Part of the thrill of living This Vintage Life is uncovering the hidden corners of the entertainment world of the middle of the last century. I will leave it to others to discuss Kate Hepburn, Billy Wilder, et al. and I will focus here on the Other Side of Hollywood. My regular readers will know that – with a few exceptions – you’re going to get the Rest of the Story here. Here, your tour is going to stop at the equally significant landmarks of La La Land, but these are the ones just on the periphery, just out of the spotlight. This ain’t Hollywood Boulevard. Hang a right and go north just past North La Brea. Now – see that alley there? You know what happened there? I do. We’re talking about the risk-takers, the colossal failures. The B movies, the exploitation films. The drive-ins and the late shows. It’s all Entertainment and at Vintage Leisure we celebrate the joys of being entertained. Period. It don’t have to be pretty, it just has to be.

Mike Nichols? Yes. Roman Polanski? Absolutely. John Frankenheimer? Forever. But today we’re going to climb up into the attic. We’re going to burrow to the back corner and shovel the dust off the trunk. Inside we’re going to find some old Super 8 film canisters with a name scrawled across them – Harvey Hart.

There is precious little to read about this director on the internet and you’re about to get it all right here. Harvey Hart was born March 19, 1928 in my hometown of Toronto. That’s Toronto, Ontario – not Toronto, Canada, as so many like to say. There are provinces up here. Hart graduated from the University of Toronto and then went to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). There he honed his craft working alongside other future directors from Canada like Arthur Hiller (Love Story), Ted Kotcheff (First Blood) and Norman Jewison (pick ’em; In the Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair and others). He left the CBC for Hollywood in 1963 and straight away began directing episodes of series such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Ben Casey, one notable episode of Star Trek, “Mudd’s Women”, and he would later helm over two dozen episodes of Peyton Place. Nothing about Hart’s television work needs “unearthing” as it is not buried. Harvey was, through to the end of his career, prolific and successful as a director of episodic TV and of tele-films. He directed many TV movies through the 1970s and at the dawn of the Eighties came his most celebrated work. In 1981, he directed the mini series East of Eden, a three-night television event that won the Golden Globe for Best Mini Series or Motion Picture Made for Television and it won Jane Seymour a Golden Globe, as well.

In 1965, Toronto’s Harvey Hart was given his first job directing a feature film in Hollywood. Neither the job nor the location would be where he would make his mark, but his eleven features are worth looking at. So, let’s begin, eh?

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Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965)

This one is so good that it remains one of the few films I still own on VHS as I await a DVD release and also it is a movie I have reviewed in these pages. In this adaptation of the William Inge play, Hart directs my man, Michael Parks, in his second starring film role in his first year of making films. Also of the party is my favourite, Ann-Margret, who smoulders in her role as a young girl who has married money. Pretty young Janet Margolis plays the girl that catches Bus Riley’s eye and it is early days for Kim Darby playing Bus’ younger sister. An absolutely engaging movie that captures your imagination in many ways. Inge was disgusted at what the studio did to his story and wanted his name removed from the picture. With one movie under his belt, Harvey Hart has already given me this beauty with two of my favourite actors.

Dark Intruder (1965)

Considered Hart’s second feature, this movie was released theatrically though it was made for television. Hart came to this project through his work at Universal and on the Alfred Hitchcock show particularly. And here Harvey works with fellow Canadian, Regina’s Leslie Nielsen (1926-2010) who plays a playboy sleuth who is an expert on the occult. Nielsen’s Brett Kingsford is called in to help police solve a series of gruesome crimes occurring in the San Fransisco of 1890. His best friend is about to be married but his habit lately of blacking out places him under a cloud of suspicion.

What has this film in common with Psycho? The two were the only theatrical features produced by Hitch’s Shamely Productions. Hitchcock’s company hoped this would serve as the pilot for a TV show to be called The Black Cloak that never materialized; it was then that Dark Intruder – all of 59 minutes – was released to theatres. Music for this production is by my man, the Argentinian, Lalo Schifrin.

The Sweet Ride (1968)

The man from TO hits the beach. Hart here directs what can be considered the final entry in the first round of “Hollywood Surf and Beach” films. My social media friend and beach party movie mentor, Tom Lisanti, turned me on to this hidden gem in his seminal book on Hollywood surf movies. Once again, Harvey Hart directs a Canadian – this time it’s Quebec City’s Jean Michel André “Michael” Sarrazin (1940-2011). Sarrazin joins beautiful Jacqueline Bisset and Tony Franciosa in this sneaky good film that combines fun in the sun with the seamier side of life on LA’s beaches. Also amongst the notable cast are Bob Denver and Michele Carey. Adding The Sweet Ride to Bus Riley’s Back in Town and Harvey Hart has already gifted me with two gems out of his first three features. Check out my piece on this beauty here.

Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1971)

Harvey had been busy directing on television (Mannix and the Burt Reynolds show, Dan August among others) when he was summoned by MGM to save a film version of a play written by a countryman of Hart’s. John Herbert (1926-2001) was born in Toronto and for a time worked where I and many in my family did – at the venerable T. Eaton Company. One night in the 1940’s, Herbert was dressed as a woman when he was assaulted and robbed. His assailants claimed he had solicited them for sex and so it was Herbert who was sent up the river, first serving time down the road from me in Guelph and later at Mimico. In 1964, he wrote a play he called Fortune and Men’s Eyes that was based on his prison experiences.

On a recommendation from renowned Canadian man of letters Robertson Davies, the play was workshopped both at the Stratford Festival with direction by Bruno Gerussi (famous up here for The Beachcombers) and later in the hands of Dustin Hoffman at the New York Actor’s Studio with Jon Voight in the cast. This was as early as 1966. Then in ’69, Sal Mineo staged a version of it in Los Angeles with Don Johnson looking pretty in the cast. Mineo had added scenes which angered Herbert who then barred Mineo from taking it to the screen. It was eventually filmed by Hart in Quebec; Harvey had been hired by Metro to “rescue” the troubled production – with nine shooting days to go – and take over from the initial, inexperienced director, Jules Schwerin. The finished film with its focus on homosexuality and sexual slavery tries to balance between exploitation and social commentary.

Mahoney’s Last Stand (aka Mahoney’s Estate) (1972)

Hart’s next feature will be of particular interest to Canadians and to fans of English rock. The story of this deep cut about a man who decides to leave the city for a simple country life starts with its star, Alexis Kanner. Kanner’s family were Jews who escaped the Nazis and landed in Montreal. Kanner’s most notable acting work came during the final episodes of The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan creating a character for Alexis to play. After starring with Roger Moore in Crossplot (1969), Kanner returned to Canada and made this film with Hart and co-stars Maud Adams and Sam Waterston. Kanner was not only involved as an actor but also took a hand co-scripting, co-directing and producing the picture.

Additionally, Kanner employed friend, Ronnie Lane, to provide the score. Lane recruited his bandmate in the Faces, Ron Wood, to also pitch in and the two put a band together and recorded the music in London. Also on hand for the sessions were Ian McLaglan and Kenney Jones of the Faces, Pete Townshend, Ric Grech (Blind Faith), pianist and Rolling Stones co-founder Ian Stewart and regular Stones saxophonist Bobby Keys. Mahoney’s Last Stand – the movie and the album – did not see the light of day for a full 4 years, both being released in 1976. This delay helped to relegate these two projects to the nether regions.

As for the Canadian content, Mahoney’s Last Stand was filmed 40 minutes from where I sit now. One scene in the film called for actress Diana Leblanc (later the mom on the Canadian Swiss Family Robinson TV show) to hitch hike on Highway 27 here in Kleinburg. It was a Friday night and the highway was jammed with motorists escaping Toronto and heading for cottage country. Sure enough, one kind soul not connected with the film stopped to give the young lady a ride. Sadly, this unscripted scene does not appear in the film. And the veterinarian in the movie, Jenny Creer, was an actual vet who practiced in, of all places, Loretto, Ontario – a crossroads that is 12 minutes from my front porch.

The Pyx (1973)

Legendary Canadian actor Christopher Plummer was born in Toronto in 1929. By 1973, he had already established himself as a stage, television and film actor of the highest order but he had yet to make a Canadian film for Canadian producers. Karen Black had been prolific on the small screen and had made a name for herself in interesting, cult-type films. She had landed starring roles in smaller films like this one and would soon break out in major movies like The Great Gatsby and Airport 1975.

The Pyx is a story of the occult and stars Plummer as a police detective who investigates the death of a heroin-addicted prostitute. It was filmed in Montreal and features three songs on the soundtrack that were written and performed by Karen Black herself.

Shoot (1976)

Harvey Hart started what was for him a fairly prolific period as a director of film with this adventure movie that was once again shot – like the Mahoney film – in the woods here in Southern Ontario. This movie stars two Oscar winners, Cliff Robertson and Ernest Borgnine and added to the cast are Henry Silva and Canadian Helen Shaver (The Color of Money). This story concerns a group of hunters who get into a deadly beef with another gang of men they encounter in the wild. Trading on Deliverance, here is a taut tale of former combat veterans going once more into the breach.

Hart here shoots in the sticks around Southern Ontario, in the Vaughan and Brampton areas. The woods in this area are ideal for staging a film of this nature and, additionally, through this film and others on this list I have been introduced to Kleinburg Film Studios. Located smack dab in the middle of Coyote Nowhere, this studio has been around since 1959 and has served as the home for many notable productions, Canadian and otherwise. Among the productions to make use of these facilities are:

• High Ballin’ (1978) – trucker movie starring my main man, Jerry Reed
• The Littlest Hobo (1979-1985) – legendary Canadian series
• Strange Brew (1983) – perhaps the greatest of all Canadian films, eh?
• Follow That Bird (1985) – Sesame Street movie
• Agnes of God (1985) – Oscar-nominated film from Toronto’s Norman Jewison
• The Fly (1986) – from the heir to Jewison’s crown, David Cronenberg
• The Big Town (1987) – stellar movie with Matt Dillon and Diane Lane
• To Die For (1995) – starring vehicle for Nicole Kidman
• over 100 titles in total; feature films, TV movies and series

Goldenrod (1976)

Goldenrod is a rodeo film that stars Tony Lo Bianco, an Italian-American from Brooklynn who’s recognizable mug shows up in many notable films including The French Connection (1971), Serpico (1973) and City Heat (1984). His last credit to this point is Ray Romano’s directorial debut, Somewhere in Queens (2022). The film co-stars Donald Pleasance and prolific Canadian actor Donnelly Rhodes (1937-2018). This one was co-scripted by Lionel Chetwynd who had earned an Oscar nomination with Mordecai Richler for the script for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), a film based on my favourite book. Goldenrod was shot in Calgary, the rodeo capital of Canada, home of the Calgary Stampede.

The Mad Trapper (1978)

Albert Johnson is a Canadian legend. Sort of. The man himself may or may not have been Canadian but the story of his exploits in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon as The Mad Trapper in the 1930s are the stuff of legend. A British made-for-TV drama told his story in 1972 as did Challenge to Be Free from Tay Garnett and starring Mike Mazurki in ’75. This tale was most expertly told in 1983 as Death Hunt featuring Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Carl Weathers and Andrew Stevens. That was shot in Alberta.

Harvey Hart took Oliver Reed and Canada’s Leslie Nielsen into the woods of Nielsen’s home province of Saskatchewan to shoot this further telling of the Johnson legend. For reasons long-forgotten and as enigmatic as the story of the real Mad Trapper, this film was never finished.

The High Country (1981)

When I was a kid, a favourite show of mine was Happy Days and one of my first crushes was pretty Linda Purl. Linda is remembered today as first Richie’s then Fonzie’s girlfriend (two different characters) and Matlock‘s daughter. Today she sings the standards and lives with Patrick Duffy. A film actress she wasn’t but she did appear notably in this Harvey Hart film and another Canadian film the following year, the horror movie Visiting Hours. Timothy Bottoms – he of a handful of significant 70s movies – stars in this film with Purl as a man on the run from the law. Purl’s Cathy is running, too – from frustration stemming from her learning disability. The two bond as they traverse the high country.

Hart & Co. went even further west than they did for Shoot for this movie, filming in British Columbia including in Banff National Park. This script had uncredited work done by Dean Riesner, one of Clint Eastwood’s most dependable writers.

Utilities (1983)

Here’s a comedy that served as a vehicle for dullsville Robert Hays when he was fresh off his success in Airplane! Brooke Adams had earned notices for her work in the remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978 but real stardom has eluded her. I know her from her appearance as David Addison’s Lamaze partner in three pivotal episodes of Moonlighting and she has been married to Tony Shaloub since 1992. While Utilities was shot in 1980 and into ’81, it was not released until ’83. It also starred The Godfather‘s John Marley but audiences seemed to not notice that this film was released.

While this may be an ignominious end to Harvey Hart’s career as a director of feature films, I’m happy to report that on this production, Harvey shot once again in the studios in Kleinburg, on the streets of Toronto standing in for Chicago and – in a first for Hart – on the campus of the University of Waterloo. This is so close to being really cool for me; both my boys went to the other school in that town, Wilfred Laurier University, which is only blocks from the U of W.

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Harvey Hart’s appeal then is three-fold. He gave us two significant Hollywood studio films in Bus Riley and The Sweet Ride. Also he is the author of some of the very deep cuts that we love so much here at Vintage Leisure – those forgotten films that sometimes feature some very big stars and other times include actors that are deep cuts themselves. Additionally for us blessed to have been born above the 49th parallel, Hart showcases Canadian talent and perhaps most notably some wonderful Canadian scenery, places Canadians can identify with – something that rarely happens in big Hollywood films.

Harvey gets little due – or NO due, even in his homeland – and I hope I have done something to rectify that. It’s the least I could do for a fellow Torontonian, my fellow Canuck.

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February 2024 Update: I was thrilled to receive an email from a daughter of Harvey Hart’s. She pointed out an IMDb inaccuracy regarding Hart’s date of birth which I have corrected here. She also brought to my attention the fact that her son, Benjamin Young Hart, is also a filmmaker and keep’s Harvey’s archives. Additionally, Hart’s son, Mathew Hart, is also in the business and was nominated for a 2023 Emmy for his work on the Netflix series Monster. I am very pleased to have been contacted by Harvey’s daughter – not only for some additional info and clarification but also for her kind approval of my piece on her dad.