Harry in Your Pocket

Michael Sarrazin plays Ray Haulihan, a hard working but not typically efficient pickpocket, who lifts the watch of Sandy Coletto (Trish Van Devere) one day in a train station. This act sort of binds them together, and since they're both now in need of some finances (in going to confront him, she left her other valuables vulnerable), they go to meet with Casey (Walter Pidgeon), who's recruiting members for a team of thieves that will be masterminded by Harry (James Coburn, smooth as always). Casey and Harry are veterans of the pocket picking game, and therefore experts, who teach the young couple everything there is to know about it.

Much of the joy here lies in learning the lingo and watching the Harry / Casey / Sandy / Ray team in action as they finally start to gel. Tony Giorgio, who has a small role as a detective, served as the technical adviser, and the whole premise is fascinating enough to reel viewers in, with the presentation by writers James David Buchanan & Ronald Austin and producer / director Bruce Geller remaining largely matter-of-fact and fairly low key for the duration. Although this was marketed as a comedy, "Harry in Your Pocket" is actually pretty serious most of the time, although it's not without laughs. It benefits greatly from location shooting on a few American and Canadian locations (Seattle, Salt Lake City, Victoria) and good, straightforward storytelling, not to mention a wonderful music score by the ever dependable Lalo Schifrin. Hairstyles and fashions may help to date the film, but this is never a big distraction.

The quartet of principal actors all shines. Van Devere is very, very sexy, and Coburn is compulsively watchable as usual. But Pidgeon is a special treat as the endearing old timer who unfortunately happens to have a cocaine habit. (He also played a pickpocket in his penultimate film, "Two-Minute Warning".) Top character actor Michael C. Gwynne ("Payday", "The Terminal Man") has a one scene role as a fence.

A very fine film, overall, that deserves to be better known. It was the only theatrical filmmaking effort for Geller, better known as a TV veteran who'd created the classic series 'Mission: Impossible' and 'Mannix'.

Eight out of 10.

Hollywood in the oughties could never make a film like Harry In Your Pocket. With its 'glorification' of pickpocketing, its characters who are utterly charming and utterly without remorse, and its downbeat ending, this film would end up on the trash heap or go straight to cable. It's a reminder of how glorious American film was in the late 60s and early 70s, and how straitjacketed it is at present. Not quite a classic, but still worth catching for James Coburn and Walter Pidgeon.

The only other film that I saw where a pickpocket is a hero is Pickup On South Street and the stylish James Coburn of Harry In Your Pocket would look down on Richard Widmark. Widmark worked alone and lived hand to mouth until he happened to dip on a Communist spy and got some atomic secrets in that film.

We're dealing with something totally different here. James Coburn in the title role will dip into your's and everyone else's pocket. After watching this film I'm glad I carry my wallet in my front pocket where a strange movement there will set off definite alarms. You watch Harry In Your Pocket and NO ONE will ever carry a wallet in a back pocket again.

Coburn and an old associate Walter Pidgeon take in a pair of young trainees, Michael Sarrazin and Trish Van Devere, and things work out for a bit. But soon Van Devere becomes an object of rivalry for the team. Coburn also is known far and wide by law enforcement, but they can never catch him with the goods.

Some nice scenic cinematography in Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Victoria, British Columbia is in this film as three of the places where the team plys it's trade. Coburn is a man getting on himself and jealous of young Sarrazin. His only real attachment is to the elderly Pidgeon who now just serves as a lookout for marks and a steerer. Pidgeon is rather touching as the old crook for whom there really is no retirement due to the life he's chosen to lead.

For a look at an elegant yet also seamy side of a crooked business you can't go wrong with Harry In Your Pocket.

I caught "Harry in your Pocket" on an on-demand cable channel, and I hadn't seen it since its original theatrical release. I have to say that I enjoyed it, partly because it is a great example of the early '70s antihero type of film, and because as a kid who grew up in Seattle where the beginning of the movie is filmed, it was cool to see the old buildings (long since replaced by skyscrapers) and the old restaurants like the Brasserie Pittsbourg and Rosellini's 410.

Much of the film is dated, particularly the hairstyles and the clothes, but not so much that ruins the overall enjoyment of the film.

Most people will enjoy the dissection of the act of pickpocketing, and the entire culture of the pickpockets, which is painstakingly explained. While amoral, the characters are likable, and the scene never gets too heavy, even though there is conflict.

The ending is typically downbeat, which like "Butch Cassidy" and others was a hallmark of these antihero type of films. Strangely, the movie was marketed as a comedy, but it really wasn't, particularly by today's standards. Not hugely important or groundbreaking, just a great example of Coburn's work and similar films of that era.

How can you enjoy a film about pickpockets that isn't a comedy, but a deep, emotional analysis of the fall of two master cannons (street slang for pickpockets) and the training of the next generation?

Easy.

Offbeat, it wasn't shot in glorious LA or New York or Chicago, but in Salt Lake City, the plain states and Canada. Featuring the always intense James Coburn as the titular character, with the great and glorious Walter Pidgeon as his aging, cocaine addicted mentor, supported by then rising stars Michael Sarrazan (fresh off his success in "The Groundstar Conspiracy") and Trish VanDevere (pre-George C.Scott), it took a peek behind the veil at one of the world's oldest professions, in your face robbery without the victim every knowing it.

Light and breezy during the small capers, but dark and brooding during the intervals, we see a changing of the guard, but one not born of pomp and ceremony, but of despair, loneliness and resignation.

The other posters are right. It would never be made these days. No sex, violence, guns, backstabbing, revenge or enough neon. So, hopefully, they'll never try to remake it and ruin the memory of a classic.