The duo had recently scored a huge success with the Oscar winning Rebecca. Selznick first approached Alfred Hitchcock about directing the film. In fact, it's likely Schary brought the idea of a Houdini biopic to Selznick when he became head of production, so it's probably more accurate to call this "Dore Schary's Houdini" (but I went with the bigger name - that's showbiz). Schary had been deeply involved in Paramount's aborted Houdini project in the 1930s, and was now the head of production at Vanguard. In early 1944, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Dore Schary would produce the Houdini biopic for Selznick. The film was to be made by Selznick's newly formed Vanguard Films, the company he established after the dissolution of Selznick International in 1943. This was after a few attempts to make a Houdini movie had fallen through at other studios. Selznick wanted to do for Houdini what he had done for Scarlett O'Hara and produce what could have been a lavish, Oscar-worthy Houdini biopic. (Apr.In the 1940s, Gone With The Wind producer David O. Lutes and Bertozzi successfully offer a tiny snapshot as a way into a very large life. Several pages of historical notes fill in the details. Houdini himself comes off as a flawed but respectable man, whose principles make him both exceptional at what he does and difficult to be around. Illustrations show him preparing to defeat the handcuffs, and wordless panels ultimately allow readers to witness the escape process in its entirety. As the story opens on May 1, 1908, he is preparing for a handcuffed jump from Harvard Bridge, chafing at badgering reporters and a flock of imitators who are stealing his tricks. Houdini is an insecure man obsessed with fame, but also a faithful and devoted husband. But the authors intimate larger, at times darker themes (true love, arrogance, anti-Semitism) lurking around the outer edges. A single stunt from the sprawling career of the "handcuff king," Harry Houdini ("The man for whom the phrase 'kids, don't try this at home' might well have been invented," reads Glen David Gold's introduction), is the lynchpin of this brief, elegant book.
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