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Disappearing Tricks
Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century
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Book Presentation:
An entirely new and comprehensive approach to the relationship between stage magic and early cinema
Disappearing Tricks revisits the golden age of theatrical magic and silent film to reveal how professional magicians shaped the early history of cinema. While others have called upon magic as merely an evocative metaphor for the wonders of cinema, Matthew Solomon focuses on the work of the professional illusionists who actually made magic with moving pictures between 1895 and 1929.
The first to reveal fully how powerfully magic impacted the development of cinema, the book combines film and theater history to uncover new evidence of the exchanges between magic and filmmaking in the United States and France during the silent period. Chapters detailing the stage and screen work of Harry Houdini and Georges Méliès show how each transformed theatrical magic to create innovative cinematic effects and thrilling new exploits for twentieth-century mass audiences. The book also considers the previously overlooked roles of anti-spiritualism and presentational performance in silent film.
Highlighting early cinema's relationship to the performing body, visual deception, storytelling, and the occult, Solomon treats cinema and stage magic as overlapping practices that together revise our understanding of the origins of motion pictures and cinematic spectacle.
About the Author:
Matthew Solomon is an associate professor in the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan.
Press Reviews:
"Along with intriguing insights into the early development of film, Disappearing Tricks is a reminder that magic and movies involve playing with perceptions and making the appearance of reality seem malleable."--ExpressMilwaukee.com
"Students of magic history, film history, the intersection of both, and of Houdini's film career in particular, will all find much to enlarge their insight and understanding of these subjects."--GENII
"Conjuring up an amazing trick of his own with this engaged scholarship, Solomon provides a fresh, fascinating display of theory applied to film history. This is one of the most succinct, scintillating books of the year. Essential."--Choice
"A sharp, sophisticated, and fascinating read."--Magicol
See the publisher website: University of Illinois Press
> From the same author:
The Biggest Thing in Show Business (2024)
Living It Up with Martin & Lewis
by Murray Pomerance and Matthew Solomon
Subject: Actor > Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin
Méliès Boots (2022)
Footwear and Film Manufacturing in Second Industrial Revolution Paris
Subject: Director > Georges Méliès
Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination (2011)
Georges Méliès's Trip to the Moon
Dir. Matthew Solomon
Subject: One Film > A Trip to the Moon
> On a related topic:
Finding Birt Acres (2025)
The Rediscovery of a Film Pioneer
by Deac Rossell, Barry Anthony and Peter Domankiewicz
Subject: Silent Cinema
Screening Europe in Australasia (2024)
Transnational Silent Film Before and After the Rise of Hollywood
Subject: Silent Cinema
A History of Early Film Volume 2 (2023)
An Established Industry
Dir. Stephen Herbert
Subject: Silent Cinema
How the Movies Got a Past (2023)
A Historiography of American Cinema, 1894-1930
Subject: Silent Cinema
Transnational Trailblazers of Early Cinema (2023)
Sarah Bernhardt, Gabrielle Réjane, Mistinguett
Subject: Silent Cinema
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