Maurice Fogel

THE BLURB:
When magicians caught a bullet in their teeth...
He caught six!
When magicians did spook shows...
His ghosts were nude!
When magicians did rope tricks...
He put a noose around his neck and jumped!
When magicians predicted a chosen number...
He predicted which of six rifles should be
aimed at his forehead!

He was Maurice Fogel, the twentieth century’s most audacious
mentalist and one of its greatest showmen. His feats of mind
reading captured headlines around the world—when he wasn’t
predicting them. He dared death, he read minds and he became
a legend in his own time.

Here is a taste of a typical Fogel performance:

Six volunteer marksmen were invited on stage to operate six
legitimate, loaded and fully functioning rifles. One man
chose a rifle at random and fired at a saucer, shattering it
to smithereens. The discharged rifle was set with the five
still-loaded ones in a rotating rack and the rack spun until
no one could know which was the empty weapon. Each marksman
was assigned a random number and took a random rifle from
the rack. Fogel next revealed a predicted number that had
been in full view and isolated from the start. The marksmen
were all told to aim at saucers over Fogel’s head—but the
man assigned the predicted number was to aim directly at
Fogel’s forehead. Then, on his command they all fired!

To some he was a mental wonder; to others, an enigma. For
years he strode the stages of the world, reading minds and
using his strange powers to defy death. Maurice Fogel: In
Search of the Sensational is the chronicle of the life of a
master mentalist whose like has never been seen. He baffled
the world and his peers. He defied death for years on a near
nightly basis. He created an extraordinary body of
professional mentalism that has remained among the most
coveted material in the field. This book contains that
material, along with the advice, experience and stories of a
lifetime of professional performance by one of the world’s
most acclaimed mentalists.

Maurice Fogel: In Search of the Sensational is the story of
an amazing life and the mental secrets of an amazing man—

The Amazing Fogel

Written and collected by Chris Woodward, an award-winning
magician and Fogel’s son-in-law, in collaboration with
mentalist and Fogel confidant Richard Mark, here at last is
the definitive work on Maurice Fogel, the man and his
secrets.

440 pages in elegant hardcover with book ribbon.

MY COMMENTS:
Let's cut right to the chase. If you know who Maurice Fogel
is, then you know you have to have this book. If you don't
know who Maurice Fogel is, then that's an even greater
reason to add this book immediately in your library. Okay,
here's some more info.

For those who don't know Maurice Fogel, it could be said
that he was the Houdini of mentalism. Though he certainly
used innovative variations of effects by Annemann and other
classic performers, as well as being credited with mentalism
gimmicks such as the transparent change bag, Fogel was best
known for incredible showmanship and ingenious publicity
stunts, much like Houdini. He is regarded as England's
first performing mentalist and was incredibly popular around
the time of World War II. Many who saw Fogel say he was
better than Houdini, Dunninger, Keller, and most of the rest
of the famous magicians of the time. Besides his mentalism
routines, he also performed sensational stunts, such as the
Bullet Catch trick.

For those who know who Maurice Fogel is, you'll be pleased
to know that this book contains over fifty effects and
routines, a thorough biography (much of which is
autobiographical), a facsimile of the rare Fogelism booklet,
a large amount of eyewitness accounts of Fogel's work, and
dozens of photos and illustrations. It's a gorgeous book
that is "440 pages in elegant hardcover with book ribbon,"
as the ad proclaims. Basically, it's structured like a
biography which covers his entire career, with sections on
his stint in the U.S., his bullet-catching shows, his ghost
shows, and his gallows routine.

I can certainly name some effects that I really liked, but
you'll find your own. And there is a plethora of anecdotes
about Fogel. My favorite is how Maurice Fogel, desperately
needing money, agreed to do two shows at the same time and
how he solved the dilemma. This is not a technique that I'd
recommend one do regularly, but aside from being humorous,
it was quite effective.

There is no doubt that, so far, this is the must-have book
for 2007. If you have this already, you probably are saying
to yourself that I've underrated the book, which may be so.
If you don't have this already, . . . well, what are
waiting for? Get it!