Harvey

Movie Review: Harvey

Year of Release: 1950
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Peggy Dow, Charles Drake

Plot outline: Elwood P. Dowd is a mild-mannered, pleasant man, who just happens (he says) to have an invisible friend resembling a 6-foot rabbit (IMDb).

If you're for warm and gentle whimsy, for a charmingly fanciful farce and for a little touch of pathos anent the fateful evanescence of man's dreams, then Harvey is definitely for you. As a matter of fact, even if you're not in a mood for all of these, an hour and three-quarters with Harvey will do you a world of good. And if it does not, then the fault will be less with Harvey than it will be with you. The real virtue of this picture is its wonderfully warm and sympathetic presentation of character and its wistfully sweet appreciation of the innocence of a benevolent lush. As Elwood P. Dowd, the rabbit fancier - Harvey's companion in killing time - James Stewart is utterly beguiling and disarming of all annoyance. A faint touch of seeming imbecility, which is somewhat distasteful at the start, is quickly dispelled as he makes Elwood a man to be admired. And Josephine Hull plays Elwood's sister with such hilarious confusion and daft concern that she brings quite as much to the picture as does Stewart. Victoria Horne is perfect as Elwood's timorous niece and Jesse White is a smash as the looney-bin guard. Cecil Kellaway as an addled doctor, William Lynn as the family counselor, and Peggy Dow and Charles Drake as young attendants do their jobs cheerfully and well. And that goes for everybody. (NYT)

My judgement: *** out of 4 stars