Seeking Magic Castle film or video archive for Larsen family documentary

[magiccastledoc]

Seeking Magic Castle film or video archive for Larsen family documentary!

A feature documentary charting the creation of the Magic Castle and the Larsen's family indelible imprint on magic is in the works and needs your help!

We are seeking any video, film (Super 8 / 8mm / 16mm) or home movies to use in the film that shows any member of the Larsen family (William, Gerri, Bill, Milt, Irene, Dante, Heidi, Erika, Liberty) or exteriors / interiors of the Castle from the 1960s / 70s / 80s and 90s.

We're also seeking any personal photographs of Bill, Milt & Irene in the early days up until the 90s. Also any photos/film/video of great magicians performing (preferably) at the Castle or with the Larsens such as Dai Vernon, the Blackstones, Jay Ose, Doug Henning, David Copperfield, Ricky Jay, Siegfried & Roy, Lance Burton, Harry Anderson, Marvyn Roy, Johnny Thompson, Penn & Teller, the Zimmermans, Jack Goldfinger, Max Maven, and celebrity magicians / magic lovers such as Cary Grant, Johnny Carson, Orson Welles, Muhammed Ali, Dick Van Dyke, Steve Martin, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Alexander, Larry Wilmore or anyone else of note. Film or video would be even better!

We're so looking for anything featuing the Magic Castle's original landlord (and owner of Yamashiro) Thomas O. Glover.

One piece of film we're specifically looking for is an episode of "Lohman & Barkley" - a variety arts television show for the LA area on which Irene and Bill Larsen performed magic while plugging "It's Magic." The episode aired on October 19, 1969 on KNBC4 in Los Angeles. This existed on 16mm film in the Castle's archive at some point but is now lost.

We're also looking for any interesting footage of the Castle fire that occurred in 2012.

We've already acquired a lot of material - so please don't respond with anything ordinary, google-able or already in the Castle's archive, one of Milt's books or in the Genii archives. We're looking for extraordinary and personal items - the one of kind thing that's maybe locked in a basement or your magician relative passed down to you and this email has jolted your memory to its very existence and forced you to unearth it.


Please email Nick @ nickcoles@gmail.com with any materials we can possibly include in the film or any clues to pursing the type of archives we're hoping to unearth. We unfortunately cannot pay for these items will can cover the cost of transferring any film to high resolution




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