Before directing his first feature (1961's enigmatic horror/fantasy NIGHT TIDE, with Dennis Hopper), Curtis Harrington was already a uniquely positioned figure in the American avant garde. He was a protégé of Maya Deren, a friend and collaborator with Kenneth Anger, and an author of some of the earliest scholarship on the career of Joseph Von Sternberg.
His psycho-sexual, death-obsessed short films—pioneering works of the emerging "New Queer Cinema"—suggested he may have been the American answer to Jean Cocteau. Furthermore, he prominently figures into the nebula of Aleister Crowley-associated occultists, having shot Kenneth Anger's PUCE MOMENT and acted in his INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME. Indeed, Harrington’s 1946 short A FRAGMENT OF SEEKING is often considered to be one half of a pair with Anger's seething, queer expressionist film FIREWORKS. Another work, THE WORMWOOD STAR, is a profile of artist and actress Marjorie Cameron, another Anger collaborator and the wife of rocket scientist/Thelemite/would-be Antichrist Jack Parsons.
Though Harrington’s work in the realm of feature film would find him at the helm of several atmospheric horror and thriller pictures for Roger Corman, AIP and Universal Pictures, he eventually slipped into obscurity as a television director, shooting episodes of “Charlie’s Angels” and “Dynasty” among others.
Today, thanks to preservation efforts by the Academy Film Archive and a recent Blu Ray edition from Flicker Alley and Drag City, Harrington's mysterious and groundbreaking early works are finally ripe for reappraisal.
Come early for a collection of interviews and trailers from the course of Harrington's career!
The program includes:
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER | 1941, 10min, digital
Harrington's first film, made when the teenaged director was still in high school, based on the same Edgar Allen Poe text that would inspire his final work in 2002.
A FRAGMENT OF SEEKING | 1946, 14min, 16mm
Made while Harrington was a student at the University of Southern California, where the film was also shot, FRAGMENT features a youthful Harrington in a revealing double role. "A climactic fragment from the existence of an adolescent Narcissus," wrote Harrington to describe his breakthrough film—which so impressed maverick director Albert Lewin that he recommended Harrington for his first creative job in the studio system, as an assistant to producer Jerry Wald. (Courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)
PICNIC | 1948, 23min, 16mm
One of Harrington's most fragile and beautiful shorts, PICNIC was much admired by Jacques Rivette, who praised the film's "poetic expression." Harrington's described the film thus: "a satirical comment on middle class life frames a dream-like continuity in which the protagonist pursues an illusory object of desire." (Courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)
ON THE EDGE | 1949, 6min, 16mm
A beautiful and frightening allegory of human frailty. Harrington cast his mother and father in the lead roles of his poetic short. (Courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)
THE ASSIGNATION | 1952, 8min, 16mm
Long considered lost, Harrington's recently restored first color film follows a mysterious masked figure through the canals of Venice and builds to a splendid climax. (Courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)
THE WORMWOOD STAR | 1956, 10min, 16mm
A fascinating portrait of legendary West Coast painter and occultist Marjorie Cameron—a devotee of Alistair Crowley and wife and muse to Jet Propulsion Laboratory founder Jack Parsons. THE WORMWOOD STAR is among Harrington's most visually arresting works. (Courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)
USHER | 2002, 37min, digital
Harrington's final film before he died in 2007, USHER is a remake of a short he made in high school based on the classic Edgar Allan Poe story “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Harrington once again expresses his interest in the occult by casting known members of the Church of Satan, Nikolas and Zeena Schreck.
About the Light and Sound Machine:
A monthly series co-presented by Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre. All screenings are at Third Man Records, the third Thursday of each month (unless otherwise noted). Tickets: $10/$8 Belcourt members.