This is a Mustache

Happy Birthday, Harris Malden

by Molly Eichel

I, ROBOT: Harris Malden (Nick Gregorio) wears a goatee for Sweaty Robot's Happy Birthday, Harris Malden. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION) Harris Malden Trailer Harris Malden Mistakes & Mishaps The Fix Up Thanksgiving: Revenge of the Gobbler Harris Malden on Amazon VOD Hero Worship Speed Eaters

Sweaty Robot wants to prove to you that paying for your movie ticket via amazon.com or iTunes is just as legit as the 10 bucks you shell out to the apathetic kid at the box office. The Philadelphia comedy collective released its first feature-length film, the mustache allegory Happy Birthday, Harris Malden, on the aforementioned Internet services last week.

"The real trouble with the climate of [film] distribution is the model is broken," says Sweaty Robot's Matthew Sanchez. "We're forward thinking enough to take advantage of this new media and [are] finding new outlets for our films and future projects."

Harris Malden was originally conceived for the 2006 First Person Arts Memoir and Documentary competition. The year's theme of "a little white lie" produced stories about sexual abuse, living with AIDS in India and Sweaty Robot's short film about a man and his fake mustache. We're talking blatantly, drawn-on fake. But out of all the weighty issues represented, it was the feel-good story about facial hair that won.

"We were pretty embarrassed," founding member Eric Levy says about the win, considering the subjects of the other films. "But it spoke to the fact that there was more to this character than 'I have a fake mustache and I'm so crazy.' ... It's not just a series of mustache jokes." Capturing the gold at the First Person Arts Fest inspired the Sweaty Robot boys to expand their 'stache concept into a feature-length film.

Sweaty Robot is the brainchild of Levy, Juan Cardarelli, Nick Gregorio and Ben Davidow. Levy, Cardarelli and Gregorio met at Drexel ("Juan and I met at orientation," Levy says. "He said I was a complete asshole and he was right") and recruited Gregorio's high school friend Davidow from Rowan University. After deciding to expand Harris Malden into a feature, they enlisted fellow classmate and cinematographer Sanchez by promising him a sandwich. Levy says Sanchez never got his official payment but the collective, nonetheless, was complete.

Harris Malden centers around its title character (Gregorio), who dons faux facial hair (which morphs from a traditional mustache to a goatee to a Snidely Whiplash curlicue) because of a childhood trauma. But no one talks about it, they simply accept it. Harris is sequestered in his South Philly neighborhood by his best friend/straightman Paul (Levy) and brother Melvin (Cardarelli) to shield him from an unfeeling outside world. Harris' naiveté is shattered when Paul's girlfriend shows up at his birthday party and utters the unspeakable: Your mustache is fake.

The film was shot on a shoestring budget of $50,000, which came straight out of the pockets of the Sweaty Robot members. Shooting in Philadelphia was an obvious choice — but a good one. The city's neighborhoods provide the right balance of seclusion and urbanity for Malden's story.

The full-length Happy Birthday, Harris Malden premiered at the 10th annual CineVegas Film Festival and caught the attention of judge Matt Dentler, head of programming at Cinetic, which distributed such independent heavy hitters as Napoleon Dynamite and Super Size Me. Dentler, who Levy calls a trailblazer, understood that the people who see American independent films would not necessarily take kindly to a family comedy about a guy who wears a fake mustache. So, Cinetic and Sweaty Robot's deal involves digital rights, allowing Cinetic to release Harris Malden on the Internet. "The fact of the matter is right now it's a difficult time to release a movie like [Harris Malden]," Dentler says. "But I think it ... works really well on these digital platforms because it's the kind of movie that people want to tell their friends about and blog about."

Because of the decidedly nontraditional way in which Harris Malden is being released, there's no guide as to how to market and publicize it. Sweaty Robot is relying on heavy word of mouth, sending screeners to YouTube film critics who can give viewers an instant vouch for a film that will be basically invisible without a good word behind it. "We take it around to colleges and show that 25-year-old guys are able to put out something legitimate," says Levy. "I think that's something we all enjoy — that this is possible with limited resources."

(molly.eichel@citypaper.net)

Happy Birthday, Harris Malden can be rented or purchased from the iTunes store or amazon.com, for $2.99 and $9.99, respectively. Go to happybirthdayharrismalden.com to purchase the DVD.