Rex Bloomstein
Hustlers, Hoaxers, Pranksters, Jokers and Ricky Jay: A Film About Magic

Rex Bloomstein - Hustlers, Hoaxers, Pranksters, Jokers and Ricky Jay: A Film About Magic

- Hello everybody, and welcome from a sunny London. Believe it or not, it’s not actually raining. I suspect different parts of the world, they’d love some English rain. Thank you for joining me, and if I may, I’ll begin with some thoughts about the film that you’re going to see. “Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters, and Ricky Jay” is a documentary film I made in the mid 1990s. Ricky Jay was a remarkable American magician, actor, author, collector, and historian of magic, an advisor and creator on a number of feature films. He was also the world record holder for throwing a playing card further than anyone else. A young producer approached me, would I direct a film he was planning about Ricky, unlike most of my documentaries, which I’ve originated myself. He was having difficulties working with Ricky. And it was true, as I discovered. He was difficult, secretive, suspicious, reluctantly cooperative. Yet he had agreed to make this film for a BBC Art series about his life and work. So, intrigued, I said, “Yes.” Ricky and I met and discussed what he would do, or what he wouldn’t do, what he would reveal, or what he wouldn’t reveal, on camera. I wanted to capture his genius as a performer of sleight of hand. He was regarded as the world’s best, as well as his insight and knowledge of close-up magic. He prevaricated, he wasn’t sure, he would give me no secrets. It was a tense couple of weeks. Would he, would he not do something, especially for the film? Well, it was certainly a compelling experience, and perhaps, it might compel you.

Looking back, I’d like to have probed Ricky, who was Jewish, on the long and tenuous relationship that Judaism has had with magical beliefs and practises. Initial reading for this introduction has thrown up some intriguing comments about this historic relationship, which I thought I would briefly share before showing the film. I’m certainly no expert, but here they are. Sub-maintained Judaism has a rich tradition of magic that dates back to the Talmud. One preeminent scholar of Jewish mysticism presents a picture in which magic was certainly a central aspect of Judaism. “Magic,” he writes, “is a vital form of Jewish spirituality. Judaism is deeply informed by magical ways of thinking and manners of action that are conceived "to be both effective and listened.” However, I also noted that in Deuteronomy, it’s also written that Jews are forbidden from being a soothsayer, an augur priest, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer, someone who uses black magic to communicate with the dead to foretell the future. It appears from these texts that the Bible views magic as a real phenomenon, albeit one that the Israelites shouldn’t take part in. Yet the most revered figures in the Bible engage in magical acts. Following a directive from God, Aaron throws his rod down before Pharaoh, and it becomes a snake. The Egyptians follow suit, and using their secret arts perform the same act. But proof of Aaron’s superiority comes when his snake swallows the Egyptian ones. I read, also, that the Torah, of course, is full of supernatural acts. Manna raining down from heaven. Barren women giving birth, animals speaking.

But these events are all attributed to God. Thus, the supernatural happenings of the Israelites, whose source of power is God, are extolled. Similarly, when God parts the Red Sea, as the Israelites flee Egypt, is considered a miracle. In short, God makes miracles, and people perform magical acts. Well, talking about such people brings me back to our film this afternoon. Make up your own mind about this one man who does perform magical acts. So, here is Ricky Jay. Thank you, Karina.

• The people that I know hold Ricky in awe. Magicians. If not the magicians themselves, people I know who have spoken to other magicians. Granted, it’s a certain degree of hearsay, but Ricky’s held an awe.

• And like I said, I keep going back to the word sophisticated with Ricky. You don’t feel like you’re being amused. You feel like something larger is happening. You know, that there’s something that’s goes back maybe 2,000 years when you’re watching Ricky.

• You know, you could hear Glenn Gould play Bach’s two-part inventions, which everybody starts out playing when they start playing the piano when they’re six years old. Glenn Gould plays them, you say, oh my God, that’s extraordinary. You see Cezanne, right? And there’s three little lines of pastel paint, and you say, my God, that’s the most beautiful mountain I’ve ever seen. Or Michael Moschen, the juggler, has one of his routines he does, he juggles one ball. And it’s what Ricky does, it’s just so extraordinarily pure and honed and perfect. He’s the man, he’s it.

• [Mark] There are, I came to discover, really three Ricky Jay’s. There’s the public persona, then there is the private persona, and then there’s the private persona within the private persona.

• [Rex] Why is he so secretive about his early life, his family, his father, his mother? What do you think, actually, what happened?

• I assume it was unhappy, and I don’t know more than that. He told me a story about his father. He said, “My father brushed his teeth with Ipana "and put Brylcreem on his hair, "and he kept the tube of hair oil in one place, "and the toothpaste tube in another place. "And when I was about nine years old, "I switched the tubes around. "And the only thing you really need to know about my father "is that after he had brushed his teeth with hair oil, "he brushed his hair with toothpaste.” I don’t know anything else about the man, and I can only assume that he didn’t get it. But what shaped him far more than an unhappy childhood is his relationship with his grandfather, which was a happy relationship, and specifically this hanging out with these magicians in New York. I mean, this was the place to be, if you were going to become Ricky Jay. This was at a time when Ricky had already left home. He had become a vagabond at the age of 18, was attending different schools, living upstate New York, in the Midwest, and never went home again.

• [Rex] Now, what do you want me to do?

• Just mention a card for me.

• [Rex] 10 of diamonds.

• Okay, so I’m going to try to do this. This is a strange concept, but I think I ought to be able to do this, so. Okay. Hmm, all right, I’m going to, hmm. All right. 10 of diamonds. All right.

• This is a man, a somewhat imposing human being, a little bit fearful to countenance, who has the most extraordinary grace, physical grace, with a pack of playing cards. Not just his skilled sleight of hand, which only magicians can understand, but just the way he holds a deck, removes a card from it. The way he shuffles a deck of cards is a beautiful thing to watch. Lovely, lovely hands. But Ricky is also a great, great scholar of, particularly, the Western European tradition, of all sorts of ragamuffins. Magicians, con artists, freaks, various kinds, who do low-level entertainment for the masses. He is a deep historian in this area who knows it all and thinks carefully and wisely about it. So, he brings together, in his performances and in his love, both an incredible physical skill and grace, and this intellectual awareness of the con man and the minor artists who entertain us. And he brings the two together in his presentations.

• Um. I’m actually looking at my own magazine. Is that allowed? This is “Jay’s Journal of Anomalies.” I have to confess that I take some sort of cumulative pleasure at seeing each new issue join the racks of the ones which proceeded it. It’s literally a personal reflection of what interests me.

• [Rex] But what interests you is a sort of range of entertainment.

• Yeah, well, here, actually, on this playbill. We did this before we even launched the magazine, and it calls it a quarterly periodical devoted to the investigation of conjurers, cheats, hustlers, hoaxsters, pranksters, jokesters, imposters, pretenders, sideshow, showmen, armless calligraphers, mechanical marvels, and popular entertainments. I mean, that’s literally the scope of what interests me, literally. So, I’m planning issues in the future, one on cheating at bowling, which goes back to the 16th Century. The issues about Houdini imitators, “Houdini, Howdini, Martinizini, and Zucchini: "Pretenders to the Throne,” it really runs the gamut. And again, like I said, it’s kind of lovely for me that there is no limitation to it. I mean, the limitation is this: that I have something interesting, and hopefully original, to say, and that I have really wonderful graphic material to go along with it. This particular issue is on Edward Bright. At his death in 1750, he weighed between 616 and 620 pounds. The thing that particularly intrigued me about him is the concept that, when he was dead, there was a wager about how many people could fit in his waistcoat. And this is from the original engraving, which I have from 1751, of 5 grown men of the age of 21 were supposed to fit in his waistcoat. But in this case, you can see, he wins the bet when seven men at the age of 21 fit in the waistcoat without straining a stitch or popping a button.

• [Rex] What about this book?

• Well, this is actually the German translation of “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women.” A book I wrote a number of years ago about the oddest and most unusual entertainers, and particular entertainers that really captured my passion in a wide variety of fields. Learned pigs, poison resistors, mind readers, singing mice, conjurers. Matthew Buchinger, the Little Man of Nuremberg, was born in 1674. His arms, they were sort of like thalidomide flippers. And yet, even though he was 28 inches high as a full grown adult, he had a remarkable string of accomplishments. He played many musical instruments. He was a dancer, he danced the horn pipe, even though he had, what I guess we would call stumps, rather than feet. He did trick skittle shots, trick bowling shots. Did sleight of hand, which is what attracted me to him initially. Played cards in dice, could thread needles and sew. And I think he’s a great example of the indomitability of the human spirit, and just utterly extraordinary. And I dare say he was one of the most famous people in the world, in the era in which he lived.

• Thanks. Oh, no.

• [Clay] There are a limited number of fields of arts and sciences in our culture, and each one has its master. And I wanted, for your birthday, to expose you to a true master in one of these fields. Someone who would do something just once in a very unique way that would never occur again.

• So, I’d like to show you an experiment based on Japanese cinema and a deck of cards. Would you open up the case for me, Clay, and take out the advertising cards and the jokers, and then start shuffling the cards. I’ve been a great fan of Japanese cinema. I know you’ve both spent time in Japan. This is really what what I’m dealing with over here. We don’t need the the jokers, as well, but do give them a thorough shuffle or two. And then, I’m going to also have you give Leslie the cards and have her shuffle them, as well. And you really can shuffle them thoroughly. Matter of fact, I ask you to shuffle them thoroughly. This story is based on a series of Japanese movies called Sword of Vengeance. And it stars to Tomisaburo Wakayama, who plays Eeto Ogami, the decapitator to the shogun. And very few people have seen Eeto Ogami. I actually have a picture of ‘em in my wallet.

• In your wallet?

• Well, actually, on my wallet. This is Eeto Ogami over here, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, keep shuffling while I do this. Yeah, actually, it’s a much better picture of Eeto Ogami. It’s sort of a closeup of Eeto Ogami.

• Yes.

• [Ricky] Actually, while I have this out, I have some of these washi cards, as well, which are kind of interesting. And, do you happen to have a Sumi brush?

• Not on me.

• I do. So I’m going to use the Sumi brush and make a small prediction. I don’t want you to see exactly what I’ve done here, but you can see some of it. So, let me do this. And I’m going to cover it up, so you can see that there’s something, there’s some prediction. You know, I’m probably one of the only people who also has a picture of Mrs. Eeto Ogami. I’ll show you, actually. I have her here, as well. This is Mrs. Eeto Ogami, which, actually, one should use to fan out this. I think I’ll just leave this here. So, you’ve shuffled the cards very thoroughly. As a matter of fact, you’ve been shuffling the cards for a moment, so if I can have 'em back. So, here’s the premise of this. This series of films, which is called “Sword of Vengeance,” is a rather remarkable series. And the thing I think, that makes it so remarkable is this wonderful relationship of Eeto Ogami, who as the official decapitator to the Shogun, is part of an incredible rival clan intrigue. And that rival clan or the Yagyus. The elder Yagyu, especially, Retsudo Yagyu, who gets involved in this particular picture. And here’s what happens. You’ve taken a deck of cards, and you’ve shuffled them. I haven’t changed the order of them, I haven’t done anything else with them. What I’m going to actually do is spread them out, but I’m going to tell you, we don’t need all of them. So, I want you to take a big bunch of cards and push them towards yourself. Literally, push them towards yourself.

• Okay.

• Yeah, and push them out of the way, so we will not use them. Now, this film, Eeto Ogami comes home to his house and finds, this is a dreadful thing to talk about, that his wife has been murdered by ninja assassins. And this is true, there’s just no way to deal with this, other than to tell you this is the absolute truth of the situation. Actually, Clayton, take a bunch of cards and push them towards you, a whole big bunch of cards, and and we can put them, that’s actually fine, put them aside. So, he’s faced with this rather remarkable decision. He sees, in his house, an infant child. And the child, because he has some remarkable composition, has convinced the ninja assassins he’s not even in the house. They leave him there, an infant child, the wife is dead. Eeto Ogami, by the way Eeto Ogami is played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, whose brother, in real life, is Shintaro Katsu, the guy who plays Zatuichi.

• Right.

• You know, when I was at Francis Coppola’s house, he has Shintaro Katzu’s armour. It was almost exciting as finding out that you, in fact, choreographed Tomisaburo Wakayama. Take some of these away and push them aside, because this is truly an important thing.

• He’s a piece of work, too, he’s a character.

• I know. Again, Clayton, like I said, we shouldn’t use all of these cards, so take a bunch and push them aside. Take a couple more if you want, okay, and push them aside. Now, Eeto Ogami is literally in his own house, at this particular point. He’s in his own house. Take away a couple more cards. We need some, but take away a couple of cards, that’s fine. Eeto Ogami is in his own house. He has this child, Daigoro, and Daigoro has got this amazing demeanour, but he still doesn’t know what to do with Daigoro. He has to literally decide whether he is going to take Daigoro with him into this path of retribution, into purgatory, Lone Wolf unto the Hades with a Baby Cart, or have to kill his own child. How does he determine this? I mean, a horrible choice for anybody to make. How does he determine it? What he does is to give the child the choice of a ball, a beautiful, spangly ball, or a sword. And the sword is in its scabbard, but a little of it is exposed, just before the hilt, a few inches. And the child is now crawling around trying to decide, is he more interested in the ball, or more interested in the sword? And Eeto Ogami decides if the child picks the ball, it means he has a playful nature, and he could never survive this particular journey.

• Hmm.

• If he picks the sword, it would show that he has the soul of a warrior. So ultimately, this is entirely about choice. You know, I think we can sense from the fact that there’s six movies in the series, we have some idea what might have actually happened in this. Particularly, number two, “Baby Cart to the River Styx,” where the Hadachi brothers, Ben, Te, and Rae, create real havoc. But we’re down to the choice. So, here’s denouement. This is what I want you to do, Leslie. We’re down at denouement. Think for a moment, and right now, put your left hand on one of those cards, now. Put your right hand on a card, now. Push them aside, the final choice will be yours. Push them aside. There are two cards left. I told you, the final choice is yours, just like every other choice, every other choice. Hand me one of those cards. Take as long as you want, and hand me one of those cards, now. Push this aside. One card in 52, which you have given me.

• Right

• Now, the choice of the ball and the sword is a big choice. It’s the choice of life and death, but it’s one in two. This is really impressive. This is 52 different objects, 52. And for the first time, we’re going to look at the card which you gave me, and it is the two of hearts. And you can see, I know you’ve both been to Japan, which is why I had you here. You can read what it says on this card.

• [Leslie] I can?

• [Ricky] You can’t? Well, you know, the really wonderful thing about these Japanese movies is that they’re often subtitled.

• Yeah.

• Yeah, you see, on the other side, it actually says “two of hearts.” And just in case you think there’s any problem this way or not.

• That was unbelievable.

• [Clay] Pretty great.

• [Ricky] Well on my way to the luckiest night of my life.

• [Rex] How did he do it?

• I have no idea. It’s amazing, it makes you wonder if things are as they appear to be. It makes you wonder everything. Because I made the choices, Clay and I made the choices. He didn’t steer that in any direction, other than telling us to take more away, until there was one left. And it happened to be this, the two of hearts that he wrote before he started.

• The mastery of sleight of hand, as opposed to the kind of magic that we’re used to seeing, say, in Las Vegas or that kind of entertainment, this is literally inches away. There’s no artifice. It’s more magical, more mysterious, than any staged delusion could possibly be. You’re sitting there with a person who, simply with their hands, with their narrative ability, takes you into another world and helps you see things in a completely different way.

• It was a long process, our commissioning Ricky to come up with a book that would work for contemporary artists. And we do run a programme here, at the Whitney, where we combine the work of contemporary authors and contemporary artists. And most of what Ricky was talking about was so historical that I couldn’t find a way for contemporary artists to engage. Until one day he was describing his extensive collection of blowbooks. And as he described them, I realised, and I think he realised simultaneously, that, at last, we had a form of book that would accommodate the work of contemporary artists, inspire them, and also allow a historical text by Ricky to describe this kind of book, so that it would be both a subject and an object of mystery. So, the result is sort of a two volume opus, I might say. A collaboration by Ricky J, six contemporary artists. I’m very proud of it. I particularly like this cover. You can see magic, magic two ways. So, you start off disoriented, or hopefully.

• [Ricky] The book has the wonderful quality to be able to change, you see? So, if we look at alphabets, this is some Stempel foundry type and old wooden type. Fry’s Ornament, I mean, some really lovely old typefaces.

• Beautiful.

• And if one, simply blows on the leaves, I know that sounds very strange, what you get instead are harlequins.

• Ah.

• You see? There are no alphabets, you just get harlequins. And, if you blow very carefully again, you see the origin of all books, the tabula rasa, the blank sheet from which expiration takes place. 'cause that’s really all it is, a book of blank pages. This is probably the greatest collection of early English language magic books in the world. There are a number of them which are unique. For instance, this, which is the earliest of the books, Thomas Hill’s brief treatise entitled “Natural and Artificial Conclusions” from 1581. They have the first major work on magic here, which is Scott’s “Discovery of witchcraft” from 1584, which is really the seminal text in the English language dealing with conjuring. Never called magicians, by the way. Called jugglers until the 18th century, at least. Let’s see. Ah, that’s the, where’s it again, where is it? Here we go. This is, in many ways, the sexiest book in this collection. This is “Hocus Pocus Junior,” the first edition from 1634. I imagine many of the people who would watch this would wonder why this was sexy on any level, but it’s incredibly sought after. There are four known copies of this first edition, which went through many, many editions. And it really is the first illustrated book devoted solely to conjuring. This is an illustration for the cups and balls. This is a wonderful old effect called the cap and pence, and it appears in print for the first time in this book. And the pattern of it actually involved a patron of a bar doing this and saying, if he’s successful, he would like the services of a woman of negotiable affections for the evening. And he is successful. So, perhaps that’s why it’s the sexiest of these sort of things. There really are treasures and secrets to be found in these old volumes, and there’s a practical current application that can come from it.

• [Rex] Coming back to, say, a piece that you do, one of the many pieces you do, say, cups and balls, can you trace the history of that? Could you find a history of that here in this library?

• Well, yes, I mean, one can say that, although there are written accounts of it. Seneca wrote about the cups and balls, for instance, being fooled by a, by Roman conjurers using stones and cups, and there are accounts which may proceed that. But in this library, yeah, we have the accounts in Scott’s discovery, the wonderful illustrations in “Hocus Pocus Junior.” So, not only do I use them in historical performance for technique, but even some of the patter literally coming from these books, specifically and directly. Many people say that the cups and balls is the oldest magic effect in the world. They say that on the tombs of the king Beni Hassan of ancient Egypt, there were representations of Nile magicians doing the cups and balls. I’m not one of them. I do believe the cups and balls was the oldest sleight of hand effect in the world, that it was known to the Greeks and Romans. And one of the things that I find fascinating about it is it exists independently in two separate genres. The genre of the gambler, as well as the magician. You may be familiar with this scene as the old shell game. On the British race course, it might have been known as thimble rigging. In the language of the streets, it was called the hinks, the dinks, the blocks or the nuts. The idea was this, that one might put a ball, or pretend to put a ball, under one of the cups.

But then, the ball would appear where it was least likely. Watch again, if I place the ball in this cup, and I move the others, you might think that the ball would be over here, but in fact, it’s over here. Once again, if I place the ball in this cup and move them, you would think the ball over here. This is why people have been known to lose houses and even clothing playing this little game. Let me show you how a conjurer might do it instead. It would be a little different. The conjurer would take the ball and place it in his hand. He would use a magic wand and make the ball vanish. Actually, I should point out that conjurers also a cheat. They’re known to use many of these. So actually, the effect was played with three cups and three balls for a long time. I’m going to show you an actual sequence of events from a 17th century bestseller called “Hocus Pocus Junior.” The idea here that I will cover the centre ball with a cup, place another one on top. I’m trying to make this ball literally penetrate through the solid copper cup, solid through solid, joining its mate below. Once more, now that you know the plot. Two balls covered up, one ball now trying to penetrate two solid copper cups. Here’s the idea. Remember, underneath, two balls, on top one. This method a favourite of Matthew Buchinger, the Little Man of Nuremberg. Only 28 inches tall, the cups obscured almost his entire body. And all three below. Matthew Buchinger had no arms or legs, but he did have 14 children. The most famous man to ever play the game, the Italian Bartolomeo Bosco. Bosco appeared early in the 19th Century. He cut an unusual figure. He wore a black satin waistcoat, black velvet trousers. He made sure his sleeves were carefully rolled up. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully polished the tip of a magic wand a wand which he said was made of a strange amalgam of materials known only to himself and Erasmus of Rotterdam. Above his table was a beautiful brass bell. He struck the bell and said the word, infernal spirits, obey my command. Ladies and gentlemen, Bosco’s passes with the cups and balls. Three gone, and yet three return.

• You’ll hear people say, as if it were criticism, that he is difficult, or that he is an elitist. But the fact of the matter is most people are unwilling to hold themselves to the standard that he holds himself. He understands that magic is a performance art. It’s not just something you box up and tell everyone you have. And what’s amazing about him as a historian is his tireless effort to go to the source material. He’s unwilling to rely on other people’s accounts of what happened, or what something said, or what someone did. He travels wherever he has to, or pays whatever he needs to, to find out for himself from the source material what really happened. So, it’s kind of remarkable. There’s actually a great story about someone trying to challenge him once. He was at a karate competition, I think it was at Cornell, and someone waited till he got in the shower. He’s completely naked, absolutely wet, and someone hands him a $1 bill, and says, “Do something with this.” So, standing there naked in the shower, he takes the $1 bill, folds it up, unfolds it, it’s changed into a real $100 bill and hands it back to him. And there he stands, absolutely naked and wet.

• [Frank] Michael and Ricky solve problems. They come up with ideas that enable us, as filmmakers, to create the kind of scenes or create the kind of illusions that we want to without having to use visual effects. How are ya?

• [Ricky] Hi.

• [Frank] How are you?

• Great to see you.

• With Ricky and Michael, we can create a situation where it’s actually happening, but it’s by magic. So, it’s a little bit of film magic and real magic, for me. We’ve got a story about a boy. And actually, it starts with this group of dogs, golden retrievers. And have you ever seen these dogs that are in competitions, where they catch frisbees?

• Yeah.

• You know, they actually have these competitions, where they throw the frisbee.

• And leap, amazing.

• Yeah.

• It jumps, and the dog does all kinds of tricks, and then they score them, and everything. Well, this is a fantasy film where this dog, through a series of magic potions and things, and spells and things, turns into a boy. So, the kid would have to catch the frisbee in his mouth.

• [Michael] Okay, so this would be recognisable actor, and it’s got to be real time, one take.

• Right, and you know, of course, in the challenge of all challenges, like with the martini, I’d like to do it in one shot.

• In one shot.

• Without cutting away and cheating.

• All right.

• You know, so, it would have to be something like that.

• Sounds neat.

• [Frank] And also, where I wouldn’t have to use the computer to remove wires.

• Yeah.

• [Rick] Or whatever, things like that.

• Okay.

• So, we’d like to do it for real.

• [Ricky] So, that was a nice meeting.

• [Michael] Yeah, he’s just great.

• He’s great.

• Just great.

• [Ricky] He’s great, and it’s a nice problem. But I mean, we should–

• [Michael] We’ll play with it. We’ll get frisbees and we’ll play with it.

• [Ricky] You know what? Let’s go to the toy store. Let’s do that now.

• [Michael] Okay. I mean, you know, I really did. You remember that piece I used to do with the cards, where I would throw up three cards and catch one in each hand and one in my mouth. I mean, it’s an unbelievably difficult thing to do.

• But this is a young actor, so clearly, we’ll be allowed to throw things at his face. Well, if it’s McCauley Culkin’s, his face is, It’s lavish.

• So, here we are.

• They have the soft ones?

• This one’s kind of soft, but it’s got wire in it. That one’s a little bit hard. That one would hurt like hell. So, here’s a straight one. This is just, like, a straight, with red and purple.

• [Ricky] I think we have purple or purple.

• Yeah.

• [Ricky] You know what? We should get a couple of these.

• [Toy] You’re a totally gross, boring nerd. You’re a completely weird, greasy geek. You a real gross, wacky weasel.

• Right there.

• Are we going to get these other ones?

• Yeah. Right, so to recap, he has a boy with the dog inside, and–

• [Ricky] The boy with the soul of a dog.

• So, that’s exactly what I thought. Two and a half inches. My guess is correct. And a kid’s will probably be smaller.

• Let’s hope so.

• And then what’s on two and a half inches?

• There’s nothing worse than a wide-mouthed child.

• Right, that’s an inch and a half.

• [Ricky] Yeah.

• So, there’s no way you’re going to get something with–

• Here, gimme that.

• This kind of diameter to go an inch and a half into his mouth. Okay, so let’s talk about the jump, and get that out of the way. Some kind of champion.

• This actually was the first club that I ever played in Los Angeles.

• I used to do these seances here, starting in the early 70s on Halloween. I would do them every year. I see in this one, when I’m wearing my Odd Fellow ceremonial robe. I would rarely go anywhere without it. As if I needed a badge to prove I was an odd fellow. They were great fun, we had a wonderful time here. I even very briefly toured as Folk Rock Rick doing Dylan parodies. That was one of my quickest incarnations. I think it lasted about two days, two dates.

• [Rex] What about a monologue? Say, something like “The Letter?” What was that?

• “The Letter?” It was part of a piece where I had somebody take a bill, their own bill, a $100 bill, sign their name on it, and I’d put it in one of a group of envelopes, and I was going to burn the envelopes. And they had to choose an envelope. So, they would pick an envelope, and I would say, it was actually the talk part of the Velvetone’s version of “The Glory of Love.” I hold in my hand, dear, three letters from the start of your fine, fine, super-fine career The first begins, “My Ricky, my sweetheart, my wonderful one, I shall always be grateful "for the things that you’ve done.” The second letter came from the start, it came from your pen, dear, but not from your heart. The third, the king, the joker of the deck. You ended your letter, “Please, sign my cheque.” Why, you foolish little fool. If you think you could take advantage of me in this way, when my only sin has been loving you much too much. ♪ That’s the story of, ♪ ♪ That’s the glory of love ♪ And they would of course, drag me off the stage and beat me to a pulp. Of course, the envelope that was left was the one that did have the money in it. Oh, one night I remember doing a piece here where somebody in the audience was playing a guitar while I was talking and I threw a card and split the guitar in half. So, this is actually the place where I would try out new material. And this club was literally my home club. I worked in those years for a wide variety of musical acts. I mean, you might find me opening for the LA Four, which, in those days, might’ve been Shelly Mann and Lorenda Almeda, and Ray Brown. Herbie Hancock, I opened for at the Uptown in Chicago. Albert Collins, the blues act. Country acts like Crystal Gayle and Emmy. I did it for years, and the days really run together. I mean, these were times where, you know, sometimes it was 28 shows in 30 days. You could barely remember the city. It was like talking to old circus guys, who just knew where they set up the tent, and that’s basically all they could remember. But I did spend the days haunting antique shops and rare bookshops. That’s really how I put most of my collection together. Once, I was throwing cards in those days, and I made the entire audience come out into the street because someone had dared me that I couldn’t throw a card over the building. And I threw a card completely over the shot with the entire audience watching. And then, they all came back into the club for the finale of the show.

• [Rex] You once held the world record, did you not, for card throwing?

• As far as I know, I still do.

• [Rex] You’re the actual world record holder for throwing a playing card.

• Higher, harder, faster, and farther than anyone in history. Yeah.

• Great.

• I’m as comfortable with deception as I am with cameras, or being on stage.

• [Rex] Well, in a sense, you’ve made a career of being deceptive.

• Well, of thinking about it, of reading about it, of occasionally being deceptive sure.

• [Rex] But that’s led you to a fascination with frauds and tricksters and cons.

• That’s true.

• [Rex] And gambling, is that right?

• Yes.

• [Rex] Well, tell me about that.

• I think you’ll have to ask me something more specific.

• A magician is somebody who often wants to gain an advantage, and sometimes, that’s pretentious. It sometimes comes from a great hurt in their background. This is not, I’m sorry. But anyway, that’s what I sort of think, a great hurt, so that you want to be five steps ahead of everyone else.

• Magic is about control, and little kids, what do you say when you want to show your superiority and your control? You say, “I’ve got a secret, and I’m not going to tell you.” And magicians are big boys and girls saying, “I’ve got a secret.” Sure, that’s a very personal thing. And it is a control, and control is what the magician is doing. He’s showing you, in an audience, that he can control not just you, but control life, and have some sense of mastery over things.

• [Rex] The act of deceiving, deception, the conman.

• Mmhmm.

• [Rex] What is the conman saying to you?

• I don’t know whether it’s as a writer, or just as an actual bloke, but I dunno, I find the confidence game fascinating. The idea that intelligent people, such as you or me, can be deprived of our hard-earned money and self-respect by a correctly-structured drama, in effect.

• [Ricky] Will the first man come in, please?

• Hello, how are you?

• Hi.

• [First Man] Thank you.

• Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to make this really simple, okay? Do you have some money?

• Yes.

• I’ll explain the rules first, then you can put up as much money as you want.

• Is that a sealed deck?

• No, it’s not a sealed deck. But you’re absolutely welcome to look.

• How do I know they’re not readers on the

• You don’t know. You don’t.

• Okay.

• You absolutely have no way of knowing. It’s a deck of cards, you don’t know anything about them.

• Who bought the deck?

• A guy that’s a friend of mine.

• A friend of yours.

• Absolutely, friend of mine. I’m going to make this so ridiculously easy for you that it doesn’t matter if the cards are marked or not. We’re going to play with 10 cards. The choices will all be yours. It doesn’t matter if the cards are sawed, slit, written on, nothing matters. I’m going to make it absolutely simple for you. You’re going to take five cards, I’m going to take five cards. Shuffle the cards.

• Okay.

• You don’t have to know what the cards are. All you have to do is know the order of hands and poker.

• Would you play poker with a guy whose friend brought the deck?

• Would I? I’d play poker with anyone in the world.

• So, we’ve got 10 cards here.

• Okay, we’ve got 10 cards here. Here’s what we’re going to do. You can put up as much money as you want right now. I’m going to cut the cards. You are going to deal. Okay?

• Okay. But can I deal before you cut the cards?

• No, you can’t. We’re playing like a poker game. I’m going to make up every rule. If you don’t want to play at the end of this, you don’t have to play.

• So, okay, I got it.

• Do you understand? I’m going to make the rules. If you want to play, you play. If you don’t, you don’t.

• I just want to understand.

• Take out your money.

• Well, tell me what we’re playing.

• We’re going to play five cards. We’re going to play showdown, there’s no draw.

• So, I’m going to get five cards, you’re going to get five.

• Right, but I’m going to give you the choices and you’ll understand. Okay?

• I’ll put my money in, just let me explain the game.

• Okay.

• I get five cards, you get five cards. Then, we look at the cards, and I put money down. The best hand takes the money?

• Yes, the best hand takes the money.

• Okay.

• All right.

• And I shuffle, and I deal. But you want to have the last cut.

• You’ve shuffled, I’ve cut. You want to shuffle again? Shuffle again, I’ll cut again, I don’t care.

• I just want to clear up one thing, and then we’re ready to start. That before I deal, you’re going to have the last cut.

• Yes, I’m going to have the last cut.

• Uh-huh, okay.

• Do you not want to play? Get me a guy who wants to play.

• I’d love to–

• Get this guy out, and get me a guy who wants to play, now. You’re gone.

• I’d love to play. Peter, you’re gone.

• I want to play.

• Then deal the cards. Unless someone else–

• Take out some money And deal, I want to play cards, I don’t want talk. Can you take out some? Either play or don’t play, I couldn’t care less.

• Okay, I’ve got some money here. I got 20 bucks, this is all I got.

• Get somebody with money.

• [Rex] Well, how much money do you want?

• $100 is fine.

• Well, we haven’t got $100.

• Then put 40 in, fine, 40 is fine. Okay, deal me a card.

• Why don’t you shuffle and I’ll cut. Deal me a card. You don’t want to play? Don’t play.

• Okay.

• Why don’t you cut, see what happens.

• Okay.

• Deal. Get the next guy in. Get the next guy in.

• [Peter] What you’re doing is fixing the deck. I mean, anybody can win money doing that.

• You can do anything you want, get the next guy in. I want to play some cards here.

• All right.

• You just want to take money from people don’t you?

• Go. Go, history.

• I’m not a great shuffler.

• It’s fine. Relax, take your time. We’re going to play a very simple game of poker.

• Okay.

• A game of poker in which you shuffle the cards and I cut the cards. But I’m going to give you every opportunity to win.

• Okay.

• Unfortunately, Peter didn’t want to stay long enough for me to explain this to him. I will give you every opportunity to win.

• Okay.

• If we were normally dealing in a game, you would deal me the first card, you would deal yourself the second card. First, put up some money. How much are we playing for?

• 50.

• 50, great. It’s covered, deal me the card, deal yourself a card. Okay, now you’re going to shuffle them again. Shuffle the cards again.

• Alrighty. I’m not great with– You can do that, if that’s more comfortable. It doesn’t matter to me.

• Okay, there we go.

• Now, actually, I should cut them at this point. I will.

• Okay.

• Finish the cut. Put this on top, deal me the card, deal yourself the next card. Shuffle them again.

• [Player] Okay.

• [Ricky] You cut the cards.

• You want me to cut them?

• Yes, you cut the cards. Deal me the next card.

• Okay.

• Deal yourself the next card.

• Okay, you got it.

• [Ricky] Shuffle the cards again.

• [Player] All right.

• [Ricky] Deal me the next card, deal yourself rhe next card.

• Okay, and I don’t cut that time.

• You didn’t cut that time?

• No. Should I cut it?

• [Ricky] If you’d like, do you want to take the two cards back?

• No, that’s fine.

• [Ricky] Fine, deal me a card, deal yourself a card. All right, is that fair enough? I mean, I’m not even touching the bloody cards. Turn over your hand. You have the best hand, you win. I have the best hand, I win.

• Okay, so that’s just straight-up poker.

• Right, it’s showdown. What do you have?

• Two sevens, two queens.

• Two sevens and two queens. This is a good hand, you probably win. Except I have three nines, thanks. Bring the next person in. What’s your name?

• William.

• Pleasure, Ricky. This is a game of poker with only 10 cards in it. I’ve done this to make the game very simple. I realise you and I haven’t met, I have no idea what you do, what your level of skill is, but I understand that it’s not a group of people who play a lot of cards. You’ve shuffled the cards. If you’d place them on the table for me. I’m going to cut the cards, you can return the cut. And I want you to now spread the cards out, okay? Just spread them out. And what’s going to happen in this is, that’s fine, that’s absolutely fine, is I’m going to take your card, and you’re going to take your card. We’re going to make a poker hand that way. Take a card, any card at all. I’m going to take a card. You’re going to take a card.

• Can I take two cards?

• Yes. Yes. I don’t know, you bring people who constantly have to change the rules. I’ll take a card. And how much are we playing for? I don’t see any money on the table. $100, fine. All right, I’m going to take, give me a card, I’ll let you give me a card. Give me one of the next cards, I don’t care. Take one for yourself. Give me another card, take one for yourself. If I have the highest hand, I win your $100. If you have the highest hand, you win my $100. Turn over your cards. Pair of sevens, pair of queens. Turn over my cards. I won’t even touch 'em, turn 'em over. It looks like you win, doesn’t it? Except you don’t. Next person, bring him in, shuffle the cards. Deal me a card. I’ll tell you what.

• [Peter] What? Since you are here, as well, look at the next card, and decide amongst you whether you want to keep that card, or you want to give it to me.

• Okay.

• Okay.

• Give it to him.

• Give it to me?

• Yeah.

• Fine. Look at the next card. See if you want to keep it or you want to give it to me.

• Keep it.

• Keep it.

• Look at the next card. See if you want to keep it or give it to me. You might want to see what these cards are. You can go behind them and see, I don’t care. You want it, keep it, if you don’t give it to me.

• Okay.

• [Ricky] Take a look at the next card. You want to keep it? I have to wind up with five cards, you have to wind up with five cards.

• [Peter] I think we’ll give them that one.

• Look at the next one. You want to keep it, you want to give it to me?

• Keep it.

• Okay.

• Look at the next one. You want to keep it, or you want to give it to me?

• [William] Give it to him.

• [Peter] It’s going to give him a pair though. Gave him one of those. But we got both those cards, and we’ve got three, so we have no choice, unless we’ll see what they are.

• So you’re saying give it?

• One at a time.

• Why don’t we just look at all the cards.

• No, no, no, no, you look at them one at a time. But you guys have both been here before. If you paid attention, if you were good poker players, you would know what every card is. That’s the idea.

• Yeah, you have no choice. You just look at it and give it to him, because you only got three cards, right? And there only two,

• [Player] There’s sevens, nine.

• [Onlooker] Let 'em look.

• All right, look at both of the cards. Look at both of them.

• Keep that, keep that. Look at both of them, give me one, you take one.

• Okay.

• Okay.

• You definitely want keep the seven, 'cause that’ll give him three sevens.

• Okay, yeah.

• And you got to give him nine.

• Right, turn 'em over. You win, it’s your money. I win, it’s my money. Turn 'em over.

• [Player] Okay.

• What do you have?

• [Peters] Queens, and what do we have?

• [Player] Just a pair of queens.

• Pair of queens. I think it’s safe to say, turn over my cards.

• [Peter] I think we’re in trouble.

• I’m not even going to touch 'em, turn 'em over. There’s a pair of sevens, a pair of nines. You lose, I’m out of here.

• Ricky, you’re not going to explain how you did it? Boy, he must really need money that badly.

• I don’t know.

• He’s pretty different.

• And he feels bad about cheating us out of a couple hundred bucks?

• Well, I don’t know, a lot of personality.

• A magician has power. Power is not totally controllable, even by the magician, in our image of it and reaction to it. So the power, if somebody can do something with a pack of cards, maybe he can do something with me directly. If he can do something bad, maybe he can do something good. If he does something good, maybe he can do something bad. And so, well, you never know which way the power is going to go. So, any magician worth his salt is a little bit on the sideline, not in the mainstream. And you bring 'em in when you want to be entertained or you want to be healed, or helped. But you’re not going to consort with 'em on a daily basis. He’s a little bit too strange and too scary. But there’s room, now and then, for a magician who will take on the role, as it’s always been, and still can be, of saying, “This is serious stuff, and watch out. "It may not go the way we expect, but something will happen.” Huh? That’s Ricky.

• [Ricky] “As a rule, a man’s a fool. "When it’s hot, he wants it cool. "When it’s cool, he wants it hot. "Always wanting what it’s not.” I once gave a lecture on nose amputations, going back to the early 16th Century. You find them in bridal paintings, and here, as well. That goes something like, “Sea gallants, wonder and behold, "this German of imperfect mould. "No legs, no feet, no arms, no hands, "yet all that art can do commands.” The joker of the deck. You ended your letter, “Please sign my cheque.” Well, you foolish little fool, for you to think you could take advantage of me in this way, when my only sin has been loving you much too much. ♪ That’s the story of ♪ ♪ That’s the glory of love ♪

• Well, what to make of that. And I haven’t seen parts of the film for some time. What a character. I must say, by the way, he passed away some years ago. But his magic sort of seems to continue, and he was a mysterious and a strange man. There were aspects to him which were quite disturbing. Now, a couple of questions I have to answer.

Q&A and Comments:

Jennifer from Los Angeles. “I’m so grateful to have Mr. Bloomstein back with us.” Well, I haven’t been away, Jennifer, but thank you for that kind thought.

Q: Mark. F. “How can I access this wonderful documentary?”

A: Online streaming, right now. But we might make it available on Lockdown, so watch out for that.

Rita K. Oh, Rita K. says it’s available here. I have to say to you that YouTube is the Wild West, and all sorts of people’s films end up there without any copyright permission, including my own.

So, well done, Rita, you’ve found something from Mark F. Oh, yes, and then she comes back again saying it’s available on YouTube.

Romaine, “Please discuss how the concept "of conning, ie, deceit, is an integral part of the magician’s thinking.”

Well, I can’t, because I’m not a magician, and I know very little about magic. I was fascinated by him. But sleight of hand is what it says. It’s deceiving the eye. And magicians don’t usually reveal their secrets, but you go onto online and see various, I think, reflections on magic and how it works, or, to some extent, how it works. Ricky was a closed book, in that sense. He didn’t want to reveal anything. But yes, it’s all about deception. And if you just think very simply that how little you notice certain things when things are pointed out to you, often, they’re right in front of you, but you don’t see. It’s our focus that, I think, they’re aware of, and our ability to be distracted from things and things go on, then, in their hands, and so on. But by God, that’s just the most simplest thing. There’s an amazing art to it. So, I’m afraid I can’t really add to that.

Anyway, Lawrence Ratner, “It’s obvious he added the two to the deck.”

Oh, well, well-spotted, then, Lawrence. I don’t know if he did, and you’re obviously a card player. Fair enough.

Barbara Kessel, “Terrific, wish it were longer.” Thank you, Barbara. He was an extraordinarily interesting character, and funnily enough, it’s a quite a simple film, in the sense that so much was happening on camera, I didn’t have to do a huge amount of editing to it, but to select and choose what worked. I’ll tell a story about him, perhaps a little later.

Susan, “Wow, phenomenal.” He was, no doubt about it.

Jill Schulman, “Fascinating, that’s why I hate magicians.” Thank you.

Susan Welkers, “Amazing, thank you.”

Thank you Henry Hyatt, “Fascinating, thank you.

Q: "Are there any current as Mr. Jay?”

A: I don’t know. Over to you to find out.

Ila Glensee, “My dad was a member of the Magic Circle.

"He’d have loved this with respect, and my brother, who also respects the art.” My God, it is an art. But Ricky was unusual, because he was a historian of magic. He had an incredible knowledge, probably the leading world’s authority on the history of magic. It’s interesting, looking at cups and balls done in the 16th Century.

And Matthew Buchinger, this tiny man who was able to do all these things, and find time to sire 14 children. The mind boggles.

Richard Moore, “On Houdini’s grave, people leave him magic tricks to this day.” Do they? Well, just shows you. Of course, Houdini was Jewish, and it’s a very interesting story, in itself. I think several films have been made about him.

Rita K. is back. “Mr. Bloomstein, "please come back to Lockdown more often. Your presentations are phenomenal.” I’m embarrassed to read that out, Rita, but that’s very kind of you. But you see, unlike the lecturers that Lockdown specialise in, they’re usually, often, from an academic background. I’m not, and I build my occasional lecture around my films. Thank you.

Alison Warner, “Amazing.” Monty Golden, “I’ve forgotten that my son "produced your documentary. "Jay was in a Mamet film.

"Come in late, and you mentioned it.” Quite right, Paul Golden was the young producer who came to me to ask me to direct this, having found Ricky very difficult to handle. And indeed, I certainly didn’t find it easy. And we, in the end, decided that we didn’t really get on. But nevertheless, we would try to make a film. And the scene at the end where he gets so angry, I think that was also part of his con. He decided he would do this and play this game, and he asked us to provide people who were poker players. They weren’t good enough for him, but it just revealed this ability for him to con.

Q: Barbara Kessel, “Was he married, had a family?”

A: I don’t think he had a family, Barbara. But he was married, I think, yeah. We didn’t discuss his private life at all, as the writer from The New Yorker, wrote this very interesting article about him.

Q: Louise Sweet. Hello, Louise. “What drew you to make this film at the time you made it? "Did you continue to see him after the film was completed?”

A: Well, I was fascinated by, okay, this young producer, Paul, came to me to say, “Look, help us out on this, let’s try and do it.” And then, when I discovered more about him, I was intrigued, yeah. And like you, and the rest of us, how does he do it? And as the chap was giving a birthday present to his wife in having Ricky produce this magical trick built around Japanese cinema, it’s remarkable being close to someone like that. Probably, you’d find person magicians coming to events, and maybe you who are watching witness them. But of course, Ricky was supreme in this. So, that was fascinating to me. How did he do it? But he wouldn’t answer, he wouldn’t tell me. But I felt it was intriguing enough to try to explore him and, of course see him do these tricks, both historical as well as contemporary.

Q: Did I continue to see him after the film was completed?

A: No, we never became friends.

Philly Abrams, “My late husband "was a magician, Anthony Brahams. "He created a world where magic existed.

"I met Ricky, wonderful.” Well, I wonder what your view of him is now, Jill. Probably just as fascinated as I was, in seeing that.

Lilo Glensee, “You are a presenter supreme. "Thank God you’re not an academic.” I’m not an academic. But I do it very rarely. That’s what I love about lockdown. It has such a range of people. I watched Rabbi Rosen the other day talking about Kabbalah, and I think there’s a link here. And I was intrigued, in my opening comments, by magical thinking and its relationship to Judaism. But that’s a huge subject, and I merely hinted at it.

Barbara, “Fabulous presentation.” Thank you so much, thank you Barbara.

Q: “Was Ricky Jewish?”

A: Yes, he was, David Freund, he was. But sadly, I never was able to explore that with him, but there you have it.

Well, thank you all very much for watching that. It was interesting for me to watch him, and I’ll see you again, I hope. Thank you. And thank you, Karina, for your help.