As posted April 10, 2013 on EW.COM:

History developing Houdini miniseries starring Adrien Brody

"And for History’s next miniseries trick…
The network is developing a multi-hour project on the life of Harry Houdini with Adrien Brody attached to star.
The deal just closed and details are scarce. We can tell you that History is developing a miniseries project (working title: Houdini) that traces the arc of the turn-of-the-20th-century master magician’s life from desperate poverty to worldwide fame.

Veteran TV producer (and J.J. Abrams’ father) Gerald W. Abrams (Modern Marvels, 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out) is attached as an executive producer. Brody (King Kong, The Pianist) is attached to star in what would be a rare venture into television for the Academy Award-winning actor."

And the legend lives on!

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/10/adrien-brody-houdini/

Please advise us when it is broadcast..thanks for the tip!

It's being broadcast now. Impressionistic, Houdini's magic the way it wasn't. Escapes almost right, but not quite. A splash of fictional events from Tony Curtis's movie about TGH. Houdini as spy taken from speculative histories. Off-the-rack psychoanalysis of Houdini. Kid playing TGH has mild British accent. Brody doesn't even resemble TGH. Too thin, including face. Misleading for those new to H's life, irritating to us old hands. "Just enough truth to make the lies believable."

Will I watch installment 2? Nah.

Lloyd Worley

PS: Meyer did the same thing to Holmes who was, at least, fictional.

Bad casting. Too tall, too skinny. Thanks so much for the s*b tr**nk exposure. Robert Downey Jr. would have been perfect to play Houdini.

Jim

Actually, given the potential for disaster, I was pleasantly surprised at how much the miniseries got right. Houdini's devotion to his mother, his arrogance/confidence, his love of performing and taking on dares and challenges, his father's situation (more or less), the range of places he performed in, his inventiveness, the headline-capturing stunts, the safe full of roses, the unlocked safe story (yes they blended these tales but that's okay; it's a movie, not a documentary), the costumes and hairstyles of the age, the reference to being the first to fly a plane in Australia, the astounding idiocy of Conan Doyle's belief in spiritualism, Houdini's ferocious exposure of fake mediums -- all true, as far as I can recall from my boyhood readings, and a fine introduction and overview for muggles who know nothing much about this amazing man's remarkable life. It's certainly trying to be more accurate than the Tony Curtis movie.

I particularly enjoyed the depictions of his performances. The bullet catching, the walking through a brick wall, the Romanov bell ringing, and the elephant vanish were wonderful to watch. Sure, the movie included a lot of expose of methods, but Holy Appleton, these have been known among the commoners for decades. What's more, I suggest that today in 2014, NO ONE is fooled by the sub trunk -- as far as the M.O.; it's the speed and costume-changes that still astonish audiences.

In a two-part mini series like this, they can't include everything. I felt bad that more wasn't said about Hardeen, or the magic shop in NYC, or Houdini's participation in S.A.M., or his rivalry with his peers to develop better and better stage shows. Yes, the whole business of the stomach punch in this TV movie was wayyyyyy overdone and it perpetuated the notion that the Montreal punch ruptured Houdini's appendix (see the excellent SNOPES.com essay on this), and yes, the speculation on the international spying is surely bunk. I was glad that the movie ended where it did without bringing in an unnecessary epilogue about the Rev. Ford.

I agree with JamesinLA at first that I wasn't keen on the choice of Mr. Brody because, yes, he's too tall. Someone more like a young Carol O'Connor (who played Archie Bunker) might be more the look and sound of the historical Houdini (at least the way Walter Gibson described Houdini to me some 40 years ago when I asked him what Houdini looked and sounded like). Still, Mr. Brody did a sincere job of portraying Houdini, despite the terribly clunky script (particularly the eye-rolling narrative lines), and I'm glad for him to have won the role because I read that the actor has practiced magic since he was a boy and considered Houdini one of his boyhood heroes.

So, yes, the shortcomings in this series are certainly there (where did Bess' drinking and smoking Mary Jane come from? Yoiks!), but the strengths -- the things they got right -- were delightful, weren't they?

So c'mon, fellow magis. What else did you especially LIKE about this mini series? What made you smile?

I think the fact that there was a "Fact-Checking Houdini" page on wild about Houdini within an hour of the conclusion of the first episode says a LOT about this production. Hey, Houdini's life was so DULL we'd better throw in some stuff about how he was a spy, you know, have him climbing around the walls of the German embassy like freakin' Spider-Man, to spice the story up a bit.

And of course the screen-play was written by Nicholas "I have a huge throbbing hard-on for Freud" Meyer who did such an OUTSTANDING job with the Sherlock Holmes story ("The Seven Percent Solution" for those of you who slept through it). Of course, what dutiful jewish boy wouldn't have a repressed Oedipal fantasy involving his domineering, Calvinistic Rabbi father and a nice long barrelled rifle? "What am I trying to escape? What I am I trying to escape?". Gosh, dunno, but I bet Sigmund Freud could puzzle it out for you, you bent twig!

But really, what else might we expect from a channel that should be required to put the word History in its name in quotes? A channel that considers it to be history to air 3 solid days of UFO hunters, or that Rick Harrison and his desert grown passle of red-neck crackers have a single thing to add to the conversation about history. I haven't watched the second installment of this production. I still haven't taken the bandages off of my bleeding lacerated eyes from the first episode. But don't spare me! I won't be unhappy for a "spoiler"! Tell me, did they point out that Houdini was actually a Gray? Or that he used alien technology to do his amazing escapes? Or that his death was prophesied in Nostradamus? Or that he was actually killed by the freemasons?

Two thumbs down for this show AND for the history channel in general.

Sorry. I'll stop now...

I sense... sarcasm!
Magic Pierre, you make good points about the inauthentic programming on the History Channel. No argument (I'm too busy laughing with you on your comment). What ARE aliens and a lot of the other stuff doing on this channel? So, yes, we expect more on this channel. Absolutely.

As for lots of writers going all Freud on Harry H, who can blame them? The psychoanalyst was as famous at Houdini and he was a contemporary in Houdini's time, and Harry DID have a remarkably strong devotion to his mother, and he was always defying death and doing what looks to the world like crazy, obsessive things -- so, well, the temptation to put our hero on the analyst's couch is irresistible, n'est-ce pas?

I agree with you that a real, stick-to-the-facts documentary would have been better for the History Channel and this movie probably should have been on Bravo or the CW. Let's hope that the show got good ratings because it may cause folks to read up on Wikipedia, buy a book on Amazon, or (gasp!) go to their local library to learn more about the real Houdini. Some good may come out of the bad, although I still say the movie this week wasn't so bad.

I have reached an age where I am really not interested in watching things about which the best that can be said is that they "weren't so bad"...