The Milk Can Built Like a Coffin

Name: The Milk Can Built Like a Coffin
Genre: Documentary

Houdini escalates from police restraints to water, burial, and open air, forcing his body into increasingly lethal-looking prisons.

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Transcript

In St. Louis in 1908, Houdini introduced his giant milk-can escape.
His notable escapes began in the 1890s; he was known as the Handcuff King.
At the debut, the giant milk can stood on a raised theatrical platform.
The room waits beneath a deep amber glow and gathering silence.
Filled with water, the can became a sealed, airless trap.
In 1908, Houdini toured the milk-can escape through the United States, England, and Germany.
Houdini also performed an escape involving being buried alive.
For Houdini, danger was not decoration; it became the language audiences came to understand.
Then the threat moved upward: Houdini escaped a straightjacket while suspended in air.
A documented version came from the Kansas City Post building on September 8th, 1915.
By April 18th, 1916, he was scheduled to attempt the straightjacket trick 100 feet above ground.
His 1909 book Handcuff Secrets described his escape ability as based on painstaking effort and compromise.
On April 18th, 1916, the surviving record leaves the result uncertain.

The 100-foot straightjacket left the archive with its own locked door: was the advertised stunt performed, or merely promised?

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