By the early 1900s, the extraordinary Houdini earned an international reputation for his theatrical tricks and daring feats of extrication from shackles, ropes, handcuffs, and Scotland Yard’s jails… The film depicts Houdini’s memorable escape from any pair of handcuffs produced by the audience; the outdoor exhibition, when he allows himself to be hanged upside down from his ankles, suspended from the roof of a high building, in a strait jacket; and, the dramatic act, when he accepts to be shackled with irons and placed in a box that is locked, roped, and submerged in frozen waters…

Naive American engineer Howard Graham (Joseph Cotton) is taken by a fellow employee to an Istanbul nightclub, where he becomes attracted to dancer Josette Martel (Dolores del Rio). An attempt to murder him results in the death of an unfortunate magician instead.