The 1970s was a great time for costume crime movies. Some were serious, some were comic, some wobbled from one extreme to the other. But for every classy "The Sting," "The Great Train Robbery," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" or "Murder on the Orient Express" there was a "Harry and Walter Go to New York."
Plot: two "entertainers" playing the lowest possible vaudeville houses (Elliott Gould and James Caan, who have no chemistry together but were inexplicably huge stars at the time) . . . Well, their names are Harry and Walter and they go to New York. Why? To rob a bank. So, there.
Gould and Caan are terrible. Gould could play comedy, I've seen it. And this movie was made before he became catatonic. He has no excuse for his performance. Caan was funnier being filled with lead at a toll booth. It's highly ranked but "The Godfather" has a lot to answer for.
Now, this flick has a few good things going for it. Look for the silver lining.
It's beautifully shot. It has wonderful production values (you know a movie's in trouble when that's one of the first things someone points out; it's like saying "For a fat guy you don't sweat much.") The grapevine has it, some of the sets were handed down from the overblown and horribly miscast (except for Michael Crawford) "Hello, Dolly." But you can't tell it by me. "Hello Dolly" was bad, but it's head and shoulders above "Harry and Walter," which lacks the saving grace of Louis Armstrong belting out a song. To be fair, Armstrong was deceased at the time but if they'd brought him back and propped him up he'd still have been more appealing than Harry or Walter.
Lots of the music is good. What a waste. I've seen far better movies go begging for good music. Life's not fair.
"Harry and Walter" has a dearth of humorous lines; but I smiled at one where Gould is whining there are snakes in the woods, because the morning I saw this thing I found a snake shed at my front porch. And there it stays until it melts.
Then there's *Michael Caine,* who alone raises this movie from the scrap heap, with a superb performance. Every time he appears he lights up the screen. Maybe it's because everything around him is so drear. One of the two stars I gave this fiasco belongs to Caine alone. Bravo, Mr. Caine. But no encores.
The film is chock full of notable character players. My favorite is Dennis Dugan, who played in the short-lived TV series "Ritchie Brockleman." Yes, such a series was broadcast but I see no reason to look it up for proper spelling. And the great "No one can eat just one" Jack Gilford shows up. Too bad.
While the movie has the feel of one of Blake Edwards' lousier pictures, with everyone overacting (apart from Caine) and screaming over each others' lines and occasionally pontificating (will someone shut that harridan Diane Keaton up???), it's really lots worse than that. It's somewhere deep beneath "The Front Page," a dog starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Austin Pendleton and Carol Burnett (allegedly when "The Font Page" was shown on a flight she was on, Burnett apologized to the people on the plane; let's see Diane try that one!)
But, hey, even Michael Caine has turned in a lousy performance or two (anyone see "Blame it on Rio"? That one had only 2 good things about it and they belonged to Michelle Johnson, not Caine who, as he might say, was "bloody awful" in "Rio"). Here he's just wonderful but that doesn't mean he should get high hat about it.
According to the trivia on this site, "Harry and Walter" was HEAVILY re-edited after disastrous previews. We can tell some scenes are clipped to the quick. I can only say that if there was more of this mess, I'm glad I was spared it.
The DVD I saw didn't have so much as a main page. You slide it in the cup holder and the movie plays without preamble. That tells you what the company that put it out thought of it.
Personal note: when I was an innocent child I went to see a matinee movie and sat through a trailer for "Harry and Walter Go to New York." I thought it was one of the worst things I ever witnessed. I was right. The only reason I watched it 46 years later was because I was reading about the real Adam Worth and wanted to see Caine's take on the character. Thank heavens for fast forward.
Plot: two "entertainers" playing the lowest possible vaudeville houses (Elliott Gould and James Caan, who have no chemistry together but were inexplicably huge stars at the time) . . . Well, their names are Harry and Walter and they go to New York. Why? To rob a bank. So, there.
Gould and Caan are terrible. Gould could play comedy, I've seen it. And this movie was made before he became catatonic. He has no excuse for his performance. Caan was funnier being filled with lead at a toll booth. It's highly ranked but "The Godfather" has a lot to answer for.
Now, this flick has a few good things going for it. Look for the silver lining.
It's beautifully shot. It has wonderful production values (you know a movie's in trouble when that's one of the first things someone points out; it's like saying "For a fat guy you don't sweat much.") The grapevine has it, some of the sets were handed down from the overblown and horribly miscast (except for Michael Crawford) "Hello, Dolly." But you can't tell it by me. "Hello Dolly" was bad, but it's head and shoulders above "Harry and Walter," which lacks the saving grace of Louis Armstrong belting out a song. To be fair, Armstrong was deceased at the time but if they'd brought him back and propped him up he'd still have been more appealing than Harry or Walter.
Lots of the music is good. What a waste. I've seen far better movies go begging for good music. Life's not fair.
"Harry and Walter" has a dearth of humorous lines; but I smiled at one where Gould is whining there are snakes in the woods, because the morning I saw this thing I found a snake shed at my front porch. And there it stays until it melts.
Then there's *Michael Caine,* who alone raises this movie from the scrap heap, with a superb performance. Every time he appears he lights up the screen. Maybe it's because everything around him is so drear. One of the two stars I gave this fiasco belongs to Caine alone. Bravo, Mr. Caine. But no encores.
The film is chock full of notable character players. My favorite is Dennis Dugan, who played in the short-lived TV series "Ritchie Brockleman." Yes, such a series was broadcast but I see no reason to look it up for proper spelling. And the great "No one can eat just one" Jack Gilford shows up. Too bad.
While the movie has the feel of one of Blake Edwards' lousier pictures, with everyone overacting (apart from Caine) and screaming over each others' lines and occasionally pontificating (will someone shut that harridan Diane Keaton up???), it's really lots worse than that. It's somewhere deep beneath "The Front Page," a dog starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Austin Pendleton and Carol Burnett (allegedly when "The Font Page" was shown on a flight she was on, Burnett apologized to the people on the plane; let's see Diane try that one!)
But, hey, even Michael Caine has turned in a lousy performance or two (anyone see "Blame it on Rio"? That one had only 2 good things about it and they belonged to Michelle Johnson, not Caine who, as he might say, was "bloody awful" in "Rio"). Here he's just wonderful but that doesn't mean he should get high hat about it.
According to the trivia on this site, "Harry and Walter" was HEAVILY re-edited after disastrous previews. We can tell some scenes are clipped to the quick. I can only say that if there was more of this mess, I'm glad I was spared it.
The DVD I saw didn't have so much as a main page. You slide it in the cup holder and the movie plays without preamble. That tells you what the company that put it out thought of it.
Personal note: when I was an innocent child I went to see a matinee movie and sat through a trailer for "Harry and Walter Go to New York." I thought it was one of the worst things I ever witnessed. I was right. The only reason I watched it 46 years later was because I was reading about the real Adam Worth and wanted to see Caine's take on the character. Thank heavens for fast forward.