Now how in the world did I end up watching all these Bigfoot movies?
I mean, seriously. I just watched back to back a pair of grade-z Bigfoot movies from the Polonia Brothers (yeah, yeah, I know it’s just Mark now. And his son, Anthony), and now I watched one of those films which somehow escaped me when it first came out in the Eighties.
And, yes, I know it’s a minor classic. I never took the time to watch it before now.
So deal with it.
And when you are dealing with a film which is so well loved, it’s really hard to say much about it that hasn’t been said before.
Yes, there is definitely an E.T. family film sort of vibe to it all — and not just because Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment was involved. But that’s the sort of thing you’re more likely to note from reading a plot description than actually seeing the film. It’s not like watching, say, Magic Crystal, and groaning, oh, no, an E.T. rip off, when, in the middle of all the Kung Fu fighting, a little boy makes friends with a…hard, blobby, ugly lump of an alien.
It’s a very different beast from E.T. And not just because Harry is capable of doing so much damage, even when he’s doing something simple like, say, sitting.
Perhaps a major part of the reason for that is John Lithgow’s George Henderson. This isn’t a movie about a little boy befriending a Bigfoot…
Well, not literally. Even if it is George’s inner little boy which Harry manages to touch.
Instead, it is an adult — and his whole family — who has to deal with all the real adult problems having a horrible smelling eight foot hairy monster living in your house with you can cause, while at the same time protecting the newest member of your family from the rest of the world. It gives us a very different outlook on events when it isn’t a handful of kids running around on their own, but an entire family dragged into a situation whether they want it or not.
A very welcome one, I might add — particularly when you look at some of the more dire E.T. copies (Juan Piquer Simon’s Extra Terrestrial Visitors, anyone?).
But this is one of those films you can’t talk about without discussing its contributions to film technology. The Harry suit was created by Rick Baker and it is without question one of the best man-in-a-suit creatures ever invented.
Let’s put it this way: I have no idea how anyone persuaded a group of hard-headed Hollywood money men to put up the funding for this film: I mean, it was an absolutely outrageous notion that you could somehow create a big, loveable and highly expressive creature which would somehow manage to seem like a real creature, and give him almost as much screen time as the human star.
Part of this is thanks to the incredible performance by Kevin Peter Hall, who gives the creature an expressiveness and humanity that seems simply impossible (even with the help of three puppeteers). If the name sounds familiar, that’s because he also played the Predator in the two original films. Sadly, as he was Seven feet, four inches tall, he ended up mostly typecast playing giant monsters (he was also in a monster suit in both the TV movie, Without Warning, and Prophecy!), although he did get a big role in the series Misfits of Science as a scientist who can…well, shrink to doll size!
Not to mention a starring role in the Harry and the Hendersons TV series.
He should have gone on to major stardom (at the very least in the movie monster world, as unfair as that would seem) but died tragically young at age 35.
What a loss.
Unfortunately, no one will ever get an award for a performance so dependent on technology and additional puppeteers, even though it is far harder to do. I’m not sure I can think of any other film which made such a creature the star of the film (well, maybe co-star, after John Lithgow). It’s a surprisingly subtle and emotional performance.
Now I suppose I need to note that Harry has a pretty good cast backing him up, with a surprisingly vigorous but old Don Ameche as a scientist whose life was changed by an encounter with Bigfoot; M. Emmet Walsh in yet another unlikeable role; and David Suchet, who’d played Poirot on the BBC, as a French-Canadian hunter obsessed with killing Harry.
Oh, well, it’s a classic. Which means all this has been said before.
And probably better, darn it.
But if you haven’t quite caught up with it yet, it is definitely time. It’s a beautiful and funny film which gave us one of the most loveable characters ever put on film…
With the help of three puppeteers…
rivets on the poster 