This is the Colonial Theatre on Bridge Street in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, built by Harry Brownback, who set out to bring to the industrial town stage shows that would “satisfy New Yorkers”. The Colonial Opera House opened in 1903 with a musical extravaganza, and in 1915 screened DW Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” and hosted Mary Pickford (though not onstage). It had the great Thurston performing magic the following year.

Houdini was here in 1917, entertaining an audience of 300 by escaping from a burglar-proof safe. Such stars as Theda Bara followed, but the Colonial’s future was very much in movies.

In 1957 “The Blob”, starring Steve McQueen, was shot on location in and around Phoenixville, with its most memorable scene — of the creature sending a cinema audience scampering — filmed right here at the Colonial.

The theatre has a remarkable history, recounted at its own website, but it’s internationally famous now as the setting for the annual BlobFest, which culminates in a re-creation of the “fleeing-the-theatre scene”. In 2002, in fact, the Colonial’s façade was refurbished in 1950s style to complete the nostalgic effect.

New York’s Hippodrome, which stood at 1120 Avenue of the Americas, was where Houdini famously made a 5,000-pound elephant named Jennie disappear. His 19-week engagement at the theatre in 1918 was the longest run of his career.

The Vanishing Elephant stunt began as part of a wartime patriotic show called “Cheer Up”. Harry had joined the war effort by performing for the departing troops and showering them with $5 gold coins produced from thin air, and he sold a million dollars worth of Liberty Bonds as well.

Jennie was led into a brightly coloured box on wheels, the doors were closed behind her, there was a dramatic drum roll and the stage hands flung open the doors at both ends of the box to reveal it empty.

It’s generally agreed that Jennie was placed behind a large mirror running diagonally from the corner nearest the audience to the middle of the doors at the back. When the doors were reopened, the audience was only seeing half of the interior and its reflection. Orson Welles famously noted that it took two assistants to wheel the box onstage and 10 to wheel it off.

In 2007 it emerged that Houdini, on one of his British tours, had bought the trick from its inventor, Charles Morritt, a Yorkshire magician who had been inspired by the “spirit cabinet” used by American mediums the Davenport Brothers. Houdini was impressed by Morritt’s Disappearing Donkey and together they devised a way to boost the scale. The Daily Mail has Morritt’s story online.

I remember seeing David Copperfield recreate the vanishing elephant trick, but didn’t he make something else disappear — like a skyscraper or something? (Statue of Liberty — it’s on YouTube. Hell of a big mirror. — editor) Anyway, seeing something disappear on television isn’t exactly jaw-dropping. Film can make anything vanish in an instant. All you have to do is talk everyone on the set or in the studio into keeping their mouths shut. That ain’t magic.

In early 1925 Houdini returned to the Hippodrome for a six-week engagement. For the last two weeks he also did matinees at the new Albee Theater five miles across town, and every day traffic was brought to standstill as the lights were adjusted to clear a path for his motorcade and its escort of motorcycle cops.

The Hippodrome, built in 1905 with seating for 5,200, closed in 1939, having moved on from lavish spectacles featuring circus animals, diving horses, opulent sets and 500-member choruses to the the magic of the cinema as an RKO theatre.