The Man From Beyond (Silent) (DVD)

Frozen in the Arctic ice for a hundred years after pirates attacked his ship and abducted his fiancee, Howard Hillary (Harry Houdini) is thawed out and revived by Dr. Gregory Sinclair. Unaware that a century has passed, Hillary's only thought is to rescue his beloved Felice from the Pirate King. Dr. Sinclair worries that revealing the truth about Hillary's suspended animation will send the emotionally unstable man into a psychotic frenzy. Seeking the help of Professor Crawford Strange, Sinclair takes Hillary to the scholar's estate.

At the Strange Mansion, the visitors find that the Professor has been missing for over a year and that his daughter Felice is about to marry Dr. Trent. Hillary believes that Felice Strange is his lost love. Convinced Hillary is insane, Dr. Trent has him imprisoned in a mental institution. Escaping from his dank cell, Hillary finds Professor Strange held captive in an underground dungeon and discovers that Trent is the criminal responsible for the kidnapping. The two rivals finally face off in a life or death struggle atop a treacherous precipice.

Born Erich Weiss in Budapest Hungary in 1874, Harry Houdini is magic's most luminous legend. A master escape artist, debunker of charlatans, and a spiritual mystic who sought to commune with the dead, Houdini's name is now synonymous with miraculous, death-defying feats of escape. Houdini died in 1926 of peritonitis, nine days after his appendix was ruptured by an unexpected blow.

• silent