Magicians mark 100 years of sawing people in half
He came, he sawed, he conquered. One hundred years ago on Sunday, illusionist P.T. Selbit put a woman in a box on the stage of London’s Finsbury Park Empire and sawed right through the wood, creating a magical classic. ...
“This took off and became the most influential and the most famous illusion, in my opinion, that there’s ever been,” said magician and historian Mike Caveney who is writing a book on the illusion.
“The magician wasn’t doing this trick to an inanimate object. He was doing it to a human being, which raised it up to a whole new level.”
In the original version, the saw went through, the box was opened and the person emerged unharmed. ...
Down the years magicians developed refinements, with the two halves pulled apart. Celebrity magician David Copperfield came up with his own version “The Death Saw” where he was the one tied down to a platform as a giant rotary blade sliced him in two. ...
