Harry Revier

Biography

Producer/director Harry Revier was born Harry Jack Revier in Philadelphia, PA, in 1890. Little is known about his life until 1914, when he produced and directed The Imp Abroad (1914), a short released by Universal Film Mfg. Co. (the predecessor of Univesal Pictures), starring future directors Rupert Julian and James W. Horne. This film, like most of Revier's output, was made for an independent company--in this case, Victor Film Co.--although Revier later had his own production outfit, the Revier Motion Picture Co. "The Imp Abroad" was released by an established, reputable distributor, but this was not the case for most of Revier's productions. The majority of his output was produced and/or released by low-rent independent companies for the "states rights" or exploitation market, which often meant that they got little or no distribution at all. He did, however, have several bona-fide hits. In 1920 he co-directed (with Arthur J. Flaven) a Tarzan serial, The Son of Tarzan (1920), that did quite well. Not long after that he met a young actress named Doris Velagra, fell in love and married her. He changed her name to Dorothy Revier and launched her rather prolific film career--almost 100 pictures--with The Broadway Madonna (1922) (they divorced in 1926). His biggest success, though--and his most notorious film--was Child Bride (1938). Technically rather inept, with performances ranging from catatonic to over-the-top ham, its subject matter--the well-documented practice of older men marrying girls barely into their teens (and sometimes younger) that was at the time still prevalent in the rural South in the US--made it a natural for the exploitation market, and its one particular scene of a nubile young teenage girl skinny-dipping (uncensored) in a mountain pool was guaranteed to draw crowds into the theaters, and it did. The film ran into censorship problems in many cities, which of course made more people want to see it, and it made buckets of money. When "talkies" came around, Revier got a job in England making a "quota quickie"---British law required that a certain percentage of films shown in England had to be made there, although not necessarily by British filmmakers--and when he returned to the US he began turning out a string of low-budget westerns. He was also responsible for the serial The Lost City (1935); its technical, plot, continuity and acting shortcomings are legendary and it is considered by many serial aficionados to be the worst serial ever made. In 1936 Revier got his hands on some documentary footage of a group of flagellant monks in a desolate area of New Mexico who whip themselves into a frenzy during wild religious rituals, and thought that it would make a good movie. He put together a story, shot some new footage around the documentary footage and called it Lash of the Penitentes (1936) (one possibly apocryphal story had Revier secretly filming one of the monks' ceremonies in the desert at night, being discovered and having the monks open fire at him; he was supposedly shot in the hand and later had to have two fingers amputated, giving rise to his nickname of "Three Fingers" Revier). "Child Bride" was Revier's last film as a director, although in 1953 he assembled some footage from the 1939 serial Buck Rogers (1939), edited it to turn it into a "cold war" film and called it Planet Outlaws (1953). Harry Revier died in Winter Park, FL, in 1957 at age 67.