Rope Burn: Alan Alan's Legacy as an Escape Artist

A crane suspends a man tied to a rope ten stories above a makeshift stage. The man, hanging upside down, is shackled in a straitjacket. He is madly struggling to get his arms free. 10 feet above him, a section of fuel soaked rope burns, increasing the drama. The man has three minutes to make his escape before the fire burns through the rope, 

dropping him 100 feet to his death.

This treacherous stunt design was the creation of one of the world's leaders in escapology, Alan Alan. A popular escape artist and magician in the 1950s, Alan died earlier this year at the surprisingly old age of eighty-seven. Surprising, because of the amount of times he risked his life in front of a captive audience.

The idol of David Copperfield, Alan was best known for the burning rope trick described above. Alan's stunt of  'suspended shackles' was actually a nod to another famous escape artist, Harry Houdini. Houdini originally did the trick with handcuffs (sans fire).

For Alan's version, the artist freed himself from the jacket and then was lowered by the crane operator, seconds before the rope burned through. But it didn't always go to plan. In one of his his early attempts, the fire burned too quickly and Alan plummeted 30 foot to the stage of the Pavilion Theatre in Liverpool. Once he had failed, Alan upped the ante for future attempts, adding a cage of lions beneath him. His final performance of the stunt, at 52 years of age, was done from a crane that suspended him over the river Thames in London.

Looking to match his own idol, Alan also attempted Houdini's buried alive stunt. Alan barely survived this escape when his assistants were forced to dig him free. Apparently they had packed the ground above him too tightly.

Before his death, Alan was awarded the Maskelyne award from "The Magic Circle" for his services to British magic. Think of it as the Cecil B. DeMille award for magicians.

Krakit, Vancouver's premier escape game, would also like to honour Alan Alan for his pioneering spirit in the art of escape. We don't offer anything quite as death defying in our theme rooms, but we do like to acknowledge the greats that created an early interest in escapology.

Afterword:

When researching this blog entry, our crack team of investigators came across a forum of artists discussing this escape stunt. As you may have guessed, the trick lies in the strength of the rope. Some performers actually use a rope that contains a central core of high-test wire. The variable that offers the most challenge is wind. Wind fuels the fire and creates a swinging motion that makes it harder for the performer to escape their restraints. Another danger is the fuel dripping down the rope on to the performer. Modern stuntmen usually wear a flame retardant suit beneath the straitjacket.