In 1921, Harry Houdini started his own film company called - wait for it - the Houdini Picture Corporation.

Romantic Orientalism was fascinated by the color and excitement of a powerful culture, and nearly always approached its subject with love.

Funny thing about those Middle Ages, said Joseph. "They just keep coming back. Mortals keep thinking they're in Modern Times, you know, they get all this neat technology and pass all these humanitarian laws, and then something happens: there's an economic crisis, or science makes some discovery people can't deal with. And boom, people go right back to burning Jews and selling pieces of the true Cross. Don't you ever make the mistake of thinking that mortals want to live in a golden age. They hate thinking.

One should always avoid unnecessary unhappiness. Especially if one is an immortal. They taught us that in school.

The 1910 Edison film of Frankenstein was itself a dead thing revived by technology.

England was a cold, backward, rebellious little kingdom. It's king: Henry the Eighth, remembered principally for his six wives and the chicken legs clutched in his fat fists.

In 1921, Harry Houdini started his own film company called - wait for it - the Houdini Picture Corporation.