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Auction History Result 6j1090 RELIGIOUS RACKETEERS 1sh R1939 Mystic Circle Murders, Mrs. Harry Houdini, rare! Date Sold 5/7/2024 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. A 1939 Re-Release (re-titled "The Mystic Circle Murders" for this re-release) Theatrical Folded One-Sheet Movie Poster (1sh; measures 28 1/4" x 41 1/4" [72 x 105 cm]) (Learn More) Religious Racketeers, the 1938 Frank O'Connor spiritualism fake medium mystic music mystery romantic love triangle melodrama (a really wild story of a rich woman who is taken in by a spiritualist who pretends to be able to contact her dead mother, but after they attend a seance at the home of Mrs. Harry Houdini, held on the 10th anniversary of her husband's death, Mrs. Houdini exposes the fake medium, but the rich woman goes with him anyway, first to Egypt and then to India, where she finances him opening temples, and then a newspaper reporter goes after the fake medium and is almost killed, but in the end, the fake medium is finally exposed when he has the rich woman's mother talk to her, and she realizes he is a fraud because her mother was mute, and he is killed, and the newspaper reporter falls in love with the rich woman!) starring Betty Compson, Robert Fiske, Helene LeBerthon, Arthur Gardner, David Kerman, and Wilhelmina Beatrice "Bess" Houdini (billed as "Mme. Harry Houdini"; in her only film appearance!). Note that this is a fascinating movie, because it is, as noted above, the only movie that Harry Houdini's widow appeared in, but also because Houdini and his hatred of fake spiritualism plays very strongly in the plot of the movie! Very interestingly, the screenplay of the Houdini biography from 1953 (starring Tony Curtis) drew heavily on the screenplay of this movie in its depiction of Houdini's expose of fake spiritualists, and we would think the screenwriters of the 1953 movie had surely seen this movie! The movie opened in 1938 as "Religious Racketeers", but we have never seen any movie paper from that first release, and it was reissued a year later as "The Mystic Circle Murder", and until 2023, we had never auctioned any movie paper from that early re-release either! If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail us and we will post it here. NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that we have only auctioned two examples of this very rare poster in all our years of auctioning! Note also that this one-sheet measures 28 1/4" x 41 1/4" [72 x 105 cm]. Condition: fair to good. The poster has discoloration, tears and paper loss at lower left and significant separation in portions of the vertical foldline and top crossfold (see our image). After proper restoration the rare poster will display well, but bear in mind the poster's condition and the cost of restoration before bidding on it. Learn More about condition grades 
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