Harry's War

HARRY'S WAR is one of the only American films ever made that really attempts to reveal the corruption in our governmental system. Other than Frank Capra's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON there has never really been a studio film made that tells it how it really is. And although this film only scratches the surface of how absolutely corrupt and unconstitutional the I.R.S. is, it does deliver a shocking amount of truth, within a film community that is undeniably censored and most of the time pure propaganda.

It's amazing the power that film has. It people saw this film in mass. It would start a revolution.

I saw this moving when it first came out in the movie theater, on the big screen. In all the study I've done on the IRS, what little facts the agents spill, are accurate. The IRS does run on bluff. At the end of the movie, I witnessed something I've never seen in a movie theater, although I admit I don't go to many movies. The entire audience stood to their feet and applauded and cheered. This movie tells the truth, and elicits the Americans' true feelings about being robbed and brutalized by the IRS. It took me a long time to find this on video, and now I am having trouble finding it on DVD. The reason? The IRS doesn't want this information out there available to the public. That said, I want everyone to know that the income tax is only applicable to "US citizens," and the Internal Revenue Code defines the United States as "Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands . . ." and other US territories. However, the US uses forms to get us to check off that we are "U.S. citizen," which we are not, so you are actually volunteering to pay taxes when you mistakenly state you are a "US citizen." Stop doing that! You are a state citizen.

In the mid-1980s I once saw part of an interview with David Ogden Stiers, who played the IRS agent/director in this great film. He was asked about what his favorite role had been, and I got this idea that the interviewer was expecting him to say something about his character in M*A*S*H. But instead he paused for a second, and said "There was this movie about the IRS, and I was the biggest [bleep] in the office...." at which point they cut to a commercial.

Unfortunately, I didn't bother to note what program this was, and it's been so many years ago that I'm not even sure I'm recalling everything right. But it was funny enough to remember all this time.

By-the-way, the Harry character gives a pretty good speech about his position near the end of the film -- it's not really all that radical or "anti-government" so much as it is anti-bureaucratic abuse and pro-freedom. Highly recommended, overall.

There are still a few sources (some online) with copies of this movie available -- you just have to look around.

Regular viewers of The History Channel will quickly recognize Ed Hermann as the host and narrator of many of their programs, and as a spokesman for Chrysler/Dodge commercials. It's easy to forget that he's a prolific and talented actor. "Harry's War" is one of his best. Harry Johnson does something we've all wanted to do: level the big guns at the IRS! David Ogden Stiers is great as the IRS supervisor who has forgotten the "servant" part of Public Servant. "I'm the United States Government, Johnson. Who are you?" he says. Like so many other bureaucrats, he's forgotten who he really works for, and Harry sets out to remind him. This little gem of a film should be broadcast every year at tax filing time. Good luck trying to find a copy on tape!

A fascinating memento of the zeitgeist of the early eighties, made when Ronald Reagan was running for President and released after his inauguration declaring that government was the problem and taxes were evil (a mindset that has remained the received wisdom for the past forty years and is one reason the richest nation on earth was so woefully unprepared for the current coronavirus pandemic). Yet when one of the characters collapses in court it's paramedics paid out of tax dollars that are called in to aid the stricken victim.

The film has been compared to Capra, and while Geraldine Page's crazy old aunt (and her eccentric family) are far weirder than Lionel Barrymore's brood in 'You Can't It With You', it uses Capra's device of giving the task of stating the case for taxation to shifty-looking spokesmen (in Capra's film hawk-faced Charles Lane, in 'Harry's War' a smarmy David Ogden Stiers) easily rebutted by an Everyman figure (here ironically named 'Johnson' like the great reforming president of the sixties) declaring that "Hitler would've loved the IRS" rather than the cold-eyed plutocrats that are the real winners when taxes are low.