BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Danny Blankenship 1974's "Harry and Tonto" is probably one of the better and more memorable and touching films made it's a new journey of discovery and new beginning away from a gone past it proves at no matter any age their is enough left for one last big travel to meet new people, visit family and most of all to begin a new start. The film rightfully won Art Carney a Best Actor Oscar as his performance of an old man is touching and uplifting.The story is simple Harry(Art Carney)is a mid 70's retired teacher who finds that his New York city apartment that he's living in all of a sudden is gonna be facing demolition so he and his beloved cat Tonto set out to live with his son. Soon that's a headache so plans change Harry then wants to journey to Chicago to live with his daughter(Ellen Burstyn)along the way he meets odd and complex people like hitchhikers and a run away. As the road is an adventure that narrows with curves and speed bumps and potholes of people from all different walks of like. As the journey goes more west Harry meets an Indian and a high class hooker in Las Vegas one last bang on the journey! Finally Harry ends in Los Angeles with his son(Larry Hagman). Wow that's one adventure that not even an old man would forget! Overall this is a film of journey and finding one last moment of happiness it proves that life is always full of places and people no matter how different the place or person memories are to be made and friends are discovered. "Harry and Tonto" is one film that clearly travels farther than the rest!

zwrite2 I like movies that are focused and don't have too many sideplots. My experience is that sideplots often make a movie worse."Harry and Tonto" is the perfect movie for people like me who like focused movies. The movie is about an old man and his cat. It follows Harry, played by Art Carney in an Oscar winning performance, as he travels around the USA after his New York City apartment building is converted into a parking garage.I didn't think that I'd be interested in a movie about this topic, but Harry has many interesting experiences as he travels to Los Angeles, including shacking up in a motel with a teen girl and meeting a hooker as he is hitchhiking. In addition, his devotion to his cat Tonto is charming. Initially, he wants to fly to Chicago, but airport authorities want to separate them and he is against this.The major problem I have with the movie is a big one -- Tonto gets sick suddenly and dies and Harry doesn't seem to be as bothered by this as he should be. There was no hint that Tonto was old until he got sick. I think, in retrospect, that Harry should have talked more about his passion for Tonto with his children and others and should have revealed his concern about traveling with an old cat (that I didn't realize was old until a minute before he died).I deducted one point from the movie because it wasn't exciting enough, interesting enough, and thought provoking enough to earn a 10 and another point because of how the death of Tonto was handled. I am still tempted to deduct another point because Harry didn't talk enough to Tonto -- and I still might.

MARIO GAUCI If this film were released today, it would be deemed a triumph by just getting reasonable distribution and some form of Oscar recognition: in essence, it has all the hallmarks of the quintessential "indie" product – and, yet, it was produced by a Hollywood major (Fox) and did cause an upset when Art Carney was surprisingly named Best Actor over such heavyweights as Dustin Hoffman in LENNY, Jack Nicholson in CHINATOWN and Al Pacino in THE GODFATHER, PART II (the remaining nominee i.e. Albert Finney in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was equally considered an outsider, especially as Gene Hackman's acclaimed turn in THE CONVERSATION was ultimately locked out of the race)! For the record, the film's sole other Academy Award nod was for Best Original Screenplay (co-written by the director).Anyway, this is a road movie with a difference – since the titular figures are a dispossessed old widower and his 11 year-old cat. Harry first goes to live with his New Yorker son but, realizing he is imposing on his family (which includes Joshua Mostel as a young man who has taken a vow of silence and likes to experiment with drugs!), moves out to Chicago to stay with oft-divorced daughter Ellen Burstyn (second-billed in what constitutes a mere cameo: as it turned out, she won the Best Actress Oscar that same year for the not-too-dissimilar ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE!). However, when he runs into trouble with the airport authorities over the cat's cage, he opts to travel by bus – but, here too, he causes havoc as the greyhound is forced to make an unscheduled stop in order to allow Tonto to relieve itself! Left behind, they continue the journey by car – after Harry buys a second-hand vehicle, despite his driving license having expired since 1958! On the way, he picks up a teenage girl who has left home to live in a commune in Colorado; shacking up together in a motel, he is mildly disturbed when seeing her in the nude. Reaching Burstyn's place, he finds Mostel there – who has become a new man and even decides to leave with the teenager. Now reduced to hitch-hiking, he is picked up by a hooker who has no qualms about offering her services to him en route! Next stop is L.A. (after a brief stint in Vegas, where he proves a jinx to a gambler who had been having a very lucky streak up till then!), where Carney's other son – Larry Hagman – is a broke insurance broker; the old man also winds up in jail after he is caught urinating in the street and Tonto dies of natural causes some time later…While ostensibly a comedy, the melancholy relating to old age is patent throughout – right from the opening montage; Carney also treats an unemployed black man to dinner (while entertaining his son's family with a song-and-dance routine) and charges himself of a Polish immigrant's funeral. The supporting cast also includes three other previous Oscar nominees: Geraldine Fitzgerald (as a former celebrity flame, now suffering from dementia, of the protagonist), Arthur Hunnicutt (as a traveling salesman) and Chief Dan George (as an Indian medicine man/fellow convict who 'cures' Carney's arthritis). The moving finale sees Harry running into a cat-lady and taking a fancy to one which looks a lot like his beloved Tonto.

classicsoncall Harry Coombes (Art Carney) was talking about his neighborhood when he made the comment in my summary line above, but he could just as easily have been talking about the relationship with his family, old friend Jacob, or even himself. The story is about running down, growing old, and re-evaluating one's life for missed opportunities and what might have been.I was surprised by another reviewer's mention that Carney took the role after it was written for, but turned down by James Cagney. Interestingly, Carney and Cagney appeared together a full decade later in the TV movie, "Terrible Joe Moran", in which Cagney portrays the main character not unlike Harry in a lot of ways. In that film, Carney is Cagney's neighbor and friend, sharing pearls of wisdom with Cagney's estranged granddaughter and the viewer.The story of "Harry and Tonto" is played in a series of vignettes once Harry is forcibly removed from his New York City apartment, making way for an urban parking lot. That in itself is a disquieting commentary on modern life, when a commercial parking structure carries more value than human life. Though Harry has every reason to be cynical over the way the lives of his sons and daughter turned out, that doesn't seem to be his way, as Harry takes it all in stride and appears to rise above the fray. He also has an acceptance of ultimate finality, as one is conditioned by the death of Jacob, setting us up for the eventual demise of traveling companion Tonto. Still, it's hard to keep a dry eye over Harry's loss.My favorite scene was the one with Harry arrested and in jail with cell-mate Chief Dan George. As Sam Two-Feathers, the Chief is dead pan hilarious discussing how he put the death spell on Edgar Red Bear, and how he was once jailed for his horse dumping in a hotel lobby. Quoting his character Old Lodge Skins from the movie "Little Big Man" - Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't'. Fans of Art Carney will probably agree that in this film, most of the time the magic works.