The Frozen River That Wasn’t

The story as it is told

Detroit, in the dead of winter. The river is frozen from bank to bank, and a hole has been cut in the ice. Houdini, in handcuffs, steps to the edge and jumps through.

The current takes him. When he comes up, the hole has gone, and there is only ice above his head. He finds a thin layer of air between the water and the ice, and he breathes it, and waits, until he hears a voice or sees a light. Then he swims back to the opening.

What we can confirm

Many retellings say Houdini told the ice story himself later in life. We have not found a source that shows he did.

On November 27, 1906, Houdini was performing at Detroit's Temple Theater. That afternoon The Detroit News put the stunt on its front page under the headline "JUMPS MANACLED FROM B. I. BRIDGE." The subhead read "Handcuff King Houdini Performs Remarkable Feat and Comes Out Safely." B. I. stands for Belle Isle, the island park in the Detroit River.

The report is specific. Houdini was "Tied by a life line a hundred and thirteen feet long" and wore two pairs of handcuffs belonging to the Detroit police. He "leaped from the draw span of the Belle Isle bridge at 1 o'clock this afternoon," freed himself underwater, and swam to "a waiting life boat." The paper says that "inside of a minute from the time he leaped from the 25-foot high bridge" he "was in the boat, safe, but half frozen."

The water was cold, and the paper says so. Houdini got a cramp "that paralyzed his left hand when he struck the icy water," and the reporter wrote that the stunt would have been "a rare feat to do in midsummer," so doing it in late November was "tempting Providence." The account has no sheet of ice, no hole cut in ice and no swim under a frozen surface. The paper also says the safety rope "was used solely to save Houdini's life should he get cramps. No use had to be made of it."

Turner Classic Movies' history of the 1953 Paramount film Houdini shows where the ice came from on screen. TCM describes the film's tensest scene as an escape in "a frozen river in Detroit, where Harry escapes a chained metal crate, but has difficulty finding an opening in the ceiling of ice that covers the surface of the water."

What the record supports: on November 27, 1906, Houdini jumped from the Belle Isle Bridge in handcuffs, tied to a 113-foot safety line, into cold open water, and was in a rescue boat within a minute.

The facts

• Headline and subhead; Temple Theater; 113-foot life line; two pairs of Detroit police handcuffs; draw span of the Belle Isle bridge at 1 p.m.; 25-foot bridge; in the boat "inside of a minute"; "half frozen"; cramp on hitting "the icy water"; rope never used. The Detroit News, Nov 27, 1906, p. 1, content-static.detroitnews.com
• The 1953 film's frozen-river escape set in Detroit. Bret Wood, TCM, tcm.com

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