Give 'em Hell, Harry!

I am not surprised that this film earned it's star, James Whitmore, an Academy Award nomination. I would think that it would be better aired on television. He would have easily earned an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Television Film. It is better to get an Academy Award nomination than an Emmy Award but I still think it's one of the best performances that I have seen by an actor in years. James Whitmore really captures the essence and presence of President Harry Truman. In his brilliant performance, staged and film, he is alive in a role that has consumed him. You really believe that he is Harry Truman after awhile. I still think it would have been seen more by people on television than in the cinemas because this little film has that kind of power. I am sure that many more people would have seen it and that is the key to ensuring it's legacy. I am glad that they released it in cinemas but they probably made little or no money on it. It would have been better to have aired it on television. One man performance even with James Whitmore's talent and genius could not hinge the fact that he is the only person on stage. While brilliant to watch, today's standards would never allow somebody in a one person show unless it's a comedian. As for Truman's power, this film is an excellent tool that can be used in the history classrooms to show this former President. I love how he talks about his wife Bess, his mother-in-law Mother Wallace, FDR, and others. Truman also talks about the klan, racism, and others in this performance that he will be best remembered for.

A filmed version of a one-man stage play (filmed before a live audience), James Whitmore's Oscar-nominated performance is a rare treasure. As Truman, Whitmore gives rapid-fire comments on the highlights of an exceptional politician's career. Truman explains his justification for dropping the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, and his reasons for firing General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. He talks of his wife, Bess (whom he refers to as "the Boss"), his home in Missouri, and his early days as a soldier in World War I, and a county commissioner in Kansas City. He offers us his views of Truman's contemporaries, both good (Winston Churchill, George C. Marshall) and bad (Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon). Whitmore is a joy to watch. If you can find this rare film it is well worth seeing.

This movie was made the year I was born, and I only saw it because it happened to be on at midnight on some non-affiliated channel back around 1990. I taped this movie off television, and just about wore the tape out watching it. I did not know much about Truman prior to seeing this movie, but after having watched it at least 100 times, Whitmore makes me feel like I knew the man. Even as a teenager in the early '90s, this was one of my favorite movies. Truman clearly had a quick wit, and it comes through clearly in this masterpiece biopic. If this movie is not released on DVD or some other digital medium, I fear that it will not be seen by future generations. I have never seen it on television since that night almost twenty years ago. I saw the Shawshank Redemption (which was also an excellent movie), and I thought that Whitmore was even better in "Give 'Em Hell Harry".

I lived through this time. James Whitmore did such a good job he even made you think he looked like old Harry.

As a twenty two year old enjoying a blissful summer in 1982, I came home from a day at Zuma Beach and this is what channel 5 was showing. Back then, my hobby was to audio tape(VCRs will rare then)stuff on TV. I recorded about the last twenty minutes of it. His story about McCarthy and his reading of the Tennyson poem were parts I've committed to memory. since my mom had a stroke, I recently began driving her car and it has a cassette player in it. I looked in my dusty old tape box and there it was. I have been playing it over and over again, like I did 26 years ago. Whitemore is priceless as Truman.

A side note: After the Truman show ends on my tape, the next thing you hear is Dan Akroyd as Richard Nixon on a SNL sketch where he turns off the TV in disgust at how Rip Torn is portraying him in a TV movie: Akroyd blurts out on my tape: "Well that was a piece of crap"