Featured Unusual old photo/print, what is it, surreal?

Hi all,
After your advice, found this unusual photo amongst some royal themed collection I got the other day, it's possibly a print, on card. The subject looks really strange, obviously old, any ideas what it is of? Looks slightly surreal in nature, is the person anybody recognisable?
Thanks as always for any input.
Paul.

 

It appears to be a box that's suspended, so I'm going to guess he's a magician, but I have no idea what illusion he involved in. Bet there's someone in the box (or was).

 

ya, and someone is supposed to be drinking from inside the box....look at the tuxedo guys hand...

 

Yeah, it's kinda strange he is taking a drink from the box, guess he is proving it's filled with fluid, doesn't look clear like water though! From the stage and persons apparel, what do you think the era is, that might help me find some more info?

 

I'd guess post-war - late '40s early '50s

 

Just noticed the tank has a Chinese dragon style print, maybe it's wood?

 

The old "vanishing cow in the box" trick?
Or....in later versions of Houdini's milk can escape, the milk can was locked inside a chest. Perhaps in this variant, the magician proves that there is actual milk in the can, before having his assistant vanish or appear from inside the chest?

 

Sounds very plausible, thanks. I'll see what I can find on the subject.

 

I wonder if it's Jasper Maskelyne, "the war magician". I only found one photo of him wearing glasses.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3750/1451/1600/Maskelyne.jpg

 

I have no help on the magician trick ID, but believe pic earlier than and 40s & 50s. The assistants' hair style and short skirts looks more like the 1930s. By the 40s/50s assistants were usually in bathing suit type garments (shades of Betty Garble WWII pinups) or in long evening gowns.

--- Susan

 

Now that's a thought. Maskelyne was one if not the most noted British magician in the 1930s. Churchill called on him to create illusions that very successfully tricked Germany. He did have a mustache and appeared in a tux, but then most magicians during that age did also; however, the hairline and slenderness of the two are very similar.
https://www.magictricks.com/war-magician.html

--- Susan

 

I don't think it looks like him.

The op's picture Jasper Maskelyne

 

You know, at first look, I thought 1930s from assistants' costumes but... on closer look, the bodices with high necklines and darts aren't 1930s at all. Think post-war as above. (An internet image search for the movie GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935 will bring up period costumes for comparison.)

Debora

 

It looks more like a glass with a straw - as if someone inside is drinking from the straw. I'd guess that the box was shown empty and he's proving there is someone inside?

 

That's a good thought. I'd think that the assistant went into the box, which was then hoisted into the air....assistant has already crept out at the time of the photo (down through the stage before the box was hoisted), but the magician is using the glass and straw to prove they are still inside. Then mere seconds later the box will be dropped, or fall open, to show the assistant vanished - making it seem like they vanished instantly while the box was in the air, whereas in reality they had plenty of time to sneak out, and were gone before the box was hoisted.

And the magician would have been using a concealed tube or the like to give the illusion that the glass was being emptied by someone still inside the box. A little addition to the usual vanishing assistant trick, to heighten the illusion.
In modern versions of this trick the timing can allow the vanished person to magically reappear as one of the assistants on stage, in disguise, for example:
At the end of the trick the male assistant in the photo takes off a mask and his outfit to reveal he is actually the female assistant who vanished seconds before from the box.
In reality, she crept down through the stage before the box was hoisted, donned the disguise, and came on stage as a male to help with hoisting the box, while the magician was using the glass to prove she is still in the box.
I've seen Penn and Teller demonstrate that variant; don't know if the magician in the photo would have done that though. But the male assistant does look a little odd.....

 

Thanks for such a detailed reply. I do wonder if like you say the male assistant could actually be a female in disguise and mask. I'm going to study the original again for clues. From my digital photo, zooming in, it looks like there could be hair concealed to the back, the top half of his face looks odd, his legs look too long, and his eyes look a bit black. Could all just be optical illusions due to lighting, background etc and the power of suggestion now that you've mentioned it, but maybe you could be right! I like the straw idea too.
Guess we're looking around mid to late 40s, early 50s then. The box seems quite elaborate as well, a nicely decorated item by the looks of it, so it doesn't look like an amateur thing to me, therefore the magician should be known? That's the missing peice at the moment.

 

George 'gilly' Davenport, maybe?
Right era, bit younger in this photo

 

Maybe....another photo of "Gilly" Davenport:



and from 1957, levitating his daughter Betty:

 

Nice, real chance it is him I think, between the photos we have, in the middle of that period could well be him? Not young, not old, but middle age... Such a photo might pin it once and for all.

 

One possibly relevant observation: while googling for magician photos, I noticed that very few magicians performed wearing glasses.