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Howco

Howco
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Foundation date 1 january 1951

Howco later Howco International was an American film production and distribution company based in New Orleans specialising in low budget B pictures designed for double features. In 1951 Joy Newton Houck Sr. (born 10 July 1900, Magnolia, Arkansas died 8 July 1999, Texarkana, Texas) an owner of 29 Joy Theatres in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi teamed up with producer/director Ron Ormond and J. Francis White owner of 31 cinemas in Virginia, North and South Carolina to contract with independent film producers to create product for their combined theatre chains. Their initials HOW provided the name of the COmpany.

Initially Howco released Westerns from Ron Ormond's company featuring Lash LaRue, but moved into monster, science fiction and exploitation films. In 1954 Howco started a television distribution company called National Television Films. Howco released Roger Corman's Carnival Rock (paired with Teenage Thunder), Ed Wood's Jail Bait (paired with The Blonde Pickup a reissue of 1951's Racket Girls) and double features such as The Brain from Planet Arous and Teenage Monster (1957), and Lost, Lonely and Vicious and My World Dies Screaming (1958). Houck Sr.'s son Joy N. Houck Jr. directed two of the company's final double bills Night of Bloody Horror and Women and Bloody Terror (1970).
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Filmography of Howco (7 films)

Display filmography as list

Distribution

The Legend of Boggy Creek
The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)
, 1h30
Directed by Charles B. Pierce
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Documentary, Adventure, Horror
Themes Films about animals, Natural horror films
Actors Sandra Cassel

The film, which claims to be a true story, sets out to detail the existence of the "Fouke Monster," a seven foot tall Bigfoot-like creature that has reportedly been seen by residents of a small Arkansas community since the 1950s. It is described as being completely covered in reddish-brown hair, leaving three-toed tracks, and having a foul odor.
The Brain from Planet Arous
The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)
, 1h10
Directed by Nathan Juran
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Thriller, Horror
Themes Films set in the future, Films about extraterrestrial life, Films about extraterrestrial life, Alien invasions in films, Disaster films
Actors John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller, Ken Terrell

An outer-space terrorist from a planet named Arous - a brain-shaped creature named Gor - arrives on Earth and possesses young scientist Steve March. Gor then proceeds to use his vast, destructive powers to bend the world to his will, threatening to wipe out the capital city of any nation that defies him.
Jail Bait
Jail Bait (1954)
, 1h12
Directed by Ed Wood
Origin USA
Genres Thriller, Action, Crime
Actors Timothy Farrell, Dolores Fuller, Herbert Rawlinson, Steve Reeves, Lyle Talbot, Buster Keaton

The film credits open to the scene of a moving police car in the streets of Alhambra, California. The car stops at a police station, and the officers inside it transport their drunk prisoner to the station. Inside the station, Marilyn Gregor (Dolores Fuller) meets Inspector Johns (Lyle Talbot) and Bob Lawrence (Steve Reeves). Through their discussion, the viewers learn that her brother Don Gregor (Clancy Malone) had been arrested for carrying an unlicensed handgun. She has just posted bail for him, and the two officers warn her that she would forfeit if her brother fails to show up for his trial. They release her brother, but they refuse Don's request to return his handgun. As the Gregor siblings leave, John Muses about the son of a great doctor being a jerk. Lawrence suggests it could be a result of the "sins of the father". Johns suspects the young man was an associate of gangster Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell).
Mesa of Lost Women
Mesa of Lost Women (1953)
, 1h10
Origin USA
Genres Science fiction, Horror
Themes Films about animals, Films about spiders, Giant monster films, Disaster films
Actors Jackie Coogan, Richard Travis, Lyle Talbot, Chris-Pin Martin, George Barrows, Dolores Fuller

The film opens with a brief scene serving as its introduction. A man is being caressed by feminine hands. The next shot includes the face of the woman, Tarantella (Tandra Quinn). A brief kiss between her and the man, ends with his lifeless body falling down. A disembodied voice asks the audience "Have you ever been kissed by a girl like this?" The narrative properly begins in a desert. A narrator (Lyle Talbot) mocks the overblown ego of humanity, a race of puny bipeds which claims to own planet Earth and every living thing on it. Yet, they are outnumbered by the insects, and the Hexapods are likely to survive longer that the humans. The narrator then claims that when men or women venture off "the well beaten path of civilization" and deal with the unknown, the price of their survival is the loss of their sanity.