There is now online access to footage from the British Pathe News archive. This was a media company that became famous for it's cinematic news reels (the voice-overs are much parodied in the UK).

Anyway, the site is easy to search and there is plenty of footage related to magic and magicians. Here is a link to a search I did for "magician":

http://www.britishpathe.com/product_disp......magician

You can download free low resolution versions of the clips (they're still full length), or if you intend to use the clip for the web or presentation work, you can pay for a higher quality version.

Enjoy!

ML