Harry and Walter Go to New York

When I saw Harry and Walter Go to New York in 1976, I liked it because it was fun seeing serious actors playing comedy. It had Diane Keaton, who, back in the day, made my gums sweat. I had no idea what was in store for me when I saw it again as a middle-aged adult.

It was so very awful. Same fine cast to appreciate, but the movie just sat there like a blob of cat puke on the rug that not even the chihuahua will scarf up.

Yup, that bad.

And, considering how it went so over-budget it almost sank Columbia Pictures, you would think, you would hope that there would be some evidence the money had been used effectively. You would want your entertainment dollars (three and a half of them, back then) to be for something.

You would be wrong.

Aren't we lucky that, for some reason or another, you never see Harry and Walter Go to New York offered on even the Later than Late Show?

This film is one of those films in which the elements fail to come together. It is clearly an attempt to recreate the lightning in a bottle of The Sting some years earlier. However it does not measure up for a number of reasons.

Firstly the truly boring title does the film no favours. It is not surprising the audience stayed away despite this having obvious star power. Like The Sting the main stars are a couple of con men. The comedy is very broad, almost slapstick at times. This tends to undermine any tension in the film. And I'm not convinced that either Caan or Gould have any aptitude for this kind of broad comedy (and neither, I think, do they, if their subsequent career moves are an indication).

However, there are certain times when nastiness creeps in, the most obvious example is when Gould is locked in a safe. Yes, that's comedy gold, having a man almost suffocate to death.

Not only are the con men much more buffoonish than in The Sting, but they are also more contemptible. When we first see them, they are stealing money from ordinary members of the public. Why on earth would we be sympathetic to their escapades from then on? While in The Sting the objective was to rob another (and worse) villain, here the target is a normal bank containing real people's money. An attempt to show the manager as corrupt and lecherous does not undermine the fact that the bank contains real people's money and at a time when banks could go out of business.

Ultimately, no one really cares about these two thieves and whether they succeed in their venture.

This is not gonna be a review more like a comment... This movie was not one of the best I've ever seen but because of this movie I exist. My parents were in this movie and met for the first time. This prison is in my hometown. Because of this movie and my parents' ability to be extras, (specifically my dad who looked like Robert Redford from Jeremiah Johnson), they moved in together after 4 days. 46 years later they are still married! Ted Cassidy actually walked up to my dad and called him Bob because he thought he was Robert Redford! How cool is that! You can actually see both my parents in their respective roles in this movie especially my dad as he has a kid on his shoulders in the beginning right up against the prison wall.

"Harry and Walter Go to New York" is growing on me. It's not as good as it should have been but it does have a lot going for it. The cast is very good and they all do a nice job. The set design and the costumes are top-notch. But for some reason, "Harry and Walter..." doesn't work as well as it should have. Sometimes a movie's production values and smother it's humor. I think that might have happened here. Also, especially in the first half, the editing seemed off. A lot of the jokes were ruined with too quick cutaways. That said, I do enjoy a lot of this movie. It's not a total write-off. It's definitely worth watching.

Made on the HELLO DOLLY set, this bumbling farce looks sensational and in some ways is actually as lush as DOLLY itself. With a spectacular cast and some very funny lines - and especially the genuinely hilarious NOBODY'S PERFECT song - H&W somehow just misses being really really good. Any opportunity to see Carol Kane on screen is a must. Barely released in 1976 this film is worth seeing in glorious widescreen, just for the visuals around the DOLLY set. It actually looks as though you will see Streisand singing somewhere in the background. It is probably the only two million dollar film with a three million dollar set. Deserving of a lavish DVD release it could easily become a collectors item for many reasons...if only the comedy was genuinely one of them. The ideas are all there and the cast and the lushness, but you just fell it is all a bit forced.