Pornokitsch

Whether or not Harvey is real or a figment of Dowd's imagination is immaterial.  What matters is that Dowd, for whatever reason, is a nice man who makes life a little nicer for the people around him.  Harvey's message is simple:  you can be right or you can be happy.  Towards the film's conclusion, Dowd, played with a sharply disarming vacancy by Jimmy Stewart, makes this theme manifest when he tells a psychiatrist, "years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me." 

What is particularly interesting about Harvey is the sharp edge beneath its sweet story.  If the  rabbit isn't real, then what we're left with is a story about an eccentric middle-aged bachelor of means who spends his days haunting the local dives and bringing home strangers - and potentially dangerous ones, at that - for dinner.  Indeed, if Harvey isn't real, Dowd's habit of ordering two martinis at a time begins to look more like addict behavior than harmless eccentricity.  Dowd's sister and niece live with him and are dependent upon his largess, but his idiosyncrasies are destroying their social lives, particularly his niece's chances at marriage.  Without his knowledge or consent, Dowd's sister and a family friend, Judge Gaffney, revoke his power of attorney and make plans to commit him indefinitely to a local sanatorium.  This would give the sister complete control over Dowd's fairly sizeable fortune - which he inherited from their mother, who wrote the sister out of her will entirely.  The movie itself shies away from this darkness, making it apparent that, although he's invisible, Harvey is, indeed more than just a figment of Dowd's imagination.  But the fact remains that Dowd is a classic alcoholic, with bottles of liquor hidden around his house and a tendency to make every conversation revolve around getting a drink or two.  

Fortunately, Harvey is real, so the above is entirely academic. 

Stewart's genuinely sweet, low-key performance as Elwood P. Dowd is the movie's real highlight, although the performances from the ensemble are universally solid.  Of special note is Josephine Hull as Dowd's sister Veta.  Hull and Stewart starred together in 1944's Arsenic and Old Lace, and their chemistry is superb.

We tend to take the piss out of things more often than not here on Pornokitsch, but one of the things we share a real and fairly unmitigated affection for is this movie.  It's dark, it's sweet, it's funny and it's sincerely satisfying without being either preachy or saccharine.  Harvey is a true Pornokitsch Classic.²

Geek Note:

1. Jimmy Stewart was himself 6'4" and although the script retained Harvey's original height of 6'3", Stewart spends the movie looking up at him.  In a 1990 interview Stewart confessed that he privately reimagined Harvey as 6'8".

2. Jared keeps trying to get me to define "Pornokitsch Classic."  Frankly, a PK Classic is pretty much anything we (erm -mostly I) like almost unreservedly.  Even, (actually, especially), when there are many reasons to be reserved.  Harvey is the unusual PK Classic in that it's genuinely a good movie.