Herk Harvey

Harold Arnold Harvey , more known under the name of Herk Harvey , is a American Réalisateur born the June 3rd 1924 and deceased the April 3rd 1996. It is primarily known as being the Réalisateur Film worship Carnival off Drunk .

Its beginnings

Harvey is born in 1924 with Windsor (Colorado). It grows with Fort Hakes (Colorado) where it takes down its university degree before serving like Quartier-maître 3rd class in the US Navy during the Second world war, studying chemistry in parallel.

It finally decides to change way to turn to the cinema. It leaves to Lawrence (Kansas) in 1945 to study the cinema at the University of Kansas, realizing and playing in various theatrical productions like Harvey , Beggar one Horseback or Hamlet .

The June 3rd 1950, the day of its 26 years, it marries Bernice Luella Brady, a girl of five years Wichita its junior, whom it had met at the University of Kansas. After the marriage, it continues its studies of cinema and between with the University of Colorado with Boulder for a doctorate of cinema. I went there for the summer, then I decided to go back to Kansas , declared it. With his wife, they are installed on the campus of Lawrence where he works as instructor and realizer at the department of audio-visual.

Films of Centron

Harvey starts in cinema industry as a film actor produced by Centron Corporation, a company of production of educational and institutional films of Lawrence. It will remain there during 35 years like realizer and producer, and one owes him several hundreds of short-measurings institutional, educational, documentary or governmental. Some of these films are still diffused on television nowadays, because of their exceeded means, their mannerism and sometimes summary interpretation.

The majority of the first productions of Centron are turned to Lawrence or in the surroundings, but as of end of the year 50, of the teams of turning are sent through the whole world in order to bring back images for geographical or tourist films. Harvey is often requested for these reports abroad. During the Sixties, large companies call upon Centron. Thus some high-speed motorboats of the time, among which Anita Bryant, Walter Pidgeon, ED Hearts, Eddie Albert or Ricardo Montalban appears in certain their productions, often under the direction of Harvey. Its work is worth many prices, and in particular a nomination to him with the Oscar of best documentary short-measuring for its film Leo Beurman where it shows the success of a handicapped man.

It goes without saying that its too many displacements, sometimes abroad, put in danger its marriage. He divorces in 1960 and meets shortly after Pauline G. Dads whom he marries before the end of the year.

During its 33 years spent to Centron, of 1952 with 1985, Harvey makes watch of single human qualities, whose its partners preserve the memory. One of them is its capacity to create a tension in order to obtain best its actors on a plate. Another is to include/understand the problems encountered by the actors, the actresses, the technicians and the scenario writers, being conscious of the difficulty in creating a film. And the major quality which comes out from him is its extraordinary enthusiasm and the energy which it invests in its work. On his tomb stone, one can read: It does not matter the size of the project, Harvey gave all .

A cameraman remembers thus that, during a turning to the Costa Rica, Harvey and went up to him all in top of a water tower in order to obtain the best possible plan of a banana plantation. Of return on the plates of Centron to Lawrence, he sought to obtain best each one, actor, sound engineer, lighting engineer, cameraman… while trying out novel methods in order to have an interest always renewed for his trade.

Harvey binds friendship with many colleagues, and particularly John Clifford, a writer originating in Kansas with which it is shared interests. Thus, Harvey it had written a scenario according to a history read in a newspaper of Topeka, which he will then learn how to be written by Clifford. This last writing for Harvey the scenario of Carnival off Drunk and, thanks to this film, convinces the persons in charge of Centron which he is an accomplished scenario writer.

In 1982, when a team of ABC comes to Lawrence to turn the telefilm discussed the Day according to , Harvey (which had since always a heart of actor) is selected to interpret the role of a peasant who tries to make push back his cultures after the nuclear attack.

After its retirement of Centron in 1985, Harvey does not remain less active about it, teaching the film production at the University of Kansas, participant in jurys, and realizing or playing in various plays. The March 13rd 1996, a few weeks before dying of a cancer of the pancreas, it receives the honor to see naming on its behalf a studio of recording at the University of Kansas. A metal plate on the door known as: Studio of recording Herk Harvey/Can those which penetrate here to find its spirit of excellence .

Carnival off Drunk

It is necessary well to recognize that if Harvey had not carried out its single feature-length film, Carnival off Drunk , a film of horror which made a bide at its exit but became thereafter a Film worship, few people would know it.

Harvey returned of Los Angeles, where it had made an institutional film, when it noticed a strange building on the edges of the Big lake Salted and, intrigued by this building, the weather had suddenly the idea to be its first feature-length film, imagining " deaths to dance in a ballroom at the edge of the Salé" Big lake;. He asked his colleague John Clifford to write a scenario on this basis and, during this time, gathered the budget of 30.000 $ near local investors, made casting and located the places of turning. In a few weeks, script was finished and, after having engaged Candace Hilligoss in New York for the main role, Harvey took vacation and made film in 2 weeks to Lawrence and Salt Lake City.

The majority of the actors (except for the main actor) came from Lawrence, and number of them had already pressed the boards, had appeared in former productions of Centron, or were simply colleagues of Harvey. The film had a ridiculous budget and accepted a reception mitigated at the time of its first with Lawrence, before disappearing quickly from the screens.

In 1989, whereas Harvey did not work any more at Centron, of the film enthusiasts redécouvrirent film and recognized cinematographic quality of it, particularly its capacity with produced an oppressive atmosphere without resorting to any " horror physique" , without bloodshed nor of tripe, and all that with an unimportant budget. Harvey and Clifford authorized an exit in video and took part in various conferences. Finally, Carnival off Drunk gained several prices and was the subject of eulogistic hundreds of articles and criticisms in many reviews. The film caused a revival of interest.

Thereafter, a very complete edition DVD was born, with many no-claims bonus on turning, the spot of turning, the life and the career of Harvey, in the prestigious collection Criterion. But Harvey did not live long enough to view it, and died in 1996 of a cancer of the pancreas in its residence of Lawrence, leaving widowed his wife.

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