MovieChat Forums > Harvey (1950) Discussion > I Wanted To Like It

I Wanted To Like It

posted 11 years ago by osully67
6 replies | jump to latest

I had very high expectations for this movie. I'm a big Jimmy Stewart fan and I was intrigued by the imaginary rabbit. But I really thought it was horrible. The sister was the most annoying movie character I've ever seen (even beating Rachel McAdams in "Midnight in Paris.") She was blubbering and hysterical the whole time. Can't believe she won an Oscar.

The thing is, the filmmakers could have made the sister and her daughter sympathetic. I'm sure it would put a damper on your social life if your brother was struggling with mental illness. This is a real issue that could be very stressful- but I didn't care for them at all because they were so over-the-top shallow.

And I hate farcical situations, like the mix-up at the mental hospital. I enjoy absurdity, but in the right context. The whole event had me rolling my eyes.

I liked Jimmy Stewart and the idea of Harvey. If they could just replace every other character in the cast and make an entirely new plot, then maybe I would like it.

[–] coreylahey 11 years ago

Everyone has their own opinion, I love it but I see where you are coming from.

[–] lauriegonzalez11 10 years ago

I take it you've never seen the play.

[–] Kent_Kainer 10 years ago

I wanted to like it too but some dialogs and actions were too dumb or too clumsy.

One I remember is the wife of the doc looking up pooka in a book and right when she found it she didnt take 5 secs to read it, despite her fierce interest just minutes before, but remembered she has to leave.
What odd behaviour.

Another was the behaviour of the doctor S. when he thought he made a mistake to lock up Elwood and only let him finish talking when he was not about to talk about Harvey. So clumsy because its too obvious and not naturally at all.

And there were more such things.

Well, it may be a fun play for a stage and even an entertaining movie in its time but from my point of today it lacks intelligence in enough dialogs and behaviour that it ended as average movie for me.

---
Lincoln Lee: I lost a partner.
Peter Bishop: I lost a universe!

[–] lizcarlo87 10 years ago

This is one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart movies. We all like different movies. Different strokes

[–] caller85071 9 years ago

I recently watched it, and it has also become one of my favorite Stewart films; he was great in the role.

Usually the farcical stuff like the mixup at the hospital would put me off, but I thought it worked well for this film. I'm not surprised Mary Chase, the playwright, also wrote children's book. This felt very much like a children's story-something that allowed me to let the nonsensical stuff slide-centered around adults, and I thought it was done pretty well.

[–] PeterBlues (790) 8 years ago

i see where he's coming from too, i'm surprised because i expected these boards to be full of comments of how some of these things are portrayed and dealt with, i thought it was disturbing and it completely overshadows what could otherwise be a pleasant movie, i loath remakes, and i never thought i'd say this, but this could use an update. i used to like it, mainly because i now realised as i re watched it that i had only seen the last twenty minutes before, the last part between the re occurring actor from twilight zone and stewart was memorable, so it has its moments. i got it on a vhs tape which actually has an introduction from the star (a much older stewart) made specifically for the vhs tape (universal the classic collection). its funny how the mother and daughter both spoke like grannies, guess that happens in old movies, that was his big sister? indeed... she appeared about 30 years older than him. i wonder if this is like frankenstein so that some people call the main role harvey.

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