ViewGuide

Created Jul 08, 2016 09:47PM PST • Edited Jul 25, 2016 11:10PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Art Carney reached late career nirvana as Harry the cat lover in Harry and Tonto. Tonto? His ginger tabby. I prefer gray tabbies, so kinda understand his ardor. Carney won his sole Oscar as a gray-haired Best Actor.

   Paul Mazursky’s second big directorial hit after Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is very 1974 hip. A road movie, in which an old man travels to see his grown children and all their tzuris, it’s very Zen Americana.

   Larry Hagman handing Art Carney a ten-gallon hat is a classic scene in anyone’s book, especially with Tonto in the picture. Harry and Tonto are pleasant company in the great movie that bears their names.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Art Carney won the Best Acting Oscar as Harry Coombes. Tonto is Tonto. Literally. Tonto is Tonto. One scene among many: Harry arrives home, locks the door. Tonto goes to his litter box and Harry gets comfortable in his easy chair. Masterful. Tonto gets his 15 minutes at CinemaCats.

   Tremendous Cast Behind Him

   • Ellen Burstyn plays his daughter. She’s got issues.
   • Larry Hagman plays his LA son.
   • Phil Bruns plays his NY son, Dolly Jonah his wife. Cliff DeYoung & Joshua Mostel play his sons. Mostel stands out by playing mute.
   • Geraldine Fitzgerald
   • Chief Dan George as Sam Two Feathers
   • Melanie Mayron was just a teen when she played a memorably mixed-up teen.
   • Barbara Rhodes plays the hooker who picks up a hitchhiking Harry and Tonto. Harry gets lucky.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    One of the great films from the first half of the Seventies, Harry and Tonto represents filmmaker Paul Mazursky at his best. He mixes deeply human touches – the son becomes father to the man – with shallow ones – the Ironsides obsession.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

    Josh Greenfield’s only full screenwriting credit is for Harry and Tonto. Mazursky wrote a dozen or more movies, including the treasured Moscow on the Hudson with Robin Williams.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

    Art Carney opens the soundtrack singing.

    • The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
    • Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)

    Some lovely instrumentals follow.

    • Give My Regards to Broadway
    • Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)
    • Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
    • Long Train Runnin’
    • Roamin’ in the Gloamin’
    • Tea for Two

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    His car belches smoke.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.4

    While somewhat surreal, Harry and Tonto is a Seventies time capsule, recognizable but very different.

    Men lorded over women back in the Seventies, girls too, a state of affairs clear even to me, a grown man.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.1

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0