Harry Houdini?

The writers put Houdini in there as a cynic-turned-believer type to gloss over the matter of the fairies. If a man like Houdini, who spent the last years of his life debunking frauds and exposing imposters, tells the girls to keep their secrets, in a sense he has accepted what the girls have done, and the audience should, too. Whether the fairies were fake or real, everybody should just leave the matter alone, because Frances and Elsie were two little girls who meant no harm, and were having a little fun, and who really knows if they did or did not see genuine fairies in the garden, and blah, blah, blah, isn't this a heartwarming story? I know that this film was targeted for children, but when one starts dropping in small facts with a liberal application of fiction, one is bound to come up with a weak, overambitious script that ends up a mess with vague answers and more questions than before.

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Everyone dies but not everyone gets to live.

Harry Houdini was a sceptic. Sir Arthur was a firm believer in spirtualist he believed he could talk to the dead through psychics and such and Houdini was firmly against that belief I think once I read that he even accompinied him to a seance(sp?) and proved that the psychic was a fake.

~*Love you enemies, for they tell you your faults~*~Benjamin Franklin*~

I think Houdini was included for the reason discussed in the previous posts: to show that despite the incredible popularity of seances and psychics, and their sway with "men of science" such as Conan Doyle, there were also at that time those who were actively involved in debunking same. The fact that his whole career was based on illusions and "death-defying" tricks just adds another layer to the many themes crammed into this NOT-for-children movie:
(e.g. a country obsessed with death and the dying due to war; the natural popularity of seances and pyschics at such a time, and the concomitant rise of groups such as the Theospohical Society; a family in particular obsessed with death and greiving due to the deaths of their son, the mother's sister, and Frances' father's presumed death; a country going through tremendous change as more and more of the countryside was industrialized [Elsie's father's breakthrough with electric lights leading to more shifts possible at the factory in Bradford]). Naturally, the sudden appearance of "missing" soldiers such as Frances' father must have happened with enough regularity to offer hope to many thousands more.

I think Houdini's comment to the girls about "never tell them how you do it" is meant to at least suggest that he thought they were faking it, without actually stating his position. I do think the writers/director wanted to leave it entirely ambiguous in our minds.

I only wish that my public library hadn't shelved this with the "family" movies.
Aside from the themes being way over my 6-year old's head, I didn't realize she would have to hear "watch your ass" in a movie about fairies!