Harvey adapted by Mary Chase from her Pulitzer Winning Play

Harvey adapted by Mary Chase from her Pulitzer Winning Play

A different version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:

-              https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E   and   http://realini.blogspot.ro/

Harvey is a six foot-tall...rabbit.

So you get the idea:

This must be either a comedy or a horror film

You can't make a drama with a hero like that...

Well, they have a tall thing in the White House and that apparition seemed as unlikely as a six foot rabbit, only some months ago.

Elwood P. Down is the protagonist who walks about with and talks to his friend Harvey.

Therefore, Veta Louise Simmons, his sister wants to commit him into a mental institution.

It is understandable, even if the hero is a gentle, kind and likable man?

He is played perfectly by the great James Stewart.

Right at the start, as Veta and her daughter have a party, the maid announces she is leaving.

But why?

And now that we have all these guests!

The problem was that Elwood introduced her to...Harvey.

In fact this is what he tries to do throughout this excellent comedy

Get people to meet his fictional friend.

Elwood is indeed very friendly, sociable and inviting taxi drivers, door men, even one who has spent some time in jail to his home.

And when faced with the option to have this gentle, open, kind man or a new version that would be obtained after a sort of "neutering of the soul" treatment in the Doctor's office, Veta is sure to run fast and try to get the right man...

What does she opt for?

The answer is in the film

The humor is extraordinary.

From the simple to the sophisticated, which right there in the main theme and the decision that Veta and we have to take in life...

Should we be satisfied with very good, psychology calls this satisficer?

Or insist to have only The Best, which applies to maximizers?

Elwood is a wonderful man, even if he pretends or does see a giant rabbit.

Veta says at one point that she has heard about Harvey so much that she sees him now and then.

This is trouble for her.

She mentions this in the cabinet of a doctor and she is taken in the institution instead of her brother.

But she says it is the brother who is sick

That's what they all say

In the bar, Elwood talks to Harvey.

A man drinking decides to stop, seeing as he does not understand what's going on and assumes he has had too much.

When the bartender says he has to pay, he responds

The man at the end of the bar will pay...that is where Harvey is supposed to sit

In a taxi, the driver is in the front and Elwood in the back talking to his rabbit friend

It is nice Harvey

The name is Henry, says the taxi driver

It is Henry, Harvey

No, just plain Henry

The hilarious confusion is caused by the fact that the driver does not see anyone except Elwood in the back

And there are plenty of other gems.

The painting of Elwood and Harvey has replaced the one of grandmother.

So Veta talks to another doctor assuming it is her mother at her back, on the wall.

But it isn't.

The doctor sees it isn't

And the behavior of Veta is obviously strange in the context...

She carries on about art and its magic and the dream that paintings have in them and photographs don't.

But she has no idea she is talking about the ever present...

Harvey the Pooka