things like that to him. You give him ideas.

It's all right, honey. He's just trying to wind us up.

I promised her no more bridge jumps. Isn't that right, baby?

- Better be. - Yeah.

That's right, Ma. Right. I can't be killed. You hear that?

So how are you gonna make a dent in San Francisco, Harry?

- 'Cause they already had the earthquake. - Huh.

You know me. Always got something up my sleeve.

Honey. Honey, picked up a jacket at Harrods.

- Ooh. - Come here.

Look at this.

Leather, canvas. It's very modern, huh?

Fashionable.

Where are you planning on wearing that?

They call it a straitjacket. For confining lunatics.

We visited a madhouse.

- Let's try this thing on for size. - All right.

Good.

Boy.

All right. Uh-Oh, Oh.

This thing will make you go mad.

Maybe I can loosen one of those straps, right?

Can't do it soft. It's gonna be pulled by strangers.

They're gonna pull it tight.

Gettin' there?

- All right. - Ah!

Boss.

What'd you just do?

Oh!

Ho!

It's not so hard...

once you dislocate your shoulder.

Oh.

What?

Now I just gotta figure out how to pop it back in.

Turn me around, boys.

I needed to keep pushing my limits...

to keep gazing further.

But why?

Whatever the answer was”.

It was never enough.

You used to pretend to escape death. It was a trick.

- But now you're tricking me. - That's how I make my living.

That's what people pay to see.

Hello, San Francisco.

Hey, Chaplin, can you do this?

I escape death. Everybody wants to escape from something.

I do it for them. I escape.

I do the impossible.

When they think I'm dead, I burst into the open air...

and they all breathe again.

Yeah!

- Whoa! - On my shoulders I carry all of their-

Sins?

What, like Jesus?

Not their sins. Their fears.

Their fears.

I carry their fears.

Don't kid yourself, Harry.

You may not be afraid of death, but you're afraid of life.

- Oh, please, I've lived real life. - Real life.

You can keep it. I'd rather face death a thousand times...

than stand in the kitchen and do dishes.

Don't tell me you feel otherwise.

I know you're just as happy to skip the dishes as I am.

- Houdini! - Houdini!

- What do you want me to do? - I want a home.

What are you talking about? You have a great big mansion in Brooklyn.

We're never in it. When we are, we're sharing it with your mother.

- Ah. - We live out of suitcases and trunks.

This is what you signed up for, honey.

I didn't sign up. I got married.

Harry!

Sometimes I think you only proposed to me because I fit in that stupid trunk.

Is that why we're married? Because I fit in the trunk?

I thought you were through with that stuff.

I thought you were through with trying to kill yourself.

It is safe. It is very safe.

You can never be sure. That's what you always say.

- You can never be sure. - I say it to sell the stunt!

- Oh, please! - I can't jump.

I can't escape underwater. I can't hang upside down.

What can I do? What can I do?

- You're puttin' me in a box! - You're only happy in a box!

What's next, a coffin?

- Shit, Harry. - Why do you have to be so vulgar?