On what to say or how to present it. I have most of my script complete, but I'm still lost as how to present it.

Don,

HP Lovecraft ghost wrote a story for Houdini.

And now.. Houdini returns the favor:
And one day, when the stars are right, the old ones will throw down their chains and emerge from the darkness and shadows. On that day they will retake the earth, and mankind, if any survives will be relegated to the darkness.

Jonathan,

I don't quite Understand ?

Don,

Don, HP Lovecraft wrote horror stories. One was ghost written for Houdini, about what lives under the pyramids in Egypt. One of his other mythological contributions is 'the old ones'. I took the basic premise and applied it to the sub trunk, where like the old ones, one party is kept below waiting for the right time when they will reclaim the earth and retake their rightful place (in their opinion).

The basic idea here would me to make the substitution an emotionally stunning experience. Very much a sort of reverse gospel moment. It helps to examine stories and consider what magic tricks parallel events in stories.

Jonathan, what I'm trying to do is figure out what Houdini might have said when he did the Metamorphosis. Your idea is excellent if I knew how to present it, but I gotta use my Ideal First.

Don,

Ah, as Emily Litella would say on SNL in the 70s... that's different. Nevermind.

I think John's suggestion is excellent as an introduction to the effect. The substitution trunk is an effect that does not need a lot of patter--it's kind of hard for the audience to hear you when you're in a trunk anyway! The bulk of the effect should be done to music--preferably music that will get the audience's heart racing a bit.

My guess is that Houdini himself performed the sub trunk to music. Also, as I posted in another thread, this quote from Maskelyne and Devant's " Our Magic " is excellent:

"Turning to the other side of the question, we undoubtedly find not only effects which lose nothing by being presented in silence, but also a number which must actually gain in artistic value by that mode of presentation. Such are those effects which, on the one hand, include in their performance much that will attract the eye and, on the other hand, those in which close attention is desirable, on the part of the audience. In neither class can patter be regarded as an artistic essential. On the contrary, the introduction of patter where it must be either unnecessary or detrimental, could only be regarded as an advantage by those to whom the requirements of art are unknown. Anything not requisite or, at the least, not tending to enhance the effect produced, must be a blemish, artistically speaking. Therefore, we are bound to admit that silent presentation can be perfectly artistic, and that patter is not a necessary constituent of our art, in certain phases."

Using sub trunk without an assistant. This works great for me. I put my rabbit in the trunk. I stand on top, drop the cloth the rabbit is on the lid, I'm inside, screaming for help to get out. Rabbit obviously oblivious. Audience members come up and get me out. I make the rabbit vanish with flat rabbit, cursing the little devil.