Curtis Harrington

I've never been obsessed with a director until I discovered the films of Curtis Harrington, who made a number of really interesting, ploddingly-paced horror/thriller films throughout the '60s and '70s. The stories in his films were never particularly original, but what the films lacked in originality they more than made up for in visual style and the performances he got out of his actors. Matter of fact, I'd say that numerous name actors (Dennis Hopper, Debbie Reynolds, Ann Sothern, John Savage, Gloria Swanson, Anthony Perkins, Shelley Winters, etc.) gave some of the greatest performances of their careers while starring in Harrington's films.

Unfortunately, something always seemed to go wrong. He was thrilled to be given the opportunity to direct the original "The Omen," but ultimately wound up losing the job to Richard Donner. "The Killing Kind" (arguably his best film) was handed over to a dubious distributor and was barely seen by anyone until it hit DVD 35 years later. "What's the Matter with Helen?" suffered from a wretched ad campaign that blatantly revealed the ending. "Ruby" was hijacked and virtually destroyed by the producer. He made the mistake of directing a few high-rated made for TV movies in the '70s ("How Awful About Allan," "Killer Bees," "Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell," etc.), then got labeled a TV director and found the only work he could get was directing episodes of shows like "Charlie's Angels" and "Dynasty" for friend Aaron Spelling. He did all the pre-production work for the acclaimed TV movie "The Legend of Lizzie Borden," then was ousted from the helm. When he tried to get financing for his final film, "Usher," his scores of so-called friends wouldn't help him out. Harrington's films were always tragic and, in the ultimate twist of irony, so was his promising career. But I don't want to dwell too much on the negative. The man left behind a catalog of wonderful, underappreciated films, and I'm always looking to bring them some extra attention....