Jack H. Harris Presents Blobermouth!

Jack H. Harris was a slick operator who spent his life distributing other people's movies and reaping a good enough living from that to be part of the Malibu Colony. But on the creative side he was of creating The Blob starring Steve McQueen. And he leveraged the fame which came from that success all the rest of his life. John Carpenter says Harris referenced The Blob when he was trying to get a deal for Dark Star, suggesting that film alone was enough for a young guy like Carpenter to trust him. But as the years went by, the drive-in market dwindled and then the movie rentals which killed that off started to weaken as well. What to do? 

At beginning of his film career Woody Allen had taken a Japanese spy thriller titled Secret Police: Key of Keys and totally redubbed it with comedic intent. He shifted scenes and added a few to create a brew which was entertaining under the title What's Up Tiger Lily?

Harris was no dummy. What had worked for Allen might well work for him many years later, so that in 1991 he allowed something similar to happen with his most famous effort -- The Blob. The result was a strange movie titled Blobermouth. And with a few animated tricks here and there and some manipulation of the original film elements, for the first time the Blob from the 1958 movie actually speaks. As it turns out, he's a smartass comedian in the style of Henny Youngman. 

The movie-in-a-movie is changed from Daughter of Horror (also known as Dementia) to The Mighty Peking Man. This adaptation is helped immensely by the rather overwrought acting of Steve McQueen in the original. The work on this new soundtrack was done by the L.A. Connection's Mad Movies outfit. Here's what they say about it. 

"LAC's improvision [sic] version of the 1958 Stever McQueen classic, one of the most well known [sic] of the many old sci-fi films. Teenager McQueen (in his first movie) and his friend struggle valiantly to keep a gelatinous glob from another galaxy from devouring their small town and its denizens. The new plot: A battle between Steve and the Blob to see who can get their act on The Tonight Show and be dicovered[sic]. In 1992, the All-Stars took improvisation one step farther, giving voice to The Blob via an animated mouth in a new film- BLOBERMOTH. BLOBERMOUTH brought internation acclaim to its LAC creators and the already famous film."

For proof of just how goofy a vintage flicker can get, watch the film below. I found the modified movie funnier than I expected, to be honest. 

And that wraps up my month-long look at the movies of Jack H. Harris. Harris was a creature of Hollywood, a guy always looking for that next hit, that next project which might win the day in the theaters. He felt like he was a creative guy and wanted input and felt genuinely that his changes often led to the success more than a few projects along the way. I'm not sure I actually admire a self-aggrandizing hustler like Harris, but I do respect the way he stayed in the fight. 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it) One and All! (Enjoy it, because next year we won't be able to afford it.)
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Jack H. Harris Presents The Blob 1988!

Thirty years after the success of The Blob in 1958, Jack Harris was involved in the remake. The first Blob was an alien entity which came to Earth as a meteor and then proceeded to gobble up as many lifeforms, including people as it could find. This new Blob came from a different source, perhaps an even more sinister source. Frank Darabont wrote the screenplay for this new and different Blob movie and Chuck Russell directed. Keving Dillon and Shawnee Smith are the young duo who are confronted with a menace not only to their own lives, the safety of their own town, but arguably to the soul of their nation. 

As in the first movie a meteor heralds the return of the menace of the Blob and again a poor man on the outskirts of town finds it. It's up to our young hero "Brian Flagg" (Dillon) to help. Flagg is a disaffected young man, a Huckleberry Finn type who is alienated from the people of his school and the town at large. "Meg Penny" (Smith) is a cheerleader who like most folks fails to understand Flagg. But she's not so smug as to not see him doing good when he brings the poor man into to town. He is fortunate not to be around when the Blob begins its terrifying reign and begins to dissolve and gobble up the town folk. As in the original it falls to two youngsters to shout the message and confront the creature. They both relieved when the United States military arrives. But what they don't know is that the menace is only just beginning. 

The 1988 movie reflects the cynicism of the time. Reagan was President and not Eisenhower, and while we've learned that all leaders sometimes have to hold back the truth from the people, the trust between the population and its government was especially strained in this era with scandals and the suggestion that the President might not have all his faculties. (Wait! That sounds familiar!) 

The special effects this time are truly gruesome and unlike the original Blob movie we get to see the absorption process. It's a pretty hideous process. The Blob of 1988 is like its predecessor of its time, and that realization saddens me. God only knows what another remake might have reason to comment on. It's well past time to find out. 

We wrap things up with the totally strange Blobermouth. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Star Slammer - The Escape!

Man does this movie suck! The Adventures of Taura: Star Slammer - The Escape also known as Prison Ship among other things attempts to be a deep space adventure. This nitwit movie is all about a dame named Tara who is of all things, a miner on a planet named Arous. But the powers that be want whatever it is they are mining there and send their bully boys to push the miners out. It takes very little time and before you know it our heroine in in custody in space. Once there, this becomes a sci-fi version of every women's prison movie you've ever seen, but with less nudity. (Our heroine takes her shirt off twice.) The women act like bitchy cheerleaders more than actual prisoners. 

I might talk about who is in this one, but I've never heard of any of them. John Carradine makes one of the shortest cameos ever, appearing as a ghostly judge handing down the sentence. If he's on screen ten seconds, I'd be surprised. Aldo Ray is in it a wee bit longer, though he's nearly unrecognizable under extremely heavy make-up. Fred Olen Ray is the director, and this movie is rather typical for him, though usually the women in his movies have bigger boobs. (Am I obsessing about breasts in the post -- maybe.) Ray made the movie in only a few days at the ramshackle Roger Corman studio and Jack H. Harris fronted him some cash to finish the movie. The movie is mostly just a bunch of cliches from prison movies. 

This is not a movie you should waste your time on, unless like me you are craven little snit who has to see every appearance or film by a given actor or director or in this case producer. Be better. Do something with your life before it's too late. 

Believe it or not, next it's The Blob yet again!

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Jack H. Harris Presents Eyes Of Laura Mars!

Eyes of Laura Mars is an interesting movie in many ways. Watching this slow-burning 1978 thriller I was struck by the location shooting in New York City. The streets and architecture of the city in those days was rife with character. The city was run down at the time, and movies of the era capture that decline. This movie does so as well. Jack Harris became involved with this project when John Carpenter shared an eleven-page treatment for a potential film. Harris saw potential in the story and later so did Jon Peters who came to a deal with both Harris and Carpenter and put it into production with Faye Dunaway starring. She'd just won an Oscar for Network and her name carried a lot of weight at the time. Tommy Lee Jones was an up-and-coming actor at the time and puts in a remarkable performance. 

The movie earns its "R" rating with some small upper-frontal nudity. I'd forgotten how models of the era were prized for their slender frames. The girls who share their fetching looks in this one look malnourished to me, but that's probably just a matter of personal taste. The movie is helped to no end by strong performances from both Rene Auberjounos and Brad Dourif. In a movie with a mysterious killer both are well chosen to fill a roster of possible perpetrators. Raul Julia shows up just enough for you not to forget that he too might be the one. 

I'm not a particular fan of Barbara Streisand, but her performance of "Prisoner" the theme song for the movie was quite nice. Harris said that when Peters first saw Carpenter's treatment, he first thought of Streisand for the lead. Personally, I'm glad the part was handed to the superior Dunaway. This is pretty good movie, not a great one by any means, but good enough for what it is. 

Next time things get really strange when The Adventures of Taura: Star Slammer - The Escape takes the center ring. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Dark Star!

If ever there was a movie about entropy it's Dark Star. Some of its creators refer to it as a version of Waiting for Godot but in space. It's not quite that, but it's close. It's a movie in which space travel has become so mundane and commonplace that the thrill of being among the stars is lacking from most of these astronauts. Their job in space is pretty thrilling really, exploding planets which seem unstable or pose some risk to potential colonizers. But they've been doing it so long, it's lost its romantic luster. The creators imagined truck drivers in space, but really these guys are more like bulldozer and crane operators. They plow the way forward and make the path smooth for those to come. 

When we encounter them, they have been twenty years in space in Earth time but for these blokes only about three years have passed thanks to the mysteries of faster-than-light travel. They have blown up eighteen planets using intelligent talking bombs which trigger a chain reaction on the planet in question shattering it to smithereens. We see them drop "Bomb 19" and then speed out of the way of the result. After this momentary thrill the ennui of unchanging experience traps them once again inside their flawed personalities. The excitement heats up when they try to drop "Bomb 20". We worry about A.I., well this movie shows that dilemma off in spades. 

"Captain Powell" has "died" though they keep him on ice for extreme emergencies. The second in command is named "Dolittle" and lives up to his name, constantly shirking his responsibilities and pining for home. There's "Talby" who lives apart from the others aboard a ship which is bigger than it appears (Tardis anyone?) and is the only one of this sordid batch who looks to the stars for inspiration.  "Boiler" is a taciturn ogre who is just trying to live minute to minute with pointless and violent diversions. And finally, there's "Pinback" who is not really Pinback but a low-level service tech named "Froog" who stumbled into the mission when the real Pinback committed suicide in front of him. Pinback is a constant whiner who bemoans most all aspects of his fate and reads romance comics. But weirdly he's the only one who still cares about the mission. There's an alien too, but it has to be seen to be believed. 

I find Dark Star a delightful satire which uses men in space to showcase men and women on Earth who approach life with different strategies and most of which are ultimately of little comfort. Made by John Carpenter and the late Dan O'Bannon with much help from their friends this is a student movie that escaped the USC campus (with some help from Carpenter himself by raiding the USC film vault it seems) and with some doctoring by the ubiquitous Jack Harris tiptoed into theaters and made little money. Harris is the only distributer who showed any interest in the movie, and while he and Carpenter have different reflections of their time together, Carpenter admits the movie and possibly his career might have taken a different turn. All you folks who love Halloween the movie, tip your hat to Jack H. Harris. 

Cal Kuniholm (Boiler) and Brian Narelle (Dolittle) above 

Dan O'Bannon (Pinback) and John Carpenter kneeling

O'Bannon who played Pinback seems to be the heart and soul of this project and it's due to his efforts that the movie has remained viable long enough for a cult audience to discover and cherish it. I'm among that number.

Be back next week for another John Carpenter project (of sorts) which Jack H. Harris was instrumental in -- The Eyes of Laura Mars. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Schlock!

Schlock is not really a good movie except in places here and there. It's a wannabe comedy send up of monster flicks (especially the movie Trog) but it's done on a micro-budget over a long stretch of time. The director is John Landis who would eventually find fame with Animal House and American Werewolf in London among other films, but this is his first. The costume of the "Schlockthropus" is the main reason this little lowest-budget flick has a standing. It was designed and constructed by Rick Baker in his Mom's kitchen and is quite threadbare by the movie's final shot. Baker of course would go on to work on many a feature film including the 70's remake of King Kong. 

(That's Landis in the suit.)

I want to say nice things about this movie, and I've been curious about it for years. But seeing it, I was charmed by the gumption it took to make some of the scenes happen, but the cast is almost all amateur and the pacing of the gags is just plain too slow almost all of the time. Some of that is that while made in 1971 the movie was not released until a few years later when Jack C. Harris saw Landis on The Tonight Show with a few clips and saw a chance to make a few bucks on what seemed to be a nifty critter or something like that. A few new scenes were added for length and that's the core problem. There's not enough here, as this is essentially a ten-minute gag routine expanded into a feature.

(That's Forry Ackerman next to Schlock.)

It's worth your time for sure, especially anyone who is a fan of this genre, but adjust your settings down. Some would argue that Trog could not be parodied, but I'm a fan of Trog for all its silliness and this movie is treading a bit on holy ground for me. 

We go into space next time, aboard Dark Star. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Son Of Blob!

The Blob was a successful monster movie from the late 50's, and no one suspected it mild yield a sequel until Larry Hagman (yes THAT Larry Hagman) thought it might be a grand notion. He lived in the Malibu Colony, a high-rent collection of homes belonging to a gaggle of folks, many in the film industry. So, Hagman looking for a gig after I Dream of Jeanie came to a close chatted up his chums, which included The Blob producer Jack H. Harris, and they made a movie. Beware! The Blob or as it was otherwise known Son of Blob is a monster movie with a decided difference, a light breezy tone. 

Like the original movie, the sequel focuses its attention on two young people (Robert Walker and Gwynne Gilford) who are the first to encounter the threat, at least the to encounter it and survive. Godfrey Cambridge is the culprit who unwittingly brought back with him from the frozen north a specimen which required freezing. It of course thaws and the Blob is back to its old tricks of rolling around and absorbing animals and people. Like the original the youngsters are seen as the problem for a long time before the true threat is fully understood and the town's forces are marshaled against it.

This is a fun movie and at many junctures quite funny. It's actually more a parody of monster movies than a straight fright flick. Burgess Meredith plays one of a trio of hobos who fall victim to the Blob, and they are quite humorous (Hagman is a mute part of this trio). Shelley Berman apparently runs an all-night barbershop and that makes him vulnerable. It can easily be argued that the humor in the movie undercuts the tension, but really by 1972 monster movies needed more juice than the Blob could provide to really give folks a chill. (The later 80's remake of The Blob did find some ways to make the threat feel more palpable.) But this is still a fun movie and I'm glad to have it in my library thanks to the Kino-Lorber folks.

Make room for Schlock in our next installment. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Equinox!

See if this plot sounds familiar.

Four teenagers head into the country for some fun and relaxation and end up at a cabin in the woods which comes under attack by the dark forces of Hell. The youngsters fall victim one by one to the various attacks which include intruding monsters and demons who invade the spirits of the kids themselves. The violence seems to be centered around a mysterious book filled with ancient lore. Eventually all the kids succumb save one who is left to tell the tale, though his ultimate fate has little doubt.

Generally speaking, that sounds a lot like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies. But it's not a description of those, rather it's a brief overview of the movie Equinox. This movie began as an amateur effort put together by Dennis Murren and other talented special effects "Monster Kids" and some aspiring young actors (including a future Rose Parade queen and Frank Bonner star of WKRP In Cincinnati). 

The movie tells the story of penetrating a barrier to Hell. They even got Frtiz Leiber, the famous science fiction and fantasy author and creator of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, to do some acting work in this one. Forry Ackerman shows up in a voice cameo.

The movie was completed on weekends with minimal equipment and rough stop-motion effects and then sold to a local producer named Jack Harris who got the cast together again and shot new material to make the film a bit longer for release. This resulted in two versions of the movie, the later one with more overt sexual content. The movie got released into the theaters and has since become a cult favorite.

Some years ago Criterion Collections put together a somewhat pricey but a very entertaining package with both versions of the movie and lots of background information including interviews with the many of the cast members and the creators. It's a very nice collection and it might will be well worth the investment, especially for anyone interested in horror movies, stop-motion animation, or cult movies. This one has something for everyone who is not afraid to watch less than slick Hollywood production.

Next time Harris returns to his roots with Beware! The Blob.    

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Jack H. Harris Presents Some Nudie Cuties!

I rather doubt that many people have gone bankrupt betting on whether men like looking at naked dames. Hugh Hefner got so rich doing it, that he only ever had to wear pajamas the rest of his life. Hefner's success was the envy of many a young hustler in the 60's and I have no doubt that Jack H. Harris was among them. He made his stab at filling that niche with 1962's Paradisio, the first of his "Nudie Cuties". 

Nudie Cuties were films featuring looks at naked flesh minus the offbeat and strained rationale of the practice of Nudism or Nudist Colonies. Russ Meyer's The Immortal Mr. Teas from 1959 is considered the first installment of this kind of movie. Ed Wood's Orgy of the Dead is also a later addition. Jack Harris entered the arena in 1962 with Paradisio, a movie about a professor chap who gets hold of some x-ray glasses and then gets swept up in a spy plot. When he's looking through his glasses it generates a 3-D quality to the nudity, and we are to use our own glasses for full effect. For more details check out this TCM link. To watch the movie, follow this link. At two hours it's pretty slow.

A later installment in the form was Playmates which as you can see from the poster above was presented in something suggesting "Deep Vision 3-D". 
 

With the movie Without a Stitch Harris movie into full-blown soft pornography. There was clearly money to be made in those days with this kind of faire. This one features a young girl who seeks sexual gratification and ends up in hands of a sadist. Now Harris had no creative hand in this one, he just arranged its distribution. 

Harris found product from overseas. France was a supplier for a few of the movies he distributed. The two titles I've found at the forefront of that are Les Biches and Erotique. 

Harris scored a real coup when he got his mitts on a softer core movie title The Oldest Profession. One of the stars of this bit of cinema was Raquel Welch herself, which came the after her breakout performances in Fantastic Voyage and One Million B.C. It's a weird movie with six directors each telling a separate tale of prostitution through the ages. Welch shows up in the section about the Gay Nineties. She was the sole American actress in the film.

Raquel was a stunning beauty, that's for certain. Now for a couple of movies of a different kind. 

Bone is a movie written and directed by Larry Cohen (the creator of The Invaders and Branded for TV and many other movies). For some reason Harris got involved with the distribution of his movie starring Yaphet Kotto. It's a pretty stunning movie for its time about a loveless couple who are set upon by a cruel drifter. Here's the trailer under a different name. 

In his book Harris indicated he was involved with the American distribution of My Son the Vampire, an English movie featuring Bela Lugosi originally titled Mother Riley Meets The Vampire. Allen Sherman created a daffy song to help promote this offbeat horror-comedy in the weird tradition of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. 

To listen to Allen Sherman's kooky song and get a glimpse of the movie check out this YouTube link. 

These are the kinds of films which Harris used to make his living through the 60's but things were about to change when even weirder monsters come to call. Next time we visit the Equinox. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Mother Goose A-Go-Go!

Mother Goose A-Go-Go is also known by the title Unkissed Bride. The former title fits it better. This movie was the only one not only produced by Jack H. Harris but also written and directed by him. In a nutshell - it's terrible. But terrible in that weird way in which it's not totally unwatchable. It stars a Kentucky boy, Tommy Kirk, going by "Tom Kirk" in this one. It's necessarily boring, but it is wildly goofy -- a blend of Benny Hill and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (which also starred Kirk), but it seems to have been filmed almost totally in a single hotel, possibly the Sands in Las Vegas. It's based on an idea Harris got from a Las Vegas act at the Sands. 

The premise is pretty straight-forward. On their wedding night a couple discover that the groom swoons when he hears any reference to a fairy tale. (It should be noted almost none of them have anything to do with Mother Goose.) He seeks psychiatric help and his psychiatrist, a busty blonde played Danica d'Hondt, agrees to come to the hotel and give him help. Of course, confusion ensues. Jacques Bergerac plays the uncle of the bride played by Anne Helm (pregnant during shooting) and he's often distracted by pretty women, especially their backsides.  Add to the mix a daffy house detective played in full-blown Fawlty Towers mode by Robert Hall, and you have the sense of what this one is all about. It's well and truly zany. 

Henny Youngman shows up for a cameo at a drive-in theater and Joe Pyne is seen a few times, invariably taking calls from frustrated ladies. The movie uses fast movement, frozen screen images and even breaks the fourth wall several times. It's a product of its time. You can watch it in all its vintage glory at this link. 

Next time Harris goes nude. 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Masters Of Horror!

Jack H. Harris had some success as a filmmaker, but now he moved into his next career as a chap who packaged other flicks for distribution. Harris brought together two different horror productions, one from Argentina and the other domestic. He gives the gives the first film the title Master of Horror (it was originally titled Obras Maestras del Terror or Masterpieces of Terror) and the second Master of Terror. The second film I'll get to in a few moments. 

Master of Horror features a framing sequence with a curious maid who stops to read some Poe stories on a dark and stormy night. "The Case of Mr. Valdemar" Edgar Allan Poe is the source for the first story in which a hypnotist mesmerizes a man on the edge of death. He is able to maintain a strange and gruesome pseudo-life for long after his appointed time. When that time comes things fall apart, so to speak. The second offering is adapted from "The Cask of Amontillado", a tale of revenge involving a festival, and a too prideful and jealous wine owner and the stupid suitor of his handsome wife. He gets the foolish lover drunk and then finds a place for him in his operation. This one has some pretty sexy scenes. The original Argentinian movie had a third story adapted from "The Tell-Tale Hear", but Harris excised that one from his English-dubbed production. The two stories we do get are truncated as well to make a solid one-hour production. You can watch it here. 

The second movie in this double-header of horror was just his previously released 4-D Man under a different title. It's a pretty fascinating poster and that is what motivated Harris. He was all about putting together a product which would draw crowds. This one seems to fill the bill. I haven't seen it, but I suspect an edited version of 1959's 4-D Man might not be an improvement on the somewhat too-long original. 

We get a real treat next time when we look at a movie Harris wrote and directed titled Mother Goose A-Go-Go! 

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Jack H. Harris Presents Dinosaurus!

Dinosaurus is one of those movies I've always wanted to see since I learned of it but somehow never found on TV nor ever ran across otherwise. It's the third collaboration between producer Jack H. Harris and director Irvin Yeaworth, the first two being the very famous The Blob and the less famous 4D Man.

With the success of two movies, one a blockbuster, Harris was getting much bigger money for his projects, which meant much larger effects. According to Harris the idea for 1960's Dinosaurus came from a confab Harris had with Alfred Bester who didn't want to bother writing the screenplay and mostly gave the story to Harris. He then got Algis Budrys to write the screenplay (which he'd never done before), and Budrys delivered a six-hundred-page monster of a document which was trimmed to make the movie. Harris claims the Willis O'Brien gave some technical advice on the movie. 

The cast is literally no one you've ever heard of. As I watched the cast show up at the beginning of the movie, I recognized not a single save maybe perhaps for supporting actor Paul Lukather who had a role in This Island Earth I think. But the actors aren't the show here, it's the dinosaurs which are given life of sorts by means of the tried-and-true stop-motion techniques refined to an art form by Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen. Neither is on this show, and the dinos are minimal at best and wisely used rather sparingly.

(Greg Martell)

Some screen time is taken by Greg Martell who portrays a caveman who is incredibly revived alongside the dinos themselves. He's funny and tragic and all sorts of things and arguably the best performance in the show. The sight of him and a young boy (who you want to strangle every other minute) riding atop a Brontosaur immediately made me think of Dino Boy from Hanna-Barbera.

(The Dell Comics adaptation featuring interior art by Jesse Marsh.)

The movie attempts to offer a blend of danger and humor and I give it credit. But the plot is so daft that there's little to hang onto here. While poking under a Caribbean island some guys find two intact dinosaurs which they drag to shore and leave there until lightning just so happens to revive them. Also, a caveman floats ashore and starts to investigate his new world. A lot of time is spent talking about a fort and then we have construction equipment being used to fend off a T-Rex. That's what I think the movie was about, getting to that delightful scene, but the getting there could be ragged.

To read the Dell Comic check out this World of Monsters link. 

Next time we see Jack Harris move from making movies to packaging other people's movies with a little gem titled Masters of Horror. 

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