# Curtis Harrington [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Harrington) ( 1926 – 2007 ) ## Description American filmmaker who began in the 1940s Los Angeles avant-garde with trance-inflected shorts influenced by Maya Deren, then moved into Hollywood to direct low-budget occult- and gothic-inflected horror features; a lifelong friend and fellow traveler of Kenneth Anger in the West Coast queer and occult film scene. ## Key Tags #trance-film #narrative-cinema #west-coast #queer #queer-film #occult #occult-film ## Essential Works - *Fragment of Seeking* (1946) - Deren-influenced trance film of narcissistic self-pursuit; his best-known avant-garde short - *Night Tide* (1961) - low-budget feature debut, a moody, occult-tinged noir about a sailor who falls for a woman who may be a siren - *Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?* (1971) - later gothic horror feature typical of his studio-era work ## Details Began as a teenage cineaste and critic in Los Angeles, corresponding with and championing [[Maya Deren]] before making his own 16mm trance films. Moved into commercial filmmaking in the 1960s, directing occult- and psychological-horror features for Hollywood and television while retaining the interest in ritual, doubling, and the uncanny that marked his avant-garde work. Close, decades-long friend of [[Kenneth Anger]], with whom he shared roots in the pre-war Los Angeles experimental and occult film milieu. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Symbolism, Theology, and Occultism]] - occult and ritual themes run through both his avant-garde shorts and his later horror features ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators - [[Kenneth Anger]] - lifelong friend since the 1940s Los Angeles avant-garde/occult film scene (active 1940s–2000s) - [[Maya Deren]] - formative influence and correspondent; *Fragment of Seeking* extends her trance-film form ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements %% none yet %% ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Harrington, Curtis. *Nice Guys Don't Work in Hollywood: The Adventures of an Aesthete in the Movie Business*. Edited by Lisa Janssen, Drag City, 2013. Posthumously published memoir covering his avant-garde and Hollywood careers. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography Suárez, Juan A. *Bike Boys, Drag Queens, and Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema*. Indiana University Press, 1996. Situates Harrington within the queer underground film milieu alongside Anger and Warhol.