Award-winning documentary Rondo and Bob, fixing on Texas Chain Saw Massacre art director Robert Burns and his obsession with cult actor Rondo Hatton, will be released on streaming platforms this June. Robert A. “Bob” Burns is a significant name in horror film art direction for his work in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Re-Animator, and The Howling. His props also appear in Poltergeist. From a young age, he showed signs of being a genius and could create complex designs all in his head, draw detailed cartoons and create outrageous puns. In high school and college, he studied drama, which he later utilized in films including Confessions of a Serial Killer.
While attending the University of Texas he edited the Texas Ranger humor magazine and discovered Rondo Hatton, a former Tampa, Florida, sports reporter, who contracted acromegaly, a condition that caused his face, hands, and feet to grow out of proportion to the rest of his body. It caused the former athlete and All-American kid to close himself off from the outside world until he met his second wife Mae. Together they went to Hollywood where Hatton became the Creeper in a series of films starting with the Sherlock Holmes story The Pearl of Death. He died of a heart attack brought on by his medical condition.
The documentary weaves together the stories of Burns and Hatton and delves into their horror filmographies and personal life stories. The Creeper becomes a metaphor for Burns’ lifelong belief in his inner ugliness, a lack that left him unable to feel true love.
The film mixes interviews with archival film footage and rare video of Burns and the people he tried desperately to love. Along the way, it examines vital touchstone films of the horror genre and tells the true stories of two of its important players.
To bring the characters of Rondo and Bob fully to life, scenes from Burns’ and Hatton’s lives have been recreated using actors.
The film, written and directed by Joe O’Connell, features veteran stuntman Gary Kent (Bubba Ho-Tep, “The Green Hornet”), actress Dee Wallace (Cujo, The Howling), Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon, Joseph Middleton, Joe Bob Briggs, Hills Have Eyes producer Peter Locke, Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Edwin Neal, filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, and many more.
Rondo and Bob will be available on streaming platforms on June 7th from Electric Entertainment.
Main image: Bob Burns on the set of his film Mongrel. Photo by Robert Anschutz.
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