Assembly #31â??s â?? Night at the Moviesâ??

Indianapolis, Indiana

It was a â??night at the moviesâ?? for Assembly 31 in February.  The idea was to bring video clips of magic in movies or to bring tricks that the members had seen performed in movies.  It turned out to be a fun and interesting evening, even though, with a decided lack of â??geeksâ?? in our audience, figuring out how to hook up the video projector turned out to be a big time project.  We needed a bit of technical magic which, unfortunately, was not forthcoming.

Chris Henderson did a nice precognition routine utilizing the introduction to Star Wars.â??  Tom Winterrowd then described Danteâ??s magic performance in Laurel and Hardyâ??s A Hunting We Will Go.  Steve Spence shared excerpts from Doug Henningâ??s The Magic Show.  Taylor Martin then played a portion of the first television special of magic in 1957.  It included the only live performance by Cardini ever recorded.  Robert Harbin was also on the show.

The second half of the evening was for our members to perform.  Tom Winterrowd, dressed with top hat and cigar,  performed The Lazy Magician.  First he provided a detailed and fascinating historical account of his favorite magicianâ??Harry A. Jansen (Dante) who was, by the way, a partner of Howard Thurston.  Dante traveled with more than twenty backdrops for his show.  Tom first saw Dante at the English Theatre (which no longer exists) in Indianapolis in 1941.  Tom was 14 years old at the time!  Steve Spence talked about Kreskin and the great Buck Howard and then concluded our evening of magic by expertly performing Dean Dillâ??s The Revelation.

Submitted by: Dale Benson, Secretary

February 2010

Harry E. Riser Assembly No. 31, usually meets the first Monday of the month at 7 pm at the Irvington United Methodist Church, 30 N. Audubon Road,  Indianapolis.