Dante's Inferno

Not the Great Herrmann, not Kellar, not Thurston, not Houdini was able to make a good thing of a magic show on Broadway, and for the past 13 years Broadway has seen no full-size illusionist's performance. Undaunted, a miraculous hoodwinker who looks a little like Satan on stage and a little like Buffalo Bill off, who used to call himself The Great Jansen and who now bills himself as Dante, sailed into the Times Square district last week and set up Sim Sola Bim, a "mystery spectacle." Widely advertised as meaning "thanks to you" in Danish, Sim Sala Bim is actually a phrase from a Danish folk song, is roughly translatable as Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.

By the strict classifications of his strict and jealous calling Mystifier Dante is both a prestidigitator (he does sleight of hand) and an illusionist (he does tricks which require elaborate props to help the illusion). Pacing his illusions to the brassy blare of carnival music, Mystifier Dante whirled through an inferno of prestidigitatorial feats, transformed a tailor's dummy into a lady, made stooges vanish right & left. Loudly acclaimed was his trick of covering the open ends of a small beer barrel with paper, then distributing a few noggins from the keg among the audience. With dancing chairs, eerie levitation, mysterious cabinets and livestock summoned out of nowhere, Sim Sala Bim provided plenty of pleasantly stupefying hokum.

Now 57, Harry Jansen prides himself on being one of the line of magical great ones, is known to his intimates as "Pop." He has been Dante since 1922. Born in Copenhagen, he went to the U. S. at the age of six, started out as a magician in St. Paul, Minn., after watching The Great Herrmann do his stuff at the opera house there. Besides operating a show of his own, Jansen at one time ran a magic shop in Chicago. Eventually Jansen helped Thurston produce his shows. Shortly thereafter, Thurston and Jansen formed a corporation named Dante the Magician Inc. Three years later Thurston made Dante a present of the name. By 1930 Dante had bought out the magical assets and good will of their firm. Biggest illusion created by Jansen when he was associated with Thurston was The Vanishing Horse. It was the heaviest trick ever undertaken.

Jansen now creates all his own illusions. His inspirations come to him in flashes, but the work of putting a trick together takes many months. In order to keep his methods secret, he farms out a piece of an illusion to one assistant, another piece to another, then puts them together in private. Not since 1927 has he performed in the U. S. During the interim he toured the world. He was in Berlin when war broke out. Promptly the Nazis ordered him out of Germany. Says he: "That monkey in Germany cost me $25,000."

Jansen has a home in California, which includes a trick bar and a magic workshop. He hopes to cause a boom in the somewhat stagnant magic business, would like to set up a permanent magic company in Manhattan comparable to London's onetime Maskelyne-Devant Institution. High costs of labor and theatres on Broadway are the big obstacles. Jansen is also interested in getting close to some ghosts, is firmly convinced that he's psychic enough to make friends with them. Although he has taught all his five children magic, and used to saw his two daughters in half, only one of his offspring is now connected with Sim Sala Bim, a son who is his father's man of business, handles backstage, occasionally assists him on stage.

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