Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2017 13:55:02 GMT
THEY WILL COME FOR YOU
As told by Jack H. Harris
I was born and raised on the streets of Philadelphia in 1918. My father went from film projectionist to booking manager for a film exchange which meant that I saw a lot of movies – sometimes as many as six a week.
I was about 12 when my mother, giving into my begging and nagging, took me to see Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. She never forgave me for putting her through such a scary ordeal. As I watched her watch the movie, I realized that while Dracula was terrifying, in some ways he was even more threatening off-screen.
Thus, Dracula started my fascination with horror movies. I was already drawn to vampires by the urban legend which arose from a frightening exhibition of monsters and horror at the Philadelphia Art Museum in 1926. It was rumored that the spirits of many horrific monsters hung out at the museum. For instance, if you dared to make eye contact with vampires in their paintings, they would haunt you and someday come and get you! So it was that children of all ages and some adults covered their eyes and stayed a respectful distance away from scary monsters at the museum.
Years later, I had successfully distributed 1,000 movies and found myself quite dissatisfied with the slate of films presented at our annual conference. The meeting supervisor said, "You don’t like these? Why don’t you go out and make something better?"
I confidently replied, "OK, I will."
The supervisor said, "And what will make your film so different?"
"It will be about a monster never seen before that is unstoppable as it grows and kills and grows some more to take over the world if not destroyed."
Some laughed, some wished me well. Three years later, The Blob debuted and soon was number one at the box office worldwide; and, the Blob was only on screen six-and-a-half minutes.
In 1952, I was coming out of the Waldorf Astoria in New York and shocked to see that I shared the revolving exit door with Bela Lugosi – in full Dracula attire. Was he "coming to get me" or was this my chance to thank him for the inspiration? I chose the latter and lived to tell the tale.
