| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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HARVEY
Rating: 
USA. 1950.
Director – Henry Koster, Screenplay – Oscar Brodney & Mary Chase, Based on the Play by Chase, Producer – John Beck, Photography (b&w) – William Daniels, Music – Frank Skinner, Makeup – Bud Westmore, Art Direction – Bernard Herzbrun & Nathan Juran. Production Company – Universal-International.
Cast:
James Stewart (Elwood P. Dowd), Josephine Hull (Veta Louise Simmons), Cecil Kellaway (Dr Willy Chumley), Charles Drake (Dr Lyman Sanderson), Jesse White (Marvin Wilson), Peggy Dow (Miss Kelly), William Lynn (Judge Omar Gaffney), Victoria Horne (Myrtle Mae Simmons)
Plot: Veta Louise Simmons is tired of the social embarrassment caused by her brother Elwood P. Dowd’s obsession with his best friend Harvey who is supposedly an invisible 6’3” rabbit. And so she decides to commit Elwood to a psychiatric institution. But due to a mixup of identities Veta is committed instead and Elwood is allowed to roam free. But in the chaos of trying to find Elwood again, Veta and several of the psychiatric people begin to think that Harvey might be real. Gradually they come to understand the contentment of Elwood’s simple life, which consists of drinking and socializing with strangers.
Harvey is one of the real American feelgood classics. And one can understand why it is such a classic – it, for one, stars James Stewart whose presence is almost mandatory for an American classic of this era. And moreover it stands up in favour of a sedately lazy way of life and the good old American right to be eccentric.
It is a rather charming film and by the end becomes a wholly likeable one. What starts in the first half as a somewhat shrill comedy of errors – much running around and cases of mistaken identity – evens out into a plea for an extraordinarily gentle and placid way of life. James Stewart gets a marvellous little soliloquy about how he and Harvey sit in the bar and people come to them – summed up by his simple philosophy of “I always have a fine time wherever I am, whoever I am with”.
By the end not only do we sympathize with James Stewart, but the worldview of all the psychiatric patients is actually made to seem a far more appealing one than the everyday world. The speech by the mysterious taxi driver about how he and the patients he brings out to the asylum sit and watch sunsets, sometimes even when it is raining, but how on the way back from the asylum the cured patients shout and demand just like ordinary people, is a wonderful piece that seems to make non-conformism the most appealing way of life imaginable. Coming at the time it did, Harvey represents an upbeat post-War mentality – the desire for a giddy gayness, the abandoning of reason and society, and a celebration of eccentric individuality. It is quite amazing that the film’s message, which stands up in favour of drinking, managed to get past the Hays Code though.
The humour in the film comes with marvellously dry understatement. There is the wonderfully charming scene in the bar where a drunken patron goggles at James Stewart having a conversation with his invisible companion and turns to the barman and says “the one on the end’s paying for it.” The film only gives the subtlest of indications about the reality of Harvey’s existence – a hat with two earholes through it; the miraculous taxi driver; the encyclopedia that has a message written in it specifically for Wilson; at the most overt point a door that invisibly opens – but at the end, the film leaves one with the unmistakable conviction of Harvey’s existence.
The film was remade for cable tv, albeit less memorably, as Harvey (1995) starring Harry Anderson as Elwood.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1993
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