Yeah... I don't buy that one could just separate and rejoin his shoulder on cue while in a straight jacket. I'm sure Houdini could escape them, but I'm willing to bet that's not how he did it.
I know this wasn't completely factual and I'm okay with that, but the straight jacket part seemed really over the top IMO.
If you don't want to be spoiled, you shouldn't be here in the first place.
Yep...that is hard to believe. Maybe Houdini was just double-jointed ...like a contortionist.
There was a conversation about that kind of thing here...
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=331771
Intentionally dislocating shoulders?
Eeww!!! I was at the Fringe Festival in Edmonton yesterday and watched a busker do some rather gruesome contortions.
He held a bar behind his back with both hands (one at each end of the bar), and brought the bar over his head and held it in front of him without letting go of the bar. He then managed to bring the bar back over his head and so that it was behind his back again - getting the bar back over his head and behind his back took some much more significant contortions than getting it from back to front in the first place.
From the bulges at his shoulders and the position of his arms it certainly looked like he had popped his shoulders out of joint to do that stunt. He claimed that one of his shoulders is double-jointed, and one is "triple-jointed", whatever that means.
I can't get over that stunt. How can someone, even if they are very "flexible" manage a stunt like that more than a few times without totally wrecking their shoulder tendons/ligaments (I forget which are the ones that hold joints together) and basically crippling their shoulders for any normal activity?
I read a couple of Houdini biographies when I was young that both ascertained he was double-jointed in several places. He could easily get out of a straight-jacket while standing relatively still, not knocking all over the place like Adrien Brody does the first time he tries the trick.
Also, I'm no expert but I think it would be severely hazardous to the future of your shoulder-joints if you had to dislocate them several times a week (while performing).
DAD!! Tom Cruise won't come out of the closet!!!