From his beginnings as a "wildman" carnival act to the internationally famous feat of escaping from a locked trunk in an ice-jammed river, the great Harry Houdini emerged as the world's most captivating magician and escape artist.

Pinky, a light skinned black woman, returns to her grandmother's house in the South after graduating from a Northern nursing school. Pinky tells her grandmother that she has been "passing" for white while at school in the North. In addition, Pinky has fallen in love with a young white doctor, Dr. Thomas Adams, who knows nothing about her black heritage.