The Grim Game  The Grim Game is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by Irvin Willat and starring Harry Houdini and Ann Forrest. The basic plotline serves as a showcase for Houdini's talent as an escapologist, stunt performer and aviator. As the story unfolds, a series of Houdini's trademark set-piece stunts and escapes are performed. When his tormentors chain him up and imprison him on numerous occasions, Houdini escapes. The film concludes with a climactic mid-air collision following an aircraft pursuit. Following the collision, Houdini is reunited with his fiancée. Young newspaper reporter Harvey Hanford (Harry Houdini) is in love with Mary Cameron (Ann Forrest), the ward of his rich, eccentric Uncle Dudley Cameron (Thomas Jefferson), who opposes the match. Harvey becomes involved in a newspaper scheme to plant evidence for a fake murder of his uncle. Dudley Cameron is actually killed, however, and Harvey is framed and arrested for the murder. Jailed unjustly for a murder he did not commit, freeing himself, Harvey is able to pursue the actual killers. Confronting the gang, Harvey is overwhelmed, but using his amazing powers of escape to free himself in a series of remarkable escapes from handcuffs, chains and a straitjacket, culminating in a climactic mid-air aircraft collision. Following the collision, Harvey is vindicated and finally reunited with Mary. "The Grim Game" was produced by the Famous Players-Lasky Company, shot at deMille Field Number 2. The aerial sequences were to feature a new stunt, where Houdini would hang by a rope from an aircraft and drop into the cockpit of an aircraft flying below. In the media, Houdini claimed that he was "scorning the use of a stunt man". In actuality, the film company advertised for a stunt double to take Houdini's place. Robert E. Kennedy, a former army air force flight instructor, applied and received a contract for the dangerous stunt. The mid-air collision in "The Grim Game" was not scripted. It was a real accident caught on film over the skies of Santa Monica, California. David E. Thompson was flying with stuntman Robert E. Kennedy, doubling Houdini, hanging from the landing gear. As the two Curtiss JN-4 "Jennys" lined up, a sudden gust of wind pushed Thompson's aircraft into the lower aircraft flown by Christopher Pickup, with his landing gear jamming into the top wing of the lower aircraft.