August was hot and our brains were feeling lazy, so we held a very simple contest this month: write a haiku poem about anything even remotely related to Harrison, his films, or his film roles.

Haiku is a Japanese poetic form that combines form, content, and language in a meaningful, yet compact form. Subjects generally include nature, feelings, or experiences. In our case, we are expanding that to include Harrison and his films. The most common form for Haiku is three short lines. The first line usually contains five (5) syllables, the second line seven (7) syllables, and the third line contains five (5) syllables. Haiku doesn't rhyme. A Haiku paints a mental image in the reader's mind. This is the challenge of Haiku - to put the poem's meaning and imagery in the reader's mind in ONLY 17 syllables over just three (3) lines of poetry.

Here are a few (really lame) examples of Harrison haiku that we whipped up to demonstrate. This first one relates to Harrison's aviation hobby, and the second to the film Witness:

Sudden spring rainstorm
Climb above the roiling clouds
Feel heaven’s embrace

The heat of summer
Wool and cotton that hold back
Impossible love

To enter, contestants emailed a Harrison haiku to contests@ford-jones.com. Each haiku submitted counted as one entry.

The prize consisted of a very cool 19”x13” pop art canvas print done by Leon Jimenez at LA Artwork (you may have seen this one on ebay, it’s offered quite often! If you’re interested in pop art, check out their website at www.laartwork.com for a ton of affordable prints). Also included was a pretty cool magnet set of Harrison from various films (the larger magnet is about 4-3/4” high while the smaller magnets are about 2” high). Check out the picture of the prize below:

July's contest was a Birthday Bash in celebration of Harrison Ford’s birthday on July 13. The contest was a “Six Degrees of…” contest. We provided a list of ten actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood, all actors with whom Harrison has been compared, at one time or another.

In an email to contests@ford-jones.com, entrants provided a “six degrees of…” link from each of the ten actors to Harrison Ford. How does this work? Well, let’s take as an example the actor who started the famous “Six Degrees of…” game out to begin with: Kevin Bacon. In our example, we will connect Kevin Bacon to Harrison Ford:

Kevin Bacon was in A Few Good Men, which co-starred Xander Berkeley, who appeared with Harrison in Air Force One (as the treacherous Secret Service agent Gibbs).

That’s just two steps: it was a pretty easy example. The classic actors that we featured in this contest provided a bit more of a challenge. Here are the actors:

1. Clark Gable
2. Cary Grant
3. Spencer Tracy
4. John Wayne
5. Humphrey Bogart
6. Glenn Ford
7. James Stewart
8. Henry Fonda
9. Clint Eastwood
10. Charleton Heston

Clarification: Entrants were asked to connect each actor to Harrison using films and actors only. Television films and miniseries were OK to use, regular television series were not. Also, entrants could use a film in which Harrison appears but is uncredited, but could not use a film in which Harrison's role was completely cut out, even if it's listed in IMDb (Zabriskie Point comes to mind...)

There were two criteria we used to evaluate each entry: FIRST, making the connection from each actor to Harrison in as few steps as possible (the fewer the steps, the higher the score). SECOND, using a variety of Harrison's films and costars... some of Harrison’s films feature cast members who may have worked with several of the ten actors listed (like Alec Guinness, himself a prolific actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood). We regarded entries that varied the actors and films used to link back to Harrison more favorably than entries that linked every actor back to Harrison through one or two films.

The deadline for email entries was July 23, at 12:00 midnight GMT.

We'll show you the prizes, and below that the first place winner's entry (in case you want to try the game yourself). We featured three prizes and three winners. The prizes were: 1) a 36”tall by 24” wide poster (near mint) of Harrison put out by A&E as part of their Biography series, 2) a copy of a new biography of Harrison written by Laurence Caracalla (120 pages, paperback, brand new), and 3) an autographed 8” x 10” photograph of Harrison. The photograph comes with a certificate of authenticity, but as it came from Ebay, we can’t 100% guarantee that it’s authentic. It’s a very nice photo at any rate!

We're happy to report that ALL of the entries we received took our advice to heart, and provided us with variety and creativity in their responses! Annabelle C. was our first place winner, having made connections for all 10 actors back to Harrison in 19 steps total; while Sunny Flower and Maggles tied for second, right behind Annabelle C. with 20 steps each. Essential to Annabelle's win was getting the "trick" question (#6). Here's Annabelle's winning entry:

1) Clark Gable was in "Mutiny on the Bounty," in which Ian Wolfe appeared; Ian Wolfe was in "The Frisco Kid," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

2) Cary Grant was in "North by Northwest," in which Martin Landau appeared; Martin Landau was in "Hollywood Homicide," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

3) Spencer Tracy was in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?," in which Cecil Kellaway appeared; Cecil Kellaway was in "Getting Straight," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

4) John Wayne was in "True Grit," in which Robert Duvall appeared; Robert Duvall was in "Apocalypse Now," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

5) Humphrey Bogart was in "We're No Angels," in which Aldo Ray appeared; Aldo Ray was in "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

6) Glenn Ford was in "A Time for Killing," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

7) James Stewart was in "The Big Sleep," in which Edward Fox appeared; Edward Fox was in "Force 10 from Navarone," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

8) Henry Fonda was in "The Longest Day," in which Sean Connery appeared; Sean Connery was in "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

9) Clint Eastwood was in "Dirty Harry," in which Josef Sommer appeared; Josef Sommer was in "Witness," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

10) Charleton Heston was in " Alaska," in which Thora Birch appeared; Thora Birch was in "Clear and Present Danger," in which Harrison Ford appeared.

A BIG THANKS to all who played!!!

This time out, it was all Indiana Jones to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark (or as George Lucas now calls it, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark).

The contest was totally inspired (Cribbed? Ripped off?) by a similar quiz that is posted over at Quest Experiences, a site that features tons of cool games, scavenger hunts, quizzes, etc.: please do pay them a visit and a big thanks to the folks at that site for giving us this contest idea!! At any rate, we took their Raiders challenge and adapted it: instead of the opening sequence, we focus on the famous truck chase sequence.

So, put your memory of your hundreds of viewings of Raiders to the test! When you follow the link below, you’ll see a series of 25 different pairs of screen shots. The pairs are ordered roughly chronologically as the scene progresses. What you need to do is, for each set of shots, figure out which of the two shots in each pairing comes first in the film.

Ready? OK, take this link and take the challenge!!

We had five entries that got 25/25 correct: Becca, Corellia79, Annabelle C., Andrew G., and Michael R.

This contest asked entrants to identify the source of each of 10 quotes about Harrison Ford. There's a hint to the identify of the colleague making each quote provided for each (hint: think film titles). Can you get all 10 correct? (See answers below.)

1. “He possesses magnetic qualities. He’s capable of filling a room with his personality. If he’d been a plumber and came to fix your tap, he’s a person you would notice.”
- A fearless director who has worked with Harrison twice

2. “He would plan scenes but I never knew what he was going to do next. He does not protect himself. He allows himself to feel something, and lets himself go with it.”
- A late director whose tragic, fatal car accident was not a rollover

3. “ Harrison is more than an actor. He’s an extremely skilled craftsman. It’s like comparing different types of music. You can’t say that classical music is better than jazz or rock ‘n’ roll.”
- A Ford costar with a fatal attraction to Scientology

4. “ Harrison doesn’t care if he has all sorts of black marks on his body. When his face was really red and swollen, I’d just push back close-ups a few days.”
- A director who sometimes finds himself in the line of fire when working with Hollywood actors

5. “In my opinion he is one of our very best actors. Yeah, he’s cool, and yeah, he’s tough, and yeah, he can punch guys. But he can also hurt like hell when he gets hit. And we recognize he has given us back the truth.”
- A director who’s the firm choice amongst Ford and his peers

6. “Cary Grant said he always acted like Cary Grant, and then one day he woke up and he was Cary Grant, and itwas like that with Harri­son. Every once in a while you get these people who are bigger than life. When I met him, it was clear he had that kind of dimensional weight and charm.”
- A Ford costar who writes today from the ‘burbs of Beverly Hills.

7. “Often when Harrison read a line, it was a different reading than I anticipated, but it worked. Somehow, it was more in­spiring or original than what I had in mind.”
- An infamous director who perhaps lives today on a Parisian cul-de-sac.

8. “ Harrison just hasn’t changed. In real life, he’s a very plain and simple person. Harrison only became a movie star because Thomas Edison happened to invent the movie camera. I’ve seen him pick up a hammer and fix a set when the construction man’s not there.
- A director renowned for his amazing stories.

9. “He’s as intelligent an actor as I’ve ever met. The simple questions he asks about the material are so penetrating. He told me very early on that the only thing that interests him in a script is, Can it be a good movie? Does his part advance the action?”
- A director who couldn’t be closer to Harrison.

10. “Our rift was very draining. At the same time, our collaboration was an exciting one, because Harrison is so smart. He’s a very intelligent, incisive, and articulate man. At the end of the day, though, I think I probably short-changed him.”
- A director who is a legend in his own time.

The prize was a new copy of the excellent book Harrison Ford: The Films by Brad Duke! We had two entries with 10/10 correct: Sunny Flower and Corellia79!

Here are the answers:

1. Peter Weir, director of The Mosquito Coast and Witness
2. Alan Pakula, director of Presumed Innocent and The Devil’s Own
3. Anne Archer, costar of Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger
4. Wolfgang Petersen, director of Air Force One
5. Sydney Pollack, director of Sabrina and Random Hearts
6. Carrie Fisher, costar of the Star Wars trilogy
7. Roman Polanski, director of Frantic
8. Steven Spielberg, director of the Indiana Jones trilogy
9. Mike Nichols, director of Working Girl and Regarding Henry
10. Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner