[Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz)] Harry Houdini vs. The Great Blackstone. File of Documents Regarding Houdini’s Charge Against Blackstone’s Use of the “Overboard Box” Escape Trick, and Blackstone’s Expulsion from the S.A.M. New York and Cleveland, 1922—24. Fifteen pages total, all with regard to the complaint made by Houdini against Blackstone for the performance of the box escape trick, which Houdini claimed Blackstone had promised never to do. Including letters from vaudeville agents Pat Casey and Henry Chesterfield demanding Blackstone’s attention to the complaint, and an original carbon copy of Blackstone’s biting and anti-Semitic-laced four-page response to Houdini’s charge, addressed to Casey. Blackstone recalls his own performance of the box trick, at which he reminds Casey was himself present, that “ante-dated any box trick our dear Jewish friend ever attempted, other than what was generally termed ‘The Hindoo Box Mystery’, which was a purchasable commodity and in general use… In fact, it was not unusual to see an occasional one at a street carnival”. He comments that Houdini, “this chosen son of the great Patriarch, seems to be hankering for the limelight constantly, and not satisfied with being the ‘Handcuff King’, a motion picture idol, and a sometime headliner, will still stoop to the old time worn stunt of his kind to cry ‘Thief’, when he never had an original trick in his whole career…” With a typed letter signed (June 2, 1924) from the secretary of the S.A.M., Richard Van Dien, expelling Blackstone from the organization for “conduct unbecoming a member” by “reproducing several of [Houdini’s] original creations”, and a clipping from Zit’s Weekly (Nov. 10, 1922) reporting on Houdini’s complaint.