“Oh they’re not oafs Jack. They would require practice to become oafs.” Adam Worth
Set in 1892 Harry and Walter are a vaudeville act who suddenly find themselves sent to prison after Harry starts pilfering from their audience. Once in jail they start working as the servants of the world famous bank robber Adam Worth. When Worth receives a visit from journalist Lissa Chestnut, Harry and Walter take the opportunity to try and take a photo of Worth’s latest plan for a major heist, but burn it down in the process. With Worth furious with them they manage to escape prison and set off to track down the photo they took of the plans at the newspaper office. With Worth soon on their heals and willing to go to any length to retrieve his plans Harry and Walter are clearly out of their depth, but with some unlikely allies they attempt to beat the great bank robber to complete the heist.
Harry and Walter Go To New York has arguably one of the most impressive and talented casts of any film I’ve covered so far in this blog. Harry and Walter are played by James Caan and Elliot Gould with Caine taking the role of Adam Worth. The lead cast is completed with Diane Keaton as Lissa and there are a whole host of wonderful character actors in more minor roles. With such a talented and high-profile cast I would have expected the film to be better known and the fact that I had to rig up a complicated system to be able to watch a US DVD as it has no release elsewhere perhaps gives an indication of the lack of esteem it is generally held in.
There are certainly lots of problems with the film, which is a shame because it actually starts off very strongly. We begin with Harry and Walter performing a song and dance act on stage to general silence from their audience. Both Caan and Gould are terrific in a well choreographed piece that bags some early laughs. The song is repeated numerous times through the film and is always a welcome addition of a little extra energy particularly as Gould in particular is a joy to watch perform. The film then cuts to introduce Worth in a scene that again works very well with the police being very apologetic for the fact they have to arrest him and Caine delivering a classy performance.
Unfortunately the problems in the film also start pretty early into it’s running time. Firstly the cuts from scene to scene are incredibly jolting. The first time it happened I imagined it may have been an editing issue, but so regularly does it occur that I think it goes deeper than that and showcases some greater failings in the film. The script feels particularly baggy and running in at just under two hours is certainly far longer than it needs to be. With this in mind I suspect the issue with the editing comes down to a difficulty in cutting the film into anything like a coherent shape.
The film is aiming to be a farce, but in the main it never really succeeds in that aim. The most successful farces are full of energy and the funny elements are built very quickly on top of each other for maximum effect. In Harry and Walter Go To New York there are definitely funny elements there, but they are too thinly spread and the energy just never builds. The closest it gets to fulfilling it’s aims is towards the end of the film when the two leads hijack a play to distract from the heist their friends are attempting to complete. As initially Harry, and then Walter too, take it in turns to leap on the stage and improvise characters in song you start to get a glimpse of what the film could have been with a little more direction.
Another significant problem with the film is the character of Adam Worth. When we first meet him he is every inch the gentleman thief with a happy relationship with both the police and even more remarkably with the owners of the banks he robs thanks to a deal he has which sees him return the securities he has stolen for a small commission. He is a celebrity who is given a hero’s welcome when arriving at the prison and quickly sets himself up in great comfort with the wardens at his every beck and call and Harry and Walter employed as his servants. The problem comes when his plans are destroyed and Worth reveals himself to be a genuinely nasty and unpleasant character. I’ve mentioned before in my blogs how one of Caine’s great skills as an actor is to flip from a being a charming likeable character into a genuine threatening presence in the blink of an eye and he shows that brilliantly again here. Unfortunately though on this occasion it doesn’t fit in with the tone of the film and quickly sucks any comedic goodwill out of the action. It also means that the suggested romantic connection between him and Lissa not only feels tacked on to the end, but totally unbelievable given what we know of their respective characters.
Those issues aren’t really anything Caine can be blamed for and he is typically excellent throughout. He exhibits a convincing superiority over everybody, exuding charm when the script requires it of him. Ultimately although the film feels like a huge waste of the talent on show it is that talent that manages to make the film at least somewhat watchable. As well as Caine, Elliot Gould is a particular joy. He is terrific in the musical numbers and has a sparkle in his eyes throughout. Caan is also very good as Harry and it is good fun watching him in a somewhat atypical role as a song and dance man. The Harry and Walter relationship is essentially the films take on the Laurel and Hardy relationship with Harry, like Hardy seemingly the brains of the outfit despite in reality being just as out of his depth as Walter. That pastiche is most obvious in a short little scene as the pair argue, striking each other with their hats and twisting each other’s noses that is right off the page of any Laurel and Hardy film. The least well served by the script of the main cast is Diane Keaton. Her talent is very evident as she goes into a rage in an early scene with Caine and she comes across as a real force of nature. From that point on though she is somewhat marginalised and in theme with the rest of the film it feels like a great missed opportunity.
I mentioned the remarkable array of wonderful character actors who make appearances throughout the film and the list really is incredible. Charles Durning (Dog Day Afternoon, The Sting), Lesley Ann Warren (Clue), Val Avery (The Magnificent Seven), Jack Gilford (Cocoon), David Proval (Mean Streets, The Shawshank Redemption), Burt Young (Rocky, Chinatown) and Ted Cassidy (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Addams Family) all make appearances of various sizes. There is also an early film appearance for Carol Kane and a brief, but notable cameo from George Gaynes most famous for his role as Lassard in the Police Academy films. Again the problem is that with the possible exception of Durning and Warren who get a couple of nice scenes nobody is really given anything of any great note to do. It feels a little like assembling a team of world-class footballers and then asking them to play tiddlywinks.
I was really looking forward to seeing Harry and Walter Go To New York. As a comedy fan the opportunity to see such a talented cast playing alongside Caine was a particularly intriguing one. What results though is a film with occasional enjoyable elements, but is ultimately a bit of a baggy mess. A film with enormous potential that in the end feels like a waste of everybody’s talents.
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