Throughout his life, he is driven to win the approval of his mother, a cold, aloof person. The act initially bombs and there are problems at home because she resents him sending a goodly portion of what little they earn to his widowed mother. Theirs is not a fairy-tale success story. Stacy Edwards of Chicago Hope is a winning complement as Bess. Nevertheless, she becomes not only his wife but his partner, putting aside her own ambition to advance his. Auditioning for the vaudeville circuit, he meets a young aspiring singer named Bess, becomes instantly infatuated, and asks her to be his wife, a proposal complicated by the fact that she is Catholic. The TNT movie attempts to explore the dynamics that drove a young Jewish immigrant with no show business genes to become the all-time reference point for his craft. Wisely, the latest Houdini is more than a medley of marvel-inducing escapes and sleights of hand. However, there is no contemporary whose name has the magic - no pun intended - of Houdini, who has been dead for 72 years. David Copperfield is huge and Siegfried and Roy have been the toughest ticket in Las Vegas for more than a decade. The presence of still another biography is also a tribute to the man. This explains why TNT would mount a production of Houdini, an oft-told tale. Even the Fox tell-alls generated bigger Nielsens than any of their mutant cousins in the “world’s scariest animal crashes” genre. Specials showcasing magicians and illusionists unfailingly pull impressive ratings. In light of all this, it would seem TV viewers would be a tough room. This is to say nothing of those Fox exposs on how magic tricks are done. Viewers accustomed to trick camerawork and special effects know that it is impossible to believe what you see. The appeal of magic on television is as baffling as Harry Houdini’s art.
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