Later I found myself often recalling a scene, the final scene, from the movie Houdini. I’m talking about the old fifties version, with Tony Curtis, which I saw on TV when I was a teen. He who had become world famous for his spectacular escapes dies while attempting to break out of the water tank in which he’s been submerged upside down with his feet locked in stocks. The Chinese Water Torture Cell trick he’d pulled off before, but this time, unknown to spectators, he is weak and in pain from a ruptured appendix.
