Curtis Harrington was an excellent and shamefully underrated writer and
director who specialized in marvelously offbeat and atmospheric
low-budget independent horror pictures. Harrington was born on
September 17, 1926, in Los Angeles and grew up in Beaumont, California.
A hardcore film buff from a very young age, Harrington worked as a
movie theater usher, a messenger at Paramount and a stagehand during
his younger days. He made his first 8mm effort at age 14 and attended
UCLA. In the 1940s and 1950s Harrington made a string of experimental
avant-garde underground shorts, such as
Picnic (1949),
Fragment of Seeking (1946),
"The Assignation" and "Wormwood Star". He was the cinematographer on
Kenneth Anger's
Puce Moment (1949) and acted in
Anger's
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954).
Harrington also was involved with fellow avant-garde filmmaker
Maya Deren. He began working for Jerry Wald
Productions at 20th Century-Fox in 1957 and served as a producer's
assistant on several big-budget pictures, including
Glut unter der Asche (1957) and
Der lange heiße Sommer (1958).
In 1961 he made a strong--and impressive--feature-film debut with the
nicely moody and quirky
Night Tide (1961)_. His follow-up
features were a pleasingly diverse, idiosyncratic and often
entertaining bunch, and included the nifty sci-fi/horror
Alien: Das unheimliche Wesen aus einer fremden Welt (1979) precursor
Queen of Blood (1966) and the
delightfully campy Shelley Winters
vehicles
Wer hat Tante Ruth angezündet? (1972)
and
Was ist denn bloß mit Helen los? (1971)
(the latter was Harrington's personal favorite of all his films), the
perverse Von mörderischer Art (1973)
and the immensely fun Blutige Ruby - Der Geist des Todes (1977). Moreover,
Harrington directed a handful of solid and satisfying made-for-TV
offerings:
How Awful About Allan (1970),
Die Katzengöttin (1973),
Killer Bees (1974),
Die Toten sterben nicht (1975)
and the hilariously horrible
Der Höllenhund (1978).
In addition, Harrington directed episodes of such popular TV shows as
Der Denver-Clan (1981),
Unwahrscheinliche Geschichten (1959),
Die Colbys - Das Imperium (1985),
Hotel (1983).
Wonder Woman (1975) and
Drei Engel für Charlie (1976).
Harrigton's final film was the typically oddball short
Usher (2000).
Curtis Harrington died at age 80 from complications following a stroke
on May 6th, 2007.
