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Get ready to be amazed by the most jaw-dropping illusions performed by David Copperfield! From vanishing massive objects like a jet airplane and the Statue of Liberty to defying death with daring escapes and stunning levitations, these tricks showcase the master magician's legendary creativity and showmanship. Dive into the magic that left audiences spellbound and helped define modern stage illusions.
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00:00No self-respecting spirit would show themselves in the light, so we're going to create a little
00:03darkness with this curtain and see if we can make the spirits manifest themselves.
00:07Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most jaw-dropping,
00:13mind-bending illusions ever pulled off by David Copperfield in celebration of his historic 25-year
00:20Vegas residency coming to an end. David, you're a billionaire. You do not need to do this.
00:27But I like it, you know. I really enjoy it.
00:32Number 10, making a jet airplane disappear. Two years before he tackled Lady Liberty,
00:38Copperfield was already thinking big, like seven-ton aircraft big. In 1981,
00:44he attempted one of his boldest vanishes ever staged. When the translucent front wall is up,
00:49the lights will backlight the plane, casting its silhouette on the wall,
00:53so we can see the plane right up to the moment it vanishes.
00:56Fifty blindfolded spectators formed a human chain encircling a plane,
01:01their hands linked to ensure nothing could slip past unnoticed. Screens were raised to block the
01:07view, and dramatic lighting cast the aircraft's silhouette against them. Then it was gone.
01:12A commercial jet just vanished.
01:15Take your blindfolds off, we did it!
01:18The blindfolds weren't just theatrical flair, they were a clever psychological device that
01:23made the audience's shock feel even more visceral. If you can make something that weighs as much as
01:28a small building disappear, then you're operating on a different plane entirely. Pun absolutely intended.
01:34If I'm sitting at home, I could think of some way to get out of it, but I was right
01:38here and
01:38there's no way that plane could have left. It's just amazing.
01:41What happened to the airplane? I don't know, it went.
01:44It went!
01:45Number 9. The Death Saw
01:46One of Copperfield's most shocking illusions debuted in his special,
01:51The Magic of David Copperfield 10, The Bermuda Triangle.
01:54During the act, David Copperfield lies on a platform as a gigantic circular saw appears to slice
02:00straight through his torso.
02:07At one unforgettable moment, someone in the audience yells,
02:13And Copperfield obliges.
02:23Wiggling the half that's supposedly separated. It's grisly, theatrical, and brilliantly engineered.
02:30Copperfield developed the illusion himself, and it quickly became one of the defining modern
02:34sawing effects in stage magic. He later explored a similar visual shock in his laser illusion,
02:40where bright green beams appear to cut him in half across the waist before he calmly reassembles
02:55himself.
02:56Number 8. Surviving Niagara Falls
02:58In this nerve-wracking 1990 television stunt, David Copperfield challenged the raging waters of Niagara Falls.
03:06Over the years, a number of people have tried to survive going over the falls in a barrel.
03:09Many die trying. But guess what? I don't plan on joining me.
03:13I'm going to try to survive Niagara Falls in a completely different way.
03:17Bound in chains with his arms and legs restrained, Copperfield was locked inside a bright yellow raft
03:22suspended above the rapids. Flames burned beneath the contraption before it was dropped into the
03:27rushing water. From there, he had less than 60 seconds to escape before the raft was carried over the falls.
03:40The raft ultimately plunged, but moments later, Copperfield appeared alive, dangling from a helicopter rope overhead.
03:48He later admitted to the Las Vegas Sun that the preparation for this trick terrified him,
03:53recalling how he had multiple dreams about how it might kill him.
04:04Number 7. Vanishing of the Orient Express
04:07I had taken a ride in the Orient Express, and I knew I had to do something with it.
04:12Well, it took me a year to find a train car, and a year to work out the illusion.
04:16For his 1991 CBS special, The Magic of David Copperfield 13, Mystery on the Orient Express,
04:24Copperfield pulled off a disappearance worthy of a detective novel.
04:27The illusion centered on a restored dining car from the legendary Orient Express,
04:32an enormous 70-ton, 85-foot-long train carriage.
04:36Camera edits, no video effects. You'll see it at home, just like you'd see it if you were here with
04:41me.
04:42Take a good look, because in a few seconds, the train we're in right now, hopefully, won't be here anymore.
04:47Just like with the jet airplane, spectators surrounded the car and held hands,
04:52creating a human barrier so nothing could enter or leave unnoticed.
04:56Cameras captured the entire moment in a continuous shot.
04:59After covering it with a curtain and raising it several feet in the air, the train car simply vanished.
05:14The sheer logistical ambition of making something this massive vanish while fully surrounded by witnesses
05:20is almost offensive in how audacious it is.
05:23Number 6. Escaping from Alcatraz.
05:26Nobody escapes from Alcatraz, except apparently David Copperfield.
05:31There are 2 minutes and 30 seconds to first detonation.
05:35In a 1987 special staged at the actual decommissioned prison on Alcatraz Island,
05:41Copperfield began the 10-minute act straightjacketed and locked behind prison bars.
05:46With a bomb set to detonate in just two and a half minutes,
05:49he freed himself from the cell, passed through the solid prison door,
05:54and picked a lock using three coins he'd fashioned into an improvised tool.
06:05If that wasn't enough, he conjured a live cat from a box to distract two guard dogs
06:10before eventually escaping by helicopter, dressed convincingly in a police uniform.
06:23Alcatraz held America's most dangerous criminals.
06:26Copperfield treated it like a lunch break.
06:29Number 5. Portal.
06:31Some illusions rely on spectacle alone.
06:33Portal goes further, wrapping teleportation inside a genuinely moving human story.
06:39An audience member is selected, Polaroid photographs are taken,
06:42and Copperfield builds real emotional tension with the man's personal story.
06:47When was the last time you spoke to your dad?
06:49Two years ago.
06:50Well, we just spoke to him and he did have one request.
06:52And that is, if we get to Hawaii, and I hope that we do,
06:55that I take a picture of you to send to him.
06:57Is that cool?
06:57Then, standing on a suspended platform with that very audience member,
07:02Copperfield vanishes.
07:03Seconds later, he reappears on a beach in Hawaii,
07:07photographed and confirmed to be thousands of miles away.
07:10Check out the border!
07:11Run to the border!
07:12Go for it!
07:14Even more touching, the audience member was reunited with a loved one waiting there.
07:19The combination of random audience participation,
07:22genuine emotional stakes,
07:23and the sheer impossibility of the teleportation itself
07:26makes Portal feel less like a magic trick
07:28and more like a short film you can't explain.
07:31That's a rare quality.
07:41Number 4.
07:42The Barclay House
07:43If Copperfield ever directed a haunted house movie,
07:46it might look a lot like the Barclay House illusion.
07:49Tonight I'm going to be the medium.
07:51The go-between between the spirit world and our world.
07:53So if anything should take place inside our room,
07:55I want you to be sure it's the spirits and not me using any trickery.
07:58It's important that I can't move.
08:00Framed as the charred remains of a brothel destroyed in a mysterious fire,
08:05the act unfolded like a miniature horror film.
08:08As David Copperfield explored the eerie room,
08:10strange phenomena began to occur.
08:12Objects moving, people disappearing,
08:15and ghostly activity erupting once the set was covered.
08:19No!
08:20Open it!
08:21Open it now!
08:28The presentation was elevated by a dramatic score
08:31adapted from music by Bernard Herrmann,
08:34famous for scoring Alfred Hitchcock's classics.
08:37The result was peak Copperfield.
08:39Elaborate staging, cinematic storytelling,
08:41and a genuinely creepy atmosphere
08:43that made the illusion feel like an actual supernatural encounter.
08:56Number 3.
08:58Flying
08:59You see, I've been trying to fly for a long time.
09:02I guess if I don't stop trying, I haven't lost.
09:05Well, tonight, I'm gonna try again.
09:07In 1992, David Copperfield turned a childhood dream
09:11into one of the most convincing levitation illusions ever performed.
09:14The act begins simply.
09:16He releases a bird into the air and watches it soar.
09:19Then, almost casually, he begins floating himself.
09:23Soon, he's gliding across the stage,
09:25spinning, diving, and even flying through rotating hoops
09:28designed to prove nothing is holding him up.
09:39At one point, he carries an audience member along for the ride.
09:43Copperfield had explained that as an only child,
09:46he often dreamed of escaping loneliness by flying like a bird.
09:49That emotional backstory,
09:51and the sheer freedom of movement in the illusion,
09:54made the routine feel astonishingly real.
10:04Number 2.
10:05Walking through the Great Wall of China
10:07A 13,000-mile wall built over centuries
10:11to be completely impenetrable,
10:13Copperfield walked through it anyway.
10:15This remote-control camera will never cut away.
10:18It'll start on one side of the wall,
10:19see me enter the wall,
10:21and without cutting away,
10:22the camera will travel over the wall
10:24and hopefully see me emerge from the other side.
10:27In a 1986 television special,
10:29he stood before a solid section of the Great Wall
10:32as audience members positioned on both sides and above
10:35watched a lighted silhouette box tracking his outline.
10:39Gradually, his silhouette faded.
10:41A heartbeat monitor attached to him appeared to flatline.
10:51Then, moments later,
10:53Copperfield emerged on the opposite side,
10:55completely unharmed.
10:57The choice of location did enormous heavy lifting here.
11:00The Great Wall carries centuries of symbolic weight,
11:02which made the impossibility of the illusion hit even harder.
11:06There's something almost philosophical about a man
11:08dissolving through one of humanity's greatest physical monuments.
11:11Copperfield understood that perfectly.
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11:42For my cries,
11:44ignore the cause.
11:46Since you got lost in awe.
11:56Number one,
11:57making the Statue of Liberty disappear.
12:00If I successfully vanished the statue,
12:03searchlights would pass through the empty space
12:05that was occupied just moments before.
12:08Few illusions in history match the sheer audacity
12:11of making the Statue of Liberty vanish.
12:14In a 1983 television special,
12:16David Copperfield surrounded the monument
12:18with a live audience seated on a platform.
12:21A massive curtain rose to block the statue from view
12:24for just a moment.
12:25When the curtain dropped,
12:26Lady Liberty was gone.
12:36Even a circling helicopter camera showed nothing but empty sky
12:40where the statue should have been.
12:42Minutes later,
12:43the monument reappeared as if nothing had happened.
12:46Copperfield later explained that the illusion symbolized
12:48how precious freedom is
12:50and how easily something so monumental
12:52can disappear if we take it for granted.
13:00Think we missed a trick that deserves a spot?
13:02Drop it in the comments below.
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