Showman to the end, it became his signature trick till the day he died.ĮdNote: Two of my favorite films about magic and magicians from the Houdini era are The Prestige, and The Illusionist. The space was too narrow to maneuver in, his legs were restrained so that he hung upside-down and he was then locked into the overflowing water tank. Then, as now, it's one thing to own a patent and another to enforce it. One of the reasons he started doing the Water Torture escape was because many imitators were doing his milk can escape, even though he had patented it. He purportedly had to hold his breath for at least three minutes underwater to execute this escape, an achievement few would dare to attempt. The chief example of this may be the Chinese Water Torture Cell in which Houdini would be placed upside-down in an enclosed space filled with water. The 'magic' Houdini performed did require nearly superhuman feats on the part of the magician at times. When John Bushey showed me his handcuff collection it included a specially created set that Houdini created specifically for this task of showing how easy it was for mediums to fool people and make them believe spirits were present.

Houdini water tank escape