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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The Thing From Another World!

In my opinion movies don't get better than The Thing from Another World! Based on John C. Campbell's novella "Who Goes There?"" (also released recently under the title The Frozen Hell) this epic 1951 B-movie tells of a group of stalwart soldiers and scientists at the top of the world in the frozen Arctic who repel a deadly invader from the depths of space. 

James Arness, who would go on to portray Marshall Matt Dillon for decades in the television show Gunsmoke plays the titular "Thing". Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, and Margaret Sheridan headline one of the strongest casts I've ever seen in a movie of this kind. Dewey Martin is ideal as an airman who despite not being an officer proves to be of great value to the defense effort. Douglas Spencer as an eager reporter adds just the right small smidge of light-heartedness to this spare story of death in the cold. So many good parts and great actors just slinking in the background of every scene. 

Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks create a spare movie without a single wasted frame. Every line communicates something necessary for the audience, speaking to story or character or both. The pace and momentum of the story is just right, no sense of panic or rushing, but good speed all along. The story never drags, even in the quietest moments. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is punchy and dark in all the right places, adding drama to an already drama-laden yarn. 

This movie is a wonderful depiction of the American ideal, men (and some few women I'll admit) of all stripes working in concert for a noble goal. This is a smart military unit, which values life though ready to take it if necessary. There's very little bitterness in this movie, which is filled with civility. When asked to identify my favorite movie the answer is either The Thing from Another World or The Maltese Falcon, another classic I love for almost all the same reasons. 

The story has been famously adapted to film on two other occasions, the first in 1981 by John Carpenter in which he cleaves a bit closer to John Campbell's original story with a shape-shifting monster from deep space. The other serves as a prequel of sorts to the Carpenter film and was made in 2011. These are wonderful flicks and do their job of scaring the viewer quite well, especially the Carpenter outing. But for me, I'll take the original The Thing from Another World in all its floral glory every time. 

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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. The creators imagined truck drivers in space, but 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 with 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.

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 the batch who looks to the stars for inspiration.  "Boomer" is a taciturn ogre who is just trying to live minute to minute with pointless diversions. And finally there's "Pinback" who is not really Pinback but a low-level service tech 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.  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 and with some doctoring by the ubiquitous Jack Harris tiptoed into theaters and made little money. O'Bannon who plays Pinback seems to be the heart and soul of this project and its to due to his efforts that it's remained viable long enough for a cult audience to discover and cherish it. I'm among that number.

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