Richard Harrison (actor) - 1970s Exploitation Films

1970s Exploitation Films

It was during this time that Richard Harrison started to show up in more and more low-budget features all over the globe. Harrison started sporting a moustache, which became something of a trademark for him in the coming years. Although the general quality of his 1970s' filmography is somewhat low, some films from the time have gone on to cult status.

Harrison's career dwindled slowly in the 1970s at the same rate as the spaghetti western died. He began appearing in low-budget movies shot all over the world: In Egypt (You Can Do a Lot with 7 Women (1971), with the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong starring in the title role of Marco Polo (1975) and playing the German commander Von Waldensee in The Boxer Rebellion (1976). Harrison worked in Turkey (The Godfather's Friend, 1972), Farouk "Frank" Agrama and in a Yugoslavian war film, the 1979 effort Pakleni Otok, directed by Vladimir Tadej.

He made most of his better quality 70s films during the earlier half of the decade, like the comic spaghetti western Due Fratelli AKA Two Brothers in Trinity (1972), which he also directed. His co-star in Due Fratelli was the Irish-American actor Donald O'Brien, another veteran of Italian B-films. Harrison and O'Brien played two estranged brothers rejoined after receiving an inheritance, Harrison a "lovable rogue", O'Brien a pious Mormon. Harrison wants to spend his money on building a bordello, and comic adventures in the spirit of the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer hit My Name is Trinity (1971) follow.

Other notable early 70s films were Churchill's Leopards (1970), directed by Maurizio Pradeaux and also starring Giacomo Rossi-Stuart and Klaus Kinski, in which Harrison got to play a double role; Acquasanta Joe (1971), directed by Mario Gariazzo and starring Ty Hardin and Lincoln Tate, an otherwise mediocre western worth mentioning for having Harrison cast against type as a villain; and Dig Your Grave, Friend...Sabata's Coming (1971), directed by Juan Bosch, a western livened up by the presence of Spanish actor Fernando Sancho. Harrison acted in several films with Sancho, the archetypal Mexican bandit of paella and spaghetti westerns, most of which were produced and/or directed by Ignacio F. Iquino.

Some of the arguably most dubious films Harrison made during the decade were Achtung! The Desert Tigers! (1977) for Paolo Solvay; Black Gold Dossier (1979), also by Solvay; and Voodoo Baby AKA Black Orgasm (1980), by notorious Italian director Aristide Massaccessi, also known as Joe D'Amato. Achtung! The Desert Tigers, also starring Harrison's friend and frequent co-star Gordon Mitchell and featuring Mike Monty in a small role, was a collage of footage from Solvay's previous World War II films mixed with new prison camp and war action scenes, including somewhat tasteless torture footage. Black Gold Dossier, again co-starring Gordon Mitchell, was a spy epic set in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, spiced up by liberal use of stock footage and female lead Florence Cayrol, who spends the majority of the film in different stages of undress. Voodoo Baby was a sexploitation film that Massaccessi added hardcore porno scenes to without Harrison's knowledge and much to his disgust.

One of the more successful Harrison films from the latter half of the 70s was the Italian crime thriller La Belva Col Mitra (1977) AKA Beast With A Gun, directed by Sergio Grieco, also starring Helmut Berger and Marisa Mell. Harrison played the part of Police Commissioner Giulio Santini, with top-billed Berger as psychotic criminal Nanni Vitali, out to kill Santini and everyone else who testified against him in court. Although La Belva Col Mitra is no classic, it's a well-directed movie and the contrast between Harrison's underplayed style and Berger's manic performance works to its favor. However, La Belva Col Mitra is not without some controversy. Apparently, at Berger's request, Harrison's scenes were cut down in the film. For additional trivia, a scene from La Belva Col Mitra shows up on TV in the Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown (1997).

Probably the most interesting curio in Harrison's 70s filmography is the 1971 film L'Explosion, directed by Marc Simenon (the son of Georges Simenon) and co-starring Mylène Demongeot. The 1978 martial arts/spy film Gymkata Killer is also of curio interest, if only for the presence of Bruce Lee imitator Bruce Le (who also directed the film, with uncredited help from Paolo Solvay), European softcore star Nadiuska and Harrison's son Sebastian.