Ran across this "Festival of Magic" production on another topic, thought everyone would want to see the great Cardini as not shown on YouTube before.

Other greats are also on this video, Robert Harbin to mention another famous magician. So you may want to watch the entire video.

Go to timestamp 32:17 to see Cardini in the best quality I have seen to date. His act is a little different then has been seen previously. This is 1957.

Thanks Bill(!),
That was a pleasure!

I always wondered about the 'old guy' sitting in the back,...sleeping.
Was he another 'performer', in the Show?
,..a Stage-hand?
Does anyone know of anyone who played the part?
Just curious.

Thanks again for sharing.
A great piece.
gallagher

Great video! Thanks for sharing. It makes me want to try my hand at card manipulation with gloves.

It is actually no different with gloves, Louis Ganson gives instruction on card manipulation with gloves in his books, Routine Manipulation, and his original book Expert Manipulation of Playing cards. Davenport's in London, England re-published it in 2003.

Never seen the soft leather chamois gloves Ganson and Geoffrey Buckingham say they wore.

It is the gloves that are had to find, you should use cotton gloves with a snap at the wrist. Our local magic store got some in years ago, and I bought 2 pair, when I went back for a couple more, they were sold out, and never got any more in stock.

You might try Amazon, just make sure they are cotton and have a snap, not a button. Get 2 pair as you will wear out a pair practicing. Spit on the gloved finger tips helps a lot.

When I was doing cards with gloves (a variation of what was in Ganson's books), I must have tried at least a dozen types of gloves until I finally settled on cotton parade gloves I found in one of those old Army/Navy Surplus stores. They had the snap at the wrist. although I never closed them. I bought a couple of pairs, washed them to soften them up, and used them for years. I still have them.

Aside from a bit of fanning powder on the poker-sized Bicycles, I didn't need or do anything else besides a lot of practice and rehearsal. Later on, I didn't even need the fanning powder. At the time, I was doing repeated, almost-full-circle fans and single cards.

And I didn't spit on the fingers.

FYI - http://www.paradestore.com/index.php/sur......ves.html

Cool, Michael. Thanks.

It is my opinion, that the gloves with the little grippers will just get in the way of doing split fan productions. Spit works best, from my experience.

I mentioned the snap because, these gloves had a better fit, and if you wanted to use the snap, it kept the gloves on your hand while getting use to them in rehearsal. Ganson's glove load, can be use with this type of glove without using the snap. I also found the snap easier to unsnap during performance, having to unbutton is more difficult.

When comes to 'gloves',
I've been working with these,...

https://www.fleetfarm.com/detail/fox-riv......%7C10582

,for the longest time. 😳

Well,...actually not. 😊
,..but it often has FELT like it! 🙃

Those 'Paradegloves' Michael mentions,
they also come in black.
Interesting,
because,
Cardini actually wore black gloves,
in the beginning.
From pictures I've seen,
I think the black gloves were much better...
the Cards really stood out.

His white gloves, from what I've read,
were Ladies' fine chamois leather "long in the wrist"
',...Gauntlet Gloves.
Swan would cut them off,
turn them down,
hem the cuff,
and put snaps on them.'
{Cardini by john fischer}

In this book,
it is mentioned,
'Cardini wore gloves to fill his long boney fingers out.'
In essence,....close the windows(!).
As well as, aid his grip.
,...and were 'prepared',
to aid in others ways.

It's kinda funny, in a way(!);
what he convinced folks "made things HARDER",
actually,...
made things EASIER.

,....maybe this was his greatest piece of 'trickery'!

gallagher

Does anyone even do split fans anymore? Just curious.

I see them all the time, but perhaps that is because I am frequently around the Magic Castle.

Thank you so much for sharing, Bill. Cardini was just so *** graceful, even while acting drunk. Jeff McBride once said "the magic happened to him" in his act. Lynn

I've never seen Cardini perform so thanks for posting this. I watched the first few minutes of his performance and hit stop - I'm saving this one for a little later when I can relax and watch it all properly with a beer or two.

All those productions... in gloves!

..ok, now I want to burn my cards and start smoking again. Skills and performance - simply amazing. And I didn't know he was English! (But we won't hold that against him...)

Edit:

Just looked him up and he's actually Welsh! Please note: not everyone from the UK is English.

It is great to see magic where incredible skill, not just a gimmick, is the secret. Because
that is real magic. When you can't explain an incredible skill. even as a magician.

The excellence of Cardini has inspired me. We sometimes need to see someone incredible, to reach for the stars. Thanks Bill we really appreciate all your help more than you know. God bless you.

It's so frustrating that he didn't do his entire billiard ball routine. Knowing Television, it was probably a timing thing and they asked him to shorten his performance and that is where he made the cut.

Levent did a remarkable job researching and reconstructing Cardini's full billiard ball routine on the "Ultimate Guide to the Billiard Balls." As the description on Levent's website says: "Included on this DVD set is Levent’s complete re-creation and explanation of Cardini’s entire eight-billiard ball routine."
http://bob.machighway.com/~leventma/Leve......DVD.html

Until someone invents a time machine or time viewer, Levent's reconstruction is the closest we'll get to seeing the Suave Deceiver perform his full routine.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Wow! Thanks for finding that, Bill. Cardini is a genius, and it’s incredibly hard to find live footage of him.
Todd

It might be fun for you to try white latex gloves, so easy to find now, and blank back cards, so they show as white between your fingers when backpalming. The latex gloves make the productions of singles etc. very sure. Notice when Cardini takes off his gloves, he uses a different move than Ganson.
As much as I like Cardini, I always felt he did too many cigarettes. Sorry. Best, Gregg