Howard began making feature films with the low budget comedy
Diary of a Bachelor (1964) which he also directed. He produced
City of Fear (1965) and shot American footage for the foreign release of
Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965). Howard produced a MGM thriller
Jack on Diamonds (1967) based on his own story. The script was written by
Jack DeWitt who became Howard's regular screenwriter. The two men collaborated together on
King of Africa (1967) shot in Africa and Spain, which Howard directed. "They were lean days," recalled Howard. "I lost a fortune on the wrong things." Howard went on to make four more films with Harris:
Man in the Wilderness (1971),
Echoes of a Summer,
Return of a Man Called Horse and
Triumph of a Man Called Horse. The first two films had minimal dialogue. "The average person hates dialogue anyway," said Howard. "Unless it's exceptional they don't want to hear it... Pictures work because audiences get involved with the characters. And there's an additional benefit - by minimizing the dialogue we make the films more attractive to foreign markets." - which one
Variety article called a "bribe" - so the crew member responsible would not be imprisoned by the military regime. While stuck in Greece, Howard claimed he made unfavourable deals to make films such as
The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976) and
The Island of Dr Moreau (1977). In the early 1980s Howard had a big hit with
Vice Squad (1982). He also made
Deadly Force (1983),
Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983), and
Angel (1984), another big hit.
Bankruptcy In December 1984, Howard and his company filed for
bankruptcy claiming that he was owed millions of dollars from foreign distributors despite the recent success of
Angel (1984) and having four films ready to be released. These included
What Waits Below (1984),
Avenging Angel (1985),
The Boys Next Door (1985) and
KGB: The Secret War (1985). In 1986, he had signed a film deal with Spectrafilm via his Howard International Film Group to produce and distribute three films, and also serve as a co-financing agreement on these films that were part of the Spectrafilm pact, and the move gave them a consistent theatrical distribution distributor for the first time since 1984, and the first title was
PrettyKill, which Spectrafilm had domestic theatrical distribution rights, while
Lorimar-Telepictures would have other world rights to the title. In 1987, TV producer
Fries Entertainment received a deal in which they would acquire three rights to Sandy Howard's productions overseas, on behalf of Spectrafilm and Sandy Howard Productions. That year, Sandy Howard had teamed up with
Australian film and video company
Taimac SBS to co-produce four theatrical films that was set for release in 1988, and the first project planned in the SBS/Sandy Howard co-production agreement was
Truk Lagoon, which was slated for a $7.2 million budget, but the film was never materialized. In 1993 he was seeking finance for a series of low budget films and a TV version of
A Man Called Horse but was unsuccessful.
Death Howard developed Alzheimers and spent the last ten years of his life as a resident at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, in the Alzheimer's and dementia care facility, Harry's Haven. He died in 2008. ==Select credits==