In this post, we discover three examples of war-themed tricks invented by magicians to keep their acts topical for audiences and capture the national mood during World War Two.
Doomed Dictators
For this variation of a ‘torn and restored’ trick, three printed papers are shown by the magician. One features Germany’s leader Hitler, another depicts Italy’s leader Mussolini, and the third shows Japan’s leader Hirohito. Calling on the audience to ‘boo’ the images of these three dictators, the magician rips up the papers to show his disdain for the Axis Powers. But, in a patriotic nod to the Allied victory hoped for by the audience, the magician restores and transforms the papers, forming a poster of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Raw materials to manufacture magic tricks were hard to get hold of as World War Two dragged on. Even paper was rationed. Nonetheless, London-based magic dealer Lewis Davenport & Co. managed to get hold of sufficient quantities of paper to have this trick made up for sale. Easy to perform, cheap and guaranteed “a clap”, Doomed Dictators was a popular item with both magicians and their audiences (especially if there were service personnel watching). Of course, as a set of dictator papers was destroyed in every performance, Davenports benefited from repeat sales of extra papers.
Magic catalogue description for the Doomed Dictators paper-tearing trick
Example printed papers for the Doomed Dictators trick
Defense Bond / Victory Poster
Over in America, Elmer Applegit created the Defense Bond trick. This was similar to Doomed Dictators. Another ‘torn and restored’ effect, it involved the destruction of papers showing the German Swastika and Japanese Rising Sun emblem. Then, their tattered remains were magically transformed into a poster urging the audience to “Buy War Bonds!”.
Abbott’s Magic Novelty Company sold a version of the trick called the Victory Poster.
George Farron demonstrating the Defense Bond trick (October 1942)
(Source: Genii Magazine)
Advert for Abbott’s Victory Poster Trick (April 1945)
(Source: Tops magazine)
The Evacuee Doll
Operation Pied Piper, launched in September 1939, was the biggest and most concentrated mass movement of people in Britain’s history. With the risks of air raids and gas attacks in British cities, millions of children were evacuated to the safety of homes in the countryside. Magicians were in high demand to entertain and reassure evacuees as they arrived in village halls and schools around the country, ready to be allocated to their temporary guardians. And, to keep up morale as the children lived out the war away from home, and often without their parents.
With evacuees a major feature of wartime society, magic dealers developed tricks themed around the evacuee experience. Magic maker Jack Hughes built the ‘Evacuee Doll’ (invented by Jimmy Flowers). In the trick, a 10” high wooden cut-out ‘evacuee’ leaves her small London home (a small painted wooden house), appears in a country home (a larger wooden board), then vanishes and reappears where she began from, back in her London home. The trick mimicked the movement of evacuee children from the cities to the country, and back again.
Evacuee Doll magic trick
(Source: Dean Barlow)
Advertisement for the Evacuee Doll in The Demon Telegraph
(Source: Courtesy the Davenport family, with permission)
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