Is Conan Doyle Right? Cleveland: J. Morgan Litho., [1923]. One sheet-color stone lithograph for this two-reel film subtitled, “Can the dead talk to the living?” directed by John Joseph Harvey and written by Cullom Holmes Ferrell. A giant astral hand reaches down between a medium and a sitter at the center of the image, producing a chalk-written message on a slate before them. A crystal ball sits on one side of the table. Framed to 43 x 29”; fold lines visible, but not examined out of frame. Rare; one of only two examples with which we are acquainted. See Exemplars, p. 197. Communication with those in the afterlife was a driving force in Conan Doyle’s later years, and his belief in spiritualism drove a wedge between the famous author and the great magician Harry Houdini, who released his own magnum opus regarding ghosts, mediums, and the afterlife, A Magician Among the Spirits, in 1924. This now-lost film was an exposé of sorts, explaining how to materialize writing on slates with magnetic chalk, cause tables to tip, and the methods behind other séance room tricks. The medium was played by Gus Bohn, an inventive Philadelphia-based magician.