{"id":326,"date":"2008-03-16T21:06:46","date_gmt":"2008-03-16T11:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/16\/vintage-robots-part-four\/"},"modified":"2008-03-16T21:08:12","modified_gmt":"2008-03-16T11:08:12","slug":"vintage-robots-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/16\/vintage-robots-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"Vintage Robots: Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kino is about to release a box set of Harry Houdini&#8217;s movies from the early part of the 20th century. One of these features what some have claimed is the first instance of a robot (called &#8220;The Automaton&#8221;) on film, in a serial called <em>The Master Mystery<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Master Mystery<\/strong> (US-1920; dir. Harry Grossman and Burton L. King ) [<em>note: date: IMDb: 1920; Kino: 1919; Answers.com: 1918!<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis<\/strong> (from Answers.com):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This independently produced serial starred world-famous magician and escape artist Harry Houdini as Quintin Locke, a secret service agent battling an international conspiracy to suppress any sort of scientific progress. Among the conspirators are the vicious DeLuxe Dora (Ruth Stonehouse), the &#8220;Madagascar Strangler&#8221; (William Pike), and a strange would-be robot known only as Q. (Floyd Buckley). The ubiquitously imperiled heroine was played by Marguerite Marsh, the older sister of Griffith star Mae Marsh. Despite Houdini&#8217;s enormous fame, <em>The Master Mystery<\/em> proved a disappointing failure. The problem, apparently, was the great escape artist himself who, a stickler for authenticity, escaped his many perils too easily. ~ <em>Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/mastermystery.jpg\" title=\"Master Mystery poster\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/mastermystery.jpg\" title=\"Master Mystery poster\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/mastermystery.jpg\" alt=\"Master Mystery poster\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/houdinimovie.jpg\" title=\"Master Mystery robot\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/houdinimovie.jpg\" title=\"Master Mystery robot\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/houdinimovie.jpg\" alt=\"Master Mystery robot\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Source of picture: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2008\/03\/15\/restored-houdini-mov.html\" target=\"_blank\">BoingBoing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The following &#8220;trailer&#8221; for the box set includes a scene of the robot&#8217;s attack!<\/p>\n<p><center><object height=\"355\" width=\"425\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/fh0F1glgKBk&amp;hl=en\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/fh0F1glgKBk&amp;hl=en\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" height=\"355\" width=\"425\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kino is about to release a box set of Harry Houdini&#8217;s movies from the early part of the 20th century. One of these features what some have claimed is the first instance of a robot (called &#8220;The Automaton&#8221;) on film, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/2008\/03\/16\/vintage-robots-part-four\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,61,50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roberthood.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}