Herk Harvey
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Harold Arnold "Herk" Harvey (June 3, 1924 – April 3, 1996) was an American film director, actor, and film producer.
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[edit] Early life
Harvey was born in Windsor, Colorado, the son of Everett and Minnie R. Prewitt Harvey. He grew up in Fort Collins and was a graduate of Fort Collins High School before serving in the U.S. Navy as a Quartermaster, 3rd Class, during World War II, during which time he was studying chemical engineering. "But when I got out," Harvey has said, "I decided that wasn't for me and so I went into the theater."
Harvey came to Lawrence, Kansas in 1945 to study at the University of Kansas, where he majored in theater, directing and acting in stage productions, such as Harvey, Beggar on Horseback, and Hamlet. During his college years, he was vice-president of the Dramatics Workshop, appeared with the University Players, and was a member of the Owl Society. He earned a bachelor of science degree in education from the KU speech and drama department in 1948 and received a master of arts degree in speech and drama from KU in 1950. Besides student appearances, he appeared in summer stock, with the Topeka Civic Theater and with Kansas City's Resident Playhouse.
On June 3, 1950, Harvey's 26th birthday, he married Bernice Luella Brady, a girl from Wichita some five years his junior. The wedding ceremonies were held in the Plymouth Congregational Church of Lawrence. The two had met at KU in the drama department and had performed in Hamlet together in 1948. After the marriage, Harvey did a graduate study in drama during the 1950 summer session at the University of Denver, and then studied at the University of Colorado for a doctorate in theater. "I made it through summer school and then I decided to go back to Kansas," Harvey has said. He and his wife then returned to Lawrence, rented an apartment on campus, and Harvey began working as an instructor, teaching and directing for the KU speech and drama department.
[edit] Centron Films
Harvey broke into the film business as an actor in some of the movies being made by Centron Corporation of Lawrence, an independent industrial and educational film production company. He subsequently went to work for Centron as a film director and producer for 35 years, making a variety of short industrial, educational, documentary, and government films. Several of these films have found their way into offbeat television shows of today, poking fun at the early production technology, mannerisms, and acting often found in these shorts, including Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Many of Centron's early productions were shot in and around Lawrence, but as their staff and their studio space expanded in the late 1950s, Centron film crews were dispatched to locations around the globe to bring back images for geography and travel films. Harvey often was assigned these bigger jobs. During the 1960s, large corporate clients, such as John Deere, AC Delco, Caterpillar Tractor, and Monsanto Chemical, hired Centron to help carry out their message to stockholders and consumers through film. Centron occasionally brought big-name Hollywood stars, such as Anita Bryant, Walter Pidgeon, Ed Ames, Eddie Albert, Jesse White, Ricardo Montalban, and the Rowan and Martin comedy team, to Lawrence to appear in these films. Harvey often got to work with these big stars, as well. Harvey's efforts for Centron garnered him numerous national and international awards, the highest honors from the American Film Festival, C.I.N.E., and the Columbus Film Festival, as well as an Academy Award nomination for a short Centron film he directed about a small, disabled local man and how this man overcame his disability and found relatively large success with his clock-making business. The film was titled Leo Beuerman.
It is most likely that the long hours and the many weeks spent away from home on location in different parts of the country, and sometimes the world (Harvey and a two-man crew spent sixty days filming a series of seven geography films on location in South America, a number of problems, both political and technical, arose during filming, and it was during this trip that the distribution company for Carnival of Souls went bankrupt and once Harvey returned home, he was chagrined to find that the film had been abruptly pulled from theater screens, and that the funds were nowhere to be found), it all took a toll on Harvey's marriage. He and Bernice were divorced around 1960, and shortly afterward Harvey met Pauline G. Pappas, who was one of the investors for Carnival of Souls. The two were married by the end of the 1960s.
Through all of his 33 years at Centron, from 1952 until 1985, Harvey displayed several unique personal qualities which are still well and warmly remembered by his former co-workers and friends. One was his ability to create excitement and generate the best performance from actors on the set. Another was his understanding of the problems of actors, actresses, crew people, and writers, knowing that working in a film was tedious work. And the one major quality that Harvey is best remembered for by all who knew him was the massive amount of energy, enthusiasm, and effort he put into his work. As his obituary stated, "No matter the size of the project, Harold A. 'Herk' Harvey also gave it his all." A cameraman who worked with Harvey at Centron remembered that once, both he and Harvey climbed to the very top of a water tower to get just the right shot of a banana plantation in Costa Rica. Back on the set at the Centron studios in Lawrence, Harvey would also strive for getting the best performance out of actors, the best sound, the best lighting, the best camera angles, etc., while experimenting with film-making techniques and attempting to make his day job more interesting all the while. Harvey became friends with all Centroners he worked with, but he became closest with John Clifford, a Kansas writer who came to Centron as an advertising copywriter in 1960 and found that he and Harvey had mutual interests. For instance, Harvey had been inspired to write a screenplay of his own from a story he had read in a Topeka newspaper which was written, he found out, by Clifford. The two hit it off. Clifford wrote the script for Harvey's feature film Carnival of Souls and convinced the Centron people, with this film, that he could write movie scripts. Clifford went on to become one of Centron's best scriptwriters, remaining with them from the early 1960s until 1985, when he, Harvey, and most of the original Centroners retired. Starting in 1981, Harvey and Clifford began working on many community and university theater projects together, with Clifford writing and Harvey usually acting or directing. These local stage productions included a comedy, "The Wabash Winning Streak," which Harvey directed, and a drama set during the Depression era, titled "Here's to You, Grandma," where Harvey played a starring role.
It is also interesting to note that when a crew from ABC came to Lawrence in 1982 to shoot the controversial television movie on nuclear war, The Day After, they cast Harvey (who had always been an actor at heart) as a Midwestern farmer struggling to rejuvenate his crops after the nuclear attack. The film was broadcast to much international publicity and controversy in 1983.
After his retirement in 1985, Harvey continued to be active, teaching film production at the University of Kansas, adjudicating films for the American Film Festival and the Kansas Film and Video Festival, and directing and acting in plays for the Lawrence Community Theater. On March 13, 1996, just weeks before his death from pancreatic cancer, Harvey was honored by a gathering of over seventy friends and former co-workers at the old Centron film studios in Lawrence, which by that time housed the University of Kansas film school. The building's large sound stage---for a time the largest sound stage in the Midwest---was given Harvey's name. A metal plate on the door states, "Herk Harvey Sound Stage/May all who enter here find his spirit of excellence."
[edit] Carnival of Souls
However, if it hadn't been for Harvey's one feature film, made independent of Centron, titled Carnival of Souls, a 1962 horror film that bombed upon its first release but later attracted a devoted cult following, probably no one in the general public would have heard of Herk Harvey. Harvey was driving home to Kansas from Los Angeles, where he had been shooting an industrial film, when he spotted an eerie pavilion-like structure standing on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and, intrigued by its isolated location and "weird" look, he suddenly hatched the idea of making his first feature film, something about "dead people dancing in a ballroom on the Great Salt Lake." Harvey commissioned Centron co-worker and best friend, John Clifford, to write the screenplay for the film. Meanwhile, Harvey raised $30,000 with the help of local businessmen, cast the movie, and scouted locations. Within a couple of weeks, the script was completed, and after casting the lead for the film, Candace Hilligoss, in New York, Harvey took a leave of absence from Centron and shot the film in two weeks on location in Lawrence and in Salt Lake City. Much of the cast (with the exception of the lead) were found in Lawrence, many of them having appeared in local civic theater presentations and in Centron films prior to this feature. The crew was made up mostly of Harvey's co-workers at Centron, as well. The film was extremely low-budget and met with a mixed reception at its premiere in Lawrence, and bombed further when it was placed in the hands of a crooked and almost-bankrupt distributor. But in 1989, after Harvey had already retired from Centron, young people and film buffs across the nation began to take notice of the old horror film and praised and admired the eeriness and haunting feeling it was able to provoke without turning to the blood and guts and what Harvey termed "physical horror" that was a common feature of horror films. They also praised the fact that the film had accomplished all of these things with meagre financing. Demand for the film grew, and Harvey and John Clifford agreed to release the original film on home video and make a series of appearances in movie houses and film festivals across the nation to talk about the film. Carnival of Souls ended up winning several festival awards and was the subject of hundreds of articles and favorable reviews in many prestigious newspapers and magazines. A revival of interest in the film was taking place. Eventually, an exhaustive and popular DVD release of the film, complete with countless extras regarding the making of the film, the film's locations, the life and career of Harvey, and Centron, was released by the prestigious Criterion Collection. Unfortunately, Harvey did not live to see the release and popularity of this DVD, for he died of pancreatic cancer in 1996, at his home in Lawrence. Other than his wife of about twenty-seven years, Pauline, Harvey's other survivors included two nieces and one nephew.
[edit] Centron Industrial and Educational Films
- When Harvey was a graduate student in speech and dramatics at the University of Kansas in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he appeared in several films made by Centron Corporation. These are: Speech: Platform Posture and Appearance (1949), in which he portrays a young man checking and refining the appearance of his clothes and posture before making a speech; Speech: The Function of Gestures (1949), in which he plays John, the narrator's example of a good public speaker who uses gestures; and Beyond the Towers (1952), a promotional film for the University of Kansas, about an office boss named Ed Randall who is skeptical of the amount of money paid for extracurricular programs and projects at the University of Kansas. His young employee, Steve Harris (played by Harvey), a graduate of the school, takes him on a tour of the University and both Randall and the audience learn much about the many ways the University's non-education-related activities support the state's welfare. Harvey also appears briefly speaking in front of an American flag in the film Speech: Using Your Voice (1950); however, this brief bit of footage was simply recycled by Centron from their earlier public speaking educational short, Speech: The Function of Gestures. Harvey's first wife Bernice also appears in Speech: Using Your Voice, as a young woman with a quavery, "not very pleasing" voice.
- In the summer of 1952, after two years as an assistant instructor of speech and theater at the University of Kansas, Harvey left the school and joined Centron Corporation's full-time staff as a director. The following is a fairly comprehensive list of the various short films that Harvey directed and/or produced for Centron between 1952 and his retirement in 1985, according to the original Centron production records for each film. They were all made for educational, industrial, or government sponsors, and some were designed specifically for television showings. Harvey directed virtually every Centron production between 1952 and 1956, until Gene Courtney was hired as the company's second director, and in the following years Harvey and Courtney split the varied work evenly. The bigger jobs often went to Harvey. In the 1960s many more directors were hired at Centron, and Harvey often only directed some eight to ten productions in a year. Centron's total production output in the their heyday in the 1970s was some sixty-five films a year, the assignments doled out between some five full-time directors, the senior director being Harvey. The list is fairly complete for the years between 1952 and 1960, however it becomes a bit more incomprehensive as the 1960s wear on and there are many gaps in the '70s and '80s. However, it is certainly more accurate and complete than the IMDb's Harvey filmography:
- Street Safety is Your Problem (1952)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Procrastinator (1952)
- Snakes Can Be Interesting (1952)
- KU Football Highlights (1952)
- Infinite Harvest (1953)
- Paris, the Ageless City (1953)
- Lugano, Switzerland (1953)
- Venice (1953)
- Health: Your Food (1953)
- Health: Your Cleanliness (1953)
- Industrial Arts: Measuring and Squaring (1953)
- Industrial Arts: Planes (1953)
- Industrial Arts: Hand Saws (1953)
- Industrial Arts: Using Nails and Screws (1953)
- Citizenship Series: A Citizen Participates (1953)
- Health: Your Posture (1953)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Good Loser (1953)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: Responsibility (1953)
- Water Safety (1953)
- Speech: Conversation (1953)
- Star 34 (1954)
- Why Study Speech? (1954)
- Caring for Your Toys (1954)
- Industrial Arts: Chisels and Gouges (1954)
- Industrial Arts: Boring and Drilling Tools (1954)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Show-Off (1954)
- Citizenship Series: A Citizen Makes a Decision (1954)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Griper (1954)
- Speech: Group Discussion (1954)
- Courtesy Series: Words of Courtesy (1954)
- Courtesy Series: Acts of Courtesy (1954)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: What About Drinking? (1954)
- A Life to Save (1954)
- George Tackles the Land (1954)
- Sir Johnny-on-the-Spot (1954)
- The Sound of a Stone (1955)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: What About Juvenile Delinquency? (1955)
- Why Study Science? (1955)
- Why Study Home Economics? (1955)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Gossip (1955)
- Rebound! (1955)
- Cindy Goes to a Party (1955)
- Your Table Manners (1955)
- You Decide! (1955)
- Framble's Friend (1956)
- Why Study Industrial Arts? (1956)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: What About Alcoholism? (1956)
- Transportation by Land (1956)
- Transportation by Sea (1956)
- Transportation by Air (1956)
- The Case of the Doubting Doctor (1956)
- The Last of Grass (1956)
- The Most in Posts (1956)
- None for the Road: Teenage Drinking and Driving (1957)
- The Weather Station (1957)
- Cessna Development Series: Engineering Investigation of the 620 Oil Cooler Design (1957)
- Cessna Development Series: Engineering Investigation of T-37 Stalls and Spins (1957)
- Make Your Home Safe (1957)
- Eye to the Sky (1957)
- Operation Grass Killer (1958)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: What About School Spirit? (1958)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Snob (1958)
- Manners in School (1958)
- Manners in Public (1958)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: Understanding Others (1959)
- Teenage Manners Made Easy (1959)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: The Trouble Maker (1959)
- Discussion Problems in Group Living: What About Prejudice? (1959)
- The Innocent Party (1959)
- I Am a Doctor (1959)
- Exchanging Greetings and Introductions (1960)
- The Secret to the Sixties (1960)
- Rowan and Martin on the Driveway One Fine Day (1960)
- Children of the Wagon Train (1960)
- A Case for Understanding (1961)
- Venezuela (1961)
- Argentina (1961)
- Brazil (1961)
- Dance, Little Children (1961)
- Case History of a Sales Meeting (1961)
- Children of the Plains Indians (1962)
- Children of the Colonial Frontier (1962)
- And Women Must Weep (1962)
- Help Wanted (1962)
- Rambler Sales Are Ago! (1962)
- Your Junior High Days (1963)
- Using the Classroom Film (1963)
- Choosing a Classroom Film (1963)
- Mexico, Part I (1964)
- Mexico, Part II (1964)
- Jamaica, Haiti and the Lesser Antilles (1964)
- Conoco Spring Sales Meeting Presentation: Solid Gold Customer (1964)
- The One Who Heals (1964)
- Jobs and Your Welfare (1964)
- Any Number Can Play (1964)
- Your Yard, Their Sheep (1965)
- United Kingdom: Crowded Islands (1966)
- Phillips 66 Spring Sales Meeting Film Presentation (1966)
- Dr. Cy Kosis (1966)
- To Touch a Child (1966)
- What is Active and Creative Reading? (1967)
- Phillips 66 Spring Sales Meeting Film Presentation (1967)
- Take a Letter...from A to Z (1967)
- Centron 20th Anniversary Film (1967)
- Tell it Like it Is (1968)
- AC Delco Spring Sales Meeting Presentation: Tomorrow's Spark Plug Today (1969)
- Oxidation Ditches: One Answer to Manure Disposal (1970)
- Livestock Rustling: It's Big Business (1971)
- Horizons Unlimited (1972)
- Steel: From Inland (1973)
- Down is Up (1976)
- Pork: The Meal with a Squeal (1977)
- Centron 30th Anniversary Film (1977)
- The XT Connection (1978)
- Train Talk (1979)
- You Have a Part in It (1979)
- Community Helpers: Police Officers (1980)
- Shake Hands with Danger (1980)
- Korea Overview: The Face of Korea (1980)
- Korea: A Rich Heritage (1980)
- Korea: Window to the Orient (1980)
- Signals: Read 'Em or Weep! (1981)
- Goodbye Jeanne (1982)
- Telemarketing, Part I (1983)
- Telemarketing, Part II (1983)
- Telemarketing, Part III (1983)
- Life Force (1983)
- Managing Stress, Part I (1983)
- Managing Stress, Part II (1984)
- Managing Stress, Part III (1984)
- During the first two seasons of the children's TV series Reading Rainbow, Centron was called on to produce several short segments for the show, a few of which Harvey directed and/or appeared in, such as the "Puddle Hopping" music video from the 1983 pilot episode.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Prather, Maurice, "Mosser-Wolf Shoot Official Football Movies," University Daily Kansan, December 1, 1952
- "Mr. N Comes to Lawrence," Lawrence Journal-World, May 18, 1954
- "'Star 34' Result of State's New Movie-Making Industry," Kansas Business Magazine, July, 1954
- "New Centron Movie Seen by Kiwanians," Lawrence Journal-World, March 11, 1954
- Fowler, Giles M., "Off to a Ghoulish Start as: Cameras Roll in a Kansas Town," Kansas City Star, September 16, 1962
- "'Carnival of Souls' Might Open New Frontiers Here," Lawrence Journal-World, September 21, 1962
- "'Carnival' Cast Is Built Around Top TV Performers," Lawrence Journal-World, September 25, 1962
- "'Carnival' World Premiere Is Called Producer's Dream," Lawrence Journal-World, September 27, 1962
- Ogden, Ann, "MGM It Ain't . . . But In Its Own Field, a Lawrence Film Company Started By a Couple of Jayhawkers is Making a Pretty Fair-Sized Splash," Alumni Magazine, February 1968
- "Centron Films Win Awards in American Film Festival," Lawrence Journal-World, May 20, 1971
- "Old Home Town . . . 25 Years Ago 1948," Lawrence Journal-World, October 3, 1973
- "FLB Movie Shot On Local Farm," The Marysville Advocate, July 4, 1974
- "Down is Up," Louisiana Contractor, July 1976
- "Centron Takes Two Film Honors," Lawrence Journal-World, November 27, 1980
- Bretz, Lynn, "A Play From a Stacked Deck," Lawrence Journal-World, August 30, 1981
- "Centron Wins Double Awards for Film Efforts," Lawrence Journal-World, January 9, 1982
- Warren, Andrea, "John Clifford's Play Set for Lawrence Premiere," TeleGraphics, January 27, 1982
- Bauman, Melissa, "ABC Official Denies Network Can't Find Sponsors for Show," Lawrence Journal-World, October 12, 1983
- Twardy, Chuck, "Power of Affection Concerns Clifford," Lawrence Journal-World, November 13, 1983
- "Community Theater Has Mixed Success In Trio of Local Plays, Lawrence Journal-World, November 18, 1983
- "Farm Unit Honors Film by Centron," Lawrence Journal-World, January 19, 1984
- "Centron Wraps Several Projects," Back Stage, May 25, 1984
- Retzlaff, Duane, "Films Give Broad View of Farming at Area's Annual Farm-City Mixer," Lawrence Journal-World, November 28, 1984
- Gurley, George H., "Horror Need Not Be Vulgar," Kansas City Star, October 31, 1989
- "State Piano Honors," Lawrence Journal-World, November 12, 1989
- Dekker, Mike, "A Screen Reunion," Lawrence Journal-World, November 25, 1989
- Butler, Robert W., "The Art of Budget Filmmaking," Kansas City Star, January 12, 1990
- Burnes, Brian, "Rising From Its Grave," Kansas City Star, January 14, 1990
- Smith, Nancy, "50s Flashbacks," Lawrence Journal-World, February 28, 1993
- Mayer, Bill, "Mayer Tome on Fieldhouse," Lawrence Journal-World, February 11, 1995
- Butler, Robert W., "'Carnival of Souls' to Come Back to Life on Englewood Screen," Kansas City Star, February 25, 1996
- Biles, Jan, "Lawrence-Made Movie Stays Hip Through Years," Lawrence Journal-World, March 1, 1996
- "Director Honored at KU Studios," Lawrence Journal-World," March 8, 1996
- Biles, Jan, "University Pays Tribute to Film Maker Harvey," Lawrence Journal-World, March 14, 1996
- Pigg, Sherry, "Filmmaker Harvey Dies," Lawrence Journal-World, April 4, 1996
- "'Carnival of Souls' Director Dies," Lawrence Journal-World, April 6, 1996
- "Harold A. Harvey," Lawrence Journal-World, April 17, 1996
