![]() By simply making a loop in the string, you can lasso the end of the screw in the lock and yank the bolt back, and so open the cuff in as clean a manner as if opened with the original key.” Notice he said, “old-time cuffs,” so don’t go getting any ideas of trying this at home! STRAITJACKET In his book Handcuff Secrets, he confides that “you can open the majority of the old-time cuffs with a shoestring. ![]() Just as often, though, Houdini escaped from handcuffs without a key at all. He gleaned this simply by looking and listening to the tumblers of enough locks to know them by heart. ![]() Whether he had the original key or not, Houdini was an expert in locks, and he understood how they worked well enough that he could choose a suitable multipurpose skeleton key for most of the cuffs he encountered. The secret was usually in how he hid the key-somewhere on his person, attached to a string he could surreptitiously fish out, or in his mouth, attached to a small extendable rod. Still, he escaped almost effortlessly every time, regardless of the style of handcuffs. He encouraged folks in the audience to be the ones to lock him up and turn the key, even stacking on several pairs of manacles at a time to establish trust that there was no way the cuffs or their locks were phony. While Houdini wasn’t the first magician to escape from handcuffs for a crowd, he certainly popularized and polished the trick, making it his calling card. Unfortunately, for the sake of the illusion, but fortunately, for those of us curious, we can appreciate a look behind the curtain at some of Houdini’s most famous escapes, tricks, and accomplishments. His brother, a fellow magician himself, couldn’t bear losing such good work.Īnd so, over time, Houdini’s personal effects, notes, and tricks have found their way into museums, traveling shows, the acts of other magicians, and even from auction houses into private collections. However, you may have heard the old saying, “A magician never reveals his secrets.” So how did one of the most renowned ever have so many of his exposed? Houdini so firmly believed in preserving the magic of his act that he instructed his brother to destroy any and all related effects upon his death. A pair of Houdini’s shackles and a lithograph of the Handcuff King himself.
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