I don't consider myself to be the gullible type but as a youngster I was attracted to things that stretched my imagination. When I saw an advertisement in The Edmonton Journal concerning a display at the annual Edmonton Exhibition that featured a real live woman rising up out of a pot of boiling oil, I was over the moon.
"We've got to see this," I said to my brother, Harvey, as I waved the newspaper under his nose, "do you think this is for real or are they putting us on?"
"It must be a gimmick," Harvey replied, "they would never allow you to do that to a real person. Where is this to take place?"
My eyes wandered down the newspaper page and I answered, "In the display hall underneath the Grandstand at the race track at Exhibition Park. It will be presented on the hour until ten o'clock each evening. The sponsor is Imperial Oil."
A few days later, we took a bus to The Edmonton Exhibition and upon arrival we headed directly to the location announced in the newspaper. The hands of a large clock sitting on the edge of a curtained stage announced the time of the next show. We were early but a small crowd was already standing around the stage waiting with anticipation for the event and so we joined them. An attendant made sure that no prying hands would try to pull back a corner of the curtain for a sneak peek.
At the appointed time, the curtain parted revealing a huge transparent cauldron filled with bubbling ESSO motor oil (at least it looked like motor oil). The cauldron was large enough to contain a person but, much to my disappointment, it was empty. Momentarily a figure began to emerge from the pot of bubbling oil causing a hush to fall over the crowd. The attractive young lady, obviously chosen for her looks, did not appear harmed by passing through the oil and the white dress that she was wearing was not soiled in the least. She stood absolutely motionless as she rose to her full height from the cauldron.
"It's just as I thought," my brother whispered, "she's not real. I'll bet that she is a store mannequin."
"But the newspaper said a real live woman," I reminded him, "let's wait and see what happens."
At that moment the woman sprang to life. She smiled at the audience and stepped down from the cauldron onto the stage and began to extol the merits of using Imperial Oil products. When she was finished, she stepped back into the cauldron, assumed the mannequin-like pose and slowly sank back down into the boiling oil.
Fortunately, the curtain was not closed immediately after the performance thus giving us a chance to see how it was done.
"Look," Harvey said, "It's an elevator platform surrounded by clear plastic tubing made to look like a cauldron and filled with something that looks like oil."
"Then the only danger that woman faced was in losing her balance on the platform as it moved up and down," I rightly observed.
"She is probably a professional model and knows what she is doing," Harvey replied.
"Even so, you've got to admit that it was well done! It looked like she was rising out of the bubbling oil."
"Grudgingly!" Harvey replied.
It was done well enough that I went back several times to see it again.
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