In 1975 magician Doug Henning performed a version of the Water Torture Cell during his first live television special on NBC. In the 1950s, magician Leo Irby performed the escape for " You Asked for It." Several magicians and escape artists have performed the escape since Houdini, among them Al Marks (1940s, using a steel tank with no window), Dill-Russel and Norman Bigelow. Despite two Hollywood movies depicting Houdini dying in the Torture Cell, the escape had nothing to do with his demise. Houdini continued to perform the escape until his death in 1926. The first public performance of the USD was at the Circus Busch in Berlin, on September 21, 1912. While the escape was advertised as "The Chinese Water Torture Cell" or "The Water Torture Cell", Houdini always referred to it as "the Upside Down" or "USD". This was so he could copyright the effect and have grounds to sue imitators (which he did). The original cell was built in England, where Houdini first performed the escape for an audience of one person as part of a one-act play he called "Houdini Upside Down". After several suspenseful minutes passed, Houdini would escape and emerge through the curtains usually to a show-stopping applause. Assistants stood by with axes ready to break the glass in case of emergency. Houdini was visible through the plate glass on the front of the tank until the drapes around it were closed. Assistants would locked the top of the tank and push a canopy over it to cover the top. Houdini would be hauled upward, turned upside down and lowered down into the water. While making the escape more difficult (the cage prevented Houdini from turning), the cage bars also offered protection should the front glass break.Ī committee of volunteers was chosen prior to the show to examine the tank. In the earliest version of the Torture Cell, a metal cage was lowered into the cell, and Houdini was enclosed inside that. The stocks would be locked to the top of the cell, and a curtain would conceal his escape.
The mahogany and metal cell featured a glass front, through which audiences could clearly see Houdini. In this escape, Houdini's feet would be locked in stocks, and he would be lowered upside down into a tank filled with water.
He began to perform it during his fall tour with the Circus Busch in Germany in 1912, calling it simple "The Upside Down". Water Torture Cell was an escape developed by Harry Houdini that followed his Giant Milk Can Escape, which was beginning to have a vast number of imitators.
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