Few horror filmmakers are able to transcend the genre and produce great art that is revered by fright film fans and serious movie critics alike, but Curtis Harrington has done just that. His quirky, polished and hypnotic terror gems have won him a global following since he helmed his moody debut feature, Night Tide, in 1961.
Today, a new generation of fans captivated by Harrington's unique style of elegant horror is discovering his oeuvre at film festivals and horror conventions around the world. One could argue that Harrington's distinctive body of work is influencing such genre newcomers as Eric Valette (Maléfique), Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa (Dead End, in which the protagonist is named Harrington), and Brad Anderson (The Machinist) - all proponents of a subtler and more sober horror that avoids the self-referential, ultra-violent and lampooning extremes of recent fright flicks.
Unfortunately, Harrington has found it increasingly difficult to raise money for his cherished film projects. After a 15-year hiatus as a working director (during which time he kept busy on a host of other projects), Harrington is making a comeback of sorts, directing low-budget Edgar Allan Poe short subjects - the unsettling "Usher" in 2002 and the upcoming "The Man of the Crowd." It's nice to know that, however restricted his means, the auteur of Night Tide is still producing the high-water horror that's made him into both a cult favorite and movie critic icon. Curtis Harrington was interviewed on October 2.
You're held in very high esteem in the international film community. Tell us about the latest tributes to your work.
I just had two tributes in succession here in Los Angeles. The first was a special screening on my 76th birthday (September 17) of What's the Matter with Helen? at the Egyptian Theatre. The second event was at the Silver Lake Film Festival, held in the Cinerama Dome and Arclight Cinemas Complex - a totally state-of-the-art theatre right in the heart of Hollywood. On September 29, they showed a brand-new 35-mm print of my rarely seen film The Killing Kind, with Ann Sothern and John Savage, followed by a screening of "Usher."
The Killing Kind [1973] has a very dark history. It never received a proper release in America and was in effect buried. I remember that Sam Fuller liked it very much and he tried to help me get it released, but we just didn't succeed. It will now be re-released on DVD in America and Europe. This new DVD version comes from the fully restored print made from the film's original color negative. It's very gratifying that The Killing Kind, virtually a buried treasure, is being rediscovered all these years later. At Silver Lake, it was very well received by a younger audience. John Savage called me afterwards to talk about the audience reaction. He was unable to come to the screening and was very sorry that he couldn't be there. As a matter of fact, John and I will be providing the commentary for the DVD release, and I'll try to get Cindy Williams to join us, because she's also in the film.
I have also been invited to a small film festival that will be held in Toulouse, France, in the spring of 2005. They want to do a whole retrospective of my work, including the first European showing of the new print of The Killing Kind.
Tributes are all well and good but you're still a vital creative force and you want to direct another film, right?
The immediate thing I want to do is make a second short Edgar Allan Poe film based on "The Man of the Crowd," so that I'll have enough footage for a DVD release - I may title it "Two by Poe," or "Poe Back to Back," or "Poe Reinterpreted by the Brilliant Filmmaker Curtis Harrington," [laughs), you know. "The Man of the Crowd" is based on one of Poe's more obscure stories, about a gentleman of leisure in 1830s Paris who chooses to follow a stranger and gradually realizes the man is insane.
I don't believe "The Man of the Crowd" has ever been filmed. What drew you to this particular Poe tale?
I think it's very cinematic. I will film it in Los Angeles, but I'll use parts of the town that you don't ordinarily see in movies. We'll exoticize Los Angeles for the film. There are certain areas here that you don't get to see on the screen - ever. Most of them are in East Los Angeles. It's an older part of the city, but it doesn't have any cachet at all. It's industrial and kind of a wasteland - very melancholy, with lots of space and strangeness. But "The Man of the Crowd" is just the jumping off point in my film. I'll be weaving in themes from two other Poe stories, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" and "William Wilson." This will be an unconventional and very psychological story with horror elements in it. If you've read "M. Valdemar," you'll know that it involves the physical dissolution of a person. I can't tell you any more about the story, really. As Josef von Sternberg once said, a chicken does not like to discuss his own soup. All of life is a mystery, particularly the artistic process, and it should be kept a mystery.
Is the film cast?
No, I haven't cast anyone yet, but I've been thinking of asking Barbara Steele to play a small guest role in it.
Is Gary Graver on board as cinematographer?
Yes, absolutely, but I have to finish writing the script per se. I know where I'm going with it, but I have to get it all down on paper. I can't make "The Man of the Crowd" on as low a budget as I made "Usher," so I have to get some money somehow for it. I'm not very good at raising money. There were people representing a small independent film company at the Silver Lake Festival who saw the program of The Killing Kind and "Usher." In the Q&A period after "Usher," I talked about my wish to make another Poe film. Then these three young film producers came up to me and said they were so impressed with my work as a director, they offered to help me with the financing. Of course, nothing has happened yet. It's just talk, but it's very encouraging talk.
How is "Cranium," your mad scientist story, progressing?
A businessman in New Mexico is interested in getting the money to make "Cranium." It would be a low-budget feature. I don't have a proper budget for it at the present time. "Cranium" would probably cost about $4 million because it requires some particularly elaborate sets (for the mad scientist's laboratory). Anyway, this fellow in New Mexico called me the other day and asked me to be patient. He loves the script and wants to do it. He is putting together a package of four films and they will be "cross-collateralized." "Cranium" is definitely a part of that package. That's another pie in the sky, I suppose, but it's very nice.
Are you still writing your memoirs? Is there anything you can divulge about your autobiography at this stage?
Right now I am concentrating on the script for "The Man of the Crowd," so I've put the memoirs aside for a while. I can't proceed to try to get the money to make the Poe film until I've finished the script. I've written over 400 pages of the autobiography so far. The last thing I wrote was about a very curious encounter I had with Loretta Young back in 1965. I met her at a huge Hollywood party given by Jennifer Jones for Truman Capote after he finished writing In Cold Blood. It's a very amusing anecdote. I'm filling the book with character sketches or ruminations about various people I have known well or not so well, as the case may be, but always with an interesting anecdote.
Who was the most difficult actor you ever worked with?
In 1987, I was stuck with an actor who refused to memorize any lines on the one episode of The Twilight Zone that I directed - Martin Balsam, who played the private detective in Psycho. He was getting older and announced to everyone's horror that he no longer bothered to memorize lines. Balsam had a big part with long speeches. So what am I supposed to do? In all the close-ups, his eyes went back and forth reading the lines. It was just a nightmare for me. Balsam worked from idiot cards. At first, they just gave a prop man the cards, but you have to know how to time those cards. And so, right in the middle of a scene, Balsam would be snapping his fingers, meaning, "Change the card, go to the next card!" We finally got someone who had handled cards for some TV star to do the job. It was such an ordeal. Editing that show took forever. Ninety per cent of the time, I had to cut away to whomever Balsam was talking to. You'd often just hear his voice offscreen.
Balsam shouldn't have accepted the job. He signed the contract and then announced that he didn't memorize his lines anymore. Obviously, the poor man wanted the money and didn't give a fig. Balsam was a very nice man, mind you, but impossible to work with under those circumstances. It was not a happy moment for me working with that man.
The Twilight Zone episode was called "Voices in the Earth." It was about a spaceship and you don't know where it's going. And then you find out it's many years in the future and the spaceship is on its way to Earth, which is now a totally burned-out planet.
What are your views on the current state of the horror film?
I'm curious about the whole Japanese horror genre that has sprung up and the fact that all these Japanese films are being remade as American horror films. I've only seen Gore Verbinski's The Ring and I thought it was very clever. I liked Brad Anderson's Session 9. I was very impressed with it and am looking forward to seeing Anderson's new film, The Machinist. I also liked Maléfique, a French horror film that was shown here recently at the American Cinematheque. I met the young director, whose first film this is - Eric Valette. Maléfique virtually takes place in one prison cell. It's about a small group of prisoners who discover hidden away in the cell an occult book that has a formula for transporting them to another world. It's very well done.
I'm looking forward to Walter Salles's next film, a remake of one of those Japanese horror films [Hideo Nakata's Dark Water]. Salles says he wants to transcend the horror genre. The current film that I am most enthusiastic about is Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries, and I'm curious to see what this wonderful director will do in the horror genre.
You do attend many screenings and keep on top of current trends in world cinema, don't you?
I am a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, so I go to many Academy screenings. I also attend screenings of the Directors' Guild of America and I am an active member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts - the Hollywood edition of it. BAFTA has a lot of screenings, most recently Bright Young Things and Finding Neverland. The Directors' Guild and Academy screening rooms spoil you for normal theaters. They have world-class projection quality, the best sound and picture quality in the world.
Last night, I went to a tribute at the Academy, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the director George Stevens. There was quite a turnout. Warren Beatty was the Master of Ceremonies. George Stevens, Jr. came out from Washington for the event. Jane Withers, who was in Giant, was there. Various Hollywood luminaries spoke glowingly of George Stevens's work - including Michael Mann and Steven Spielberg. They had a wonderful selection of excerpts from Stevens's best films, ending with the last reel of Shane. It was a splendid evening and a great tribute to George Stevens, whom I'd always admired.
Is the younger generation aware of your distinguished body of work?
The hardcore horror film buffs are. About three years ago, I was invited to a big fantasy/horror film convention in Baltimore. That's when I had my picture taken at the gravesite of Edgar Allan Poe. There were a lot of young people at the convention who knew my work and brought posters of my films for me to autograph. That sort of thing happens at all the horror conventions I attend.
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