Remarkable Sleight of Hand

This video is of the Great Cardini (Richard Valentine Pitchford), doing his "intoxicated gentleman" skit -- a masterful series of sleight of hand tricks (i.e., pulling lit cigarettes from the air) on an Ernie Kovacs show in 1957.  Apparently, this is the only video recording of any of his acts.

It is marvelous to watch: old-fashioned simplicity. We all have a sense of how it's done -- he distracts us to look at the wrong thing -- but it still seems like pure magic.  Far more interesting to me than the over-serious modern magicians who do death-defying stunts (which for me lose their attraction: either there's no chance he could really do himself an injury, so why do I care, or there's a great chance for him to do himself an injury, in which case, I don't want to watch, nor encourage suicidal behavior).

Found thanks to neatorama.