The Master Mystery
Novelized by Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
John W. Grey and C. A. Logue
The photoplay novel companion to the serial The Master Mystery (a.k.a. "The Houdini Serial") has eluded me up to now. It's not that there aren't always used copies for sale online. Instead, the price range has just been way too far beyond me. Probably this is due to the connection with Harry Houdini. The book is illustrated with scenes of him; many show him performing actual escape acts for the movie.
These high prices have amazed me a bit because it's possible to buy an almost complete video copy of the actual film (taken from the Rohauer collection) at a much lower prices. I guess it's just a matter of supply and demand generated by all of the Houdini completists out there. But anyway…this last month, I noticed a reading copy in poor condition available and selling relatively cheaply.
The novel is at the "potboiler" level and falls somewhat short of containing the entertainment value of the film itself.
Viewers of the film will probably remember one character in particular at least as much as the leading man himself.
He is introduced in the book as follows:
"…on the table before them lay a small steel model, perhaps three feet high - a weird-looking thing in the miniature shape of a man, designed along lines that only a cubist could have conceived-jointed, mobile, truly a contrivance at which to marvel.
Brent gazed incredulously at the strange thing, "An automaton!" he exclaimed.
"More than that," replied Flint, calmly.
Flint unrolled a chart of the human nervous system and spread it out on the table. Pointing to the brain, he leaned over tensely, and whispered:
"This model is merely a piece of mechanism. But the real automaton possesses a human brain which has been transplanted into it and made to guide it."
What are the further secrets of the automaton? Well, that's what the Master Mystery is all about!!
written: 7/23/2003
