Traxan

Just saw this announced on History. IMDb was pretty useless. But I figured why not start a discussion on it? About time History started putting the money they made off those stupid alien shows into some genuine original content of historical note.

bluetoast

WTF, just searched online and one result was a 1999 movie where Brody played a character who calls himself Harry Houdini (Oxygen). Weird coincidence. Didn't know about this. I liked the 1998 TNT movie, and am a fan of the man himself, so will have to give this a shot.

Traxan

First full trailer.

writer106

I also remember seeing that TNT movie a couple of times. I saw a promo a couple of days ago for this and I'll probably DVR it.

Traxan

Don't forget it's on tomorrow evening.

Mike86

I'm not too interested in Houdini but this looks like it could be okay. I might check it out.

CPA-ESQ.

watched the first 15 minutes and DVR'd the rest so I could ffwd through commercials. From what I watched it looked good.

It gets into Houdini being a spy for the government - I don't know how true this is.. but I have to finish watching.

Traxan

It's being aired over and over on History tonight.

Geofferson

DVR'd both parts and will likely get around to it sometime in the next couple weeks.

Bill Needle

I've gotten through about an hour so far (up to the spy stuff) and am enjoying it so far.

PhantomStranger

The first hour seemed like an enjoyable, breezy ride through Houdini's life. It felt like the script had been pared down from a much longer treatment. I wonder if this was intended to be a full-blown mini-series running multiple weeks and they cut it down at some point?

TheNightFlier

It did seem like there was more to it. The quick cuts and edits got a little out of control towards the end. I am sucker for anything magic so I was decently entertained.

CPA-ESQ.

Almost finished watching this - I have about 40 minutes left.

I'm glad the spy stuff was only a segment or two. I am enjoying watching all of his 'tricks' and behind the scenes of the setup / execution.

The story goes by quickly and this is easy to watch. I'm glad they did a 2 night mini movie and did not drag this out into a 8 week mini-series.

CPA-ESQ.

Finished watching was kind of surprised that they did not touch on

PhantomStranger

I finished this series up, it's probably not worth watching. While I didn't mind the lightweight approach to Houdini, this series felt like it was written by someone that had seen a 30-minute History Channel documentary on him as their primary source of information. It also had a lot of dumb stylistic quirks, like the repeated blows to the stomach and its modern musical score that had no place in a period piece.

By the second part, I was hoping it would quickly end.

barelypure

I liked the show. I wished they had done more with the spy stuff and leaving out his final words to his wife to verify mediums was a mistake.

And, while not said the itinerant psychic who returned his 2 bits because she saw his death probably smelled the gangrene. Similar to how they train dogs to sniff out diseases.

CPA-ESQ.

I thought he died from an infected appendix that ruptured.

I too thought the punch to the stomach over and over and over was a bit over done... ok we get it.. this is going to have significance in the future..

PhantomStranger

This series is getting ripped to shreds by magic historians. Apparently much of it was based on an older Seventies book that has been thoroughly discredited.

Jackskeleton

yeah, that was pretty forgettable.

Bill Needle

I started losing interest once the spy stuff started and never got it back. It felt way too much like one of those Deadliest Warrior type shows where computer animation substitutes for story.

Jackskeleton

but you see, Houdini could never escape loving his momma

mike45

The whole punching in the stomach bit got annoyingly tiring. Added to the whole CGI internal organ thing became nauseating.

Osiris3657

This is on Netflix, so I watched it over the last couple days.

I was entertained enough to give it 3 stars. I suppose the criticisms of it are valid. There were some especially bad lines throughout the movie:
Manager: "The handwriting is on the wall"
Houdini: "I write the writing!!!"

Ugh.

Anyway, could have been worse. No regrets. Did learn something I hadn't known about Houdini (that he was a spy/informant). EDIT: wait, it appears that whole spy thing was made up.