this week's entry is from my favorite product of fort collins, colorado, herk harvey. harvey was a prolific filmmaker in the documentary/educational/industrial film field, turning out countless films while serving in various capacities for the centron corporation in lawrence, kansas. today, though, we are here to celebrate his one and only feature film, carnival of souls (1962).short on budget but long on atmosphere, this $33,000 wonder has managed to dig into the consciousness of midnight moviegoers for over four decades now and has influenced everyone from george a. romero to david lynch. the oddly unsympathetic candace hilligoss icily navigating her way through this maddening limbo is one of the great B-movie performances of all time. and, in keeping with our travelogue theme, it provides a nice segue from salt lake city, where we were yesterday, as key scenes were also shot in the magnificent decay of the crumbling saltair pavilion on the shores of the great salt lake. the pavilion was later razed by arsonists in november of 1970. fortunately, harvey and company had the good sense/luck to take advantage of the stately old beauty before she tumbled into the lake for good.
i am not sure how much time i will have for more tour entries. we are making the turn for home now and time will be tight in most places. hope you have enjoyed being on the road with us for a little while. texas, we'll see you soon.
Posts
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading along with your tour. And finally, I get to make a Yes I Saw That Movie Too, And I Too Loved It post. I'm so lucky to have worked in a video store, because I might never have known about it. And that it was shot in Utah, gives me the best creeps. I don't know why, but in every trans-continental drive I've been on, Utah is the spookiest. Maybe it has something to do with usually hitting it at about dawn, after a night of driving. Or the fact that it looks like another planet.
ReplyDelete-Rebekah