With hairy Movember in full swing, it seems somewhat appropriate that my choice for this months Feature Face Off should be the delightfully hirsute Richard Harrison. But furry upper lip aside, there are a myriad of reasons why I think we should pay tribute to the man with a feature screening at comeandsee. not least because this guy is just so incredibly damn cool…
Harrison is more than a worthy filmic foe to the pretty, vacant Chris Mitchum. Like Robert’s son, he represents that generation of B Movie jobbers who ran out of luck in America, sought employment in Europe and ended up in Asia in the twilight of their careers making some of the most delightfully demented movies you’ll ever stumble upon.
I like to think of Richard Harrison as a kind of proto Arnold Schwarzenegger, he pumped iron in LA gyms during the 50′s and modelled in camp muscle mags before, er, landing a big role as a pilot in Kronos (1957) and, er, a co-pilot in South Pacific (1958). These Stateside roles, however, just weren’t enough and, after marrying AIP co-owner James H Nicholson’s daughter, he packed his bags and headed to Italy seeking further fame and fortune…A number of Peplum movies followed including The Invincible Gladiator (1961) and Gladiators Seven (1962) before the genre inevitably dried up a few years later. Harrison was able to make the transition to Spaghetti though and whilst allegedly turning down the role of The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy (instead suggesting Clint Eastwood) he turned in some fine performances in Gunfight at Red Sands (1963) Centomila dollari per Ringo (1965) and Vengeance (1968) Lo! Italy was kind to our friend Mr Harrison and through the 60′s and 70′s he dipped in and out of genre movies effortlessly with notable roles in EuroSpy caper Secret Agent Fireball (1965) and its sequel Killers are Challenged (1966), Macaroni actioner (and Klaus Kinski featuring) Churchill’s Leopards (1970) and the completely Crime-tastic La Belva col Mitra (1977) where, rumour has it, that bloody evil bastard Helmut Berger had most of his scenes chopped out to steal the show!
So what, I hear you cry, happens next when you’ve bedded down in Italy? Well, if you’re Richard Harrison, you wander off to the Phillipines via Hong Kong and chance your ageing arm at something COMPLETELY different and that’s exactly what he ended up going and doing bloody well did. Gymkata Killer AKA Challenge of the Tiger (1978), Teddy Page’s Fireback & Blood Debts (both 1983) and Intrusion:Cambodia (1981?1984?) mark a new and altogether less salubrious chapter in the filmography of Richard Harrison as he embarked on a series of ever dwindling B – Z movies (often, apparently, innocently) whilst simultaneously cultivating a fine trademark tache.
Regardless, this period of his career, particularly the nightmarish Godfrey Ho riffology in Ninja Terminator (1985), Golden Ninja Warrior (1986), The Ninja Squad (1986) et al have come to represent the most common appreciation of over 40 years and more than 100 films worth of work to anyone who doesn’t speak Italiano as a first language. For me at least, that’s reason enough to love Mr Richard Harrison. He didn’t have it, he kind of had it, he kind of did didn’t have it. What a career…
When all is said and done, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you: How many well coiffeured men do YOU know who can fight with fists/pistols/sub machine guns/oversized bazookas/Ninja blades AND maintain the greatest moustache known in Exploitation Cinema? AND, I put it to you, that we should make Movember 2010 a RICHARD HARRISON Movember to remember…
Richard Harrison make steamed crabs out of that douche Chris Mitchum…
I actually reviewed FIREBACK not too long ago, figured you guys would get a kick out of it
http://drunkonvhs.blogspot.com/2011/07/fireback.html