The recent movie IF from John Krasinski, about imaginary friends, features a noteworthy scene where the main character’s grandmother has a movie playing on TV fairly prominently. That movie is Harvey, a clear influence on Krasinski as probably the best-known classic Hollywood movie about an imaginary friend. There’s a reason for that -incidentally, it’s a much better movie than IF.
I’ve always heard of Harvey as this uniquely strange old movie about Jimmy Stewart having a giant rabbit as an imaginary friend. It seemed like the kind of concept that would be too off-puttingly odd for any male star of the era, let alone Stewart, who at the time was known as a fairly straight-laced leading man. But more than just doing this movie, Stewart had played the part on stage for one of the early runs of the play by Mary Chase that it is based on -one that has since gone on to be quite celebrated in its own right. He seemed to have been really endeared to the material -he even reprised the role again on stage into his old age in the 1970s. In some way there was a sense it belonged to him, and watching the movie now I can see why.
Though it’s a whimsical premise with juvenile connotations it has a mature soul and inherent charm that is more than a little infectious. Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, a fairly well-off man who is good-natured and incredibly friendly, but who happens to also have for a best friend a large invisible puca (a shapeshifting spirit from Celtic mythology) who takes the form of a rabbit named Harvey. Elwood talks to Harvey but can only hear him himself as he genially introduces the rabbit to friends and makes nothing of the oddity people might perceive in him. In fact, those that know him down at his favourite bar Charlie’s, tend to humour him given his general warmth. But his older sister Veta (Josephine Hull), whom he lives with along with her daughter Myrtle Mae (Victoria Horne), is perturbed by it all, both for Elwood’s sake and her own reputation among their social connections. At last she arranges to have him committed to a sanatorium.
Hull originated this role on Broadway and went on to win an Oscar for it, giving a great performance that is equal parts silly and sympathetic. She’s obtuse and selfish, and these things are played for comical effect, but she also radiates real concern and emotion. One sequence following her being ejected from the hospital after a misunderstanding resulted in her being committed rather than Elwood, is played to some level of humour but also a sizeable degree of genuine trauma. And through everything as she rails against Harvey she is honestly concerned for Elwood’s well-being. She’s a deceptively nuanced character, and a key provocation of the film is in how much the audience is on her side. She may seem mean, but she may also have a point in her perception of Elwood.
And it’s true for all of the other characters who spend the movie confounded by Elwood and Harvey and their strange little quirks together (Elwood always holds the door open for Harvey for example). For psychiatrist Dr. Sanderson (Charles Drake) and his girlfriend nurse Kelly (Peggy Dow), it’s difficult to assess and reckon with his apparent harmlessness. At one point, Sanderson does try to analyse Elwood using traditional psychiatric techniques -trying to find out where Harvey came from or what he represents to Elwood- but ultimately drawing a blank between any kind of trauma and Elwood’s manifestation. The name ‘Harvey’ is not connected to a childhood friend or parent, it’s simply a name that he likes that he gave to Harvey when he first appeared to him, and which at the time apparently unfazed Elwood. Logic and the parameters of the ordinary don’t seem to mean anything to him, and it’s a befuddlement to everybody around him.
Yet what radiates of this is a profound kind of honesty and earnestness, and a contentment suggestive of one who has achieved deep wisdom. And Stewart is both perfectly and unusually suited to conveying that. Despite the general idealism of his best characters to that point, he hadn’t on film played anyone quite so innocent, quite so endearingly odd. If the movie aims to make the argument that his figment is not so bad a thing, and that it is personal nature more than social acceptability that matters, it couldn’t have found a better actor in 1950, or indeed 1947 when he started playing Elwood on stage. Stewart is so wholesome in this movie, but it never feels trite. It’s a performance of a subtle purity, without affect or zeal, and I think that’s a big part of what makes it charming. You believe that Elwood more or less has it all figured out, because of not in spite of Harvey. But you can also see a bit of a lonely man underneath the veneer, and in that also what Harvey means to Elwood as a friend. The same fundamental sincerity comes across in Kōji Yakusho’s performance in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, a descendant of Elwood P. Dowd in spiritual generosity.
Of course in purporting him as someone who defies analysis the film finds it necessary to question the merit of psychiatry, an already incredibly stigmatized science at the time. The methods applied by Sanderson are seen by the film to be not just fruitless but arbitrary -and before long his own superior Dr. Chumley (Cecil Kellaway), the most rigorous authority in the movie, is ‘won over’ by Elwood and can eventually see Harvey too. These academics are essentially put on the same level as Wilson (Jesse White), the more blue-blooded sceptic who is fully convinced that Elwood is nuts and must be dealt with even violently. Any dismissal of Harvey from any direction at all is grounds for mockery by the movie -which is admittedly farcical by nature, but such points are revealing especially in concert with the fair enlightenment it presents Elwood as endowed with.
Where the movie does have more legitimate licence is in its criticism of sanatoriums, even if this is mostly in jest. There is the sense all around it would be a terrible fate for Elwood, and even what Veta only briefly experiences attests to that. The fact that these were known to be not kind places, even amidst positive P.R. in 1950 is a very sharp component of the movie where it is frequently linked to the apparent 'danger' Elwood poses. The hastiness to admit him from both Veta and the staff is also an indictment.
And it comes off especially sinister as a counterpoint to what Harvey represents and what the movie's meaning is as a whole. Honestly for being the title character, Harvey doesn't really matter all that much. He exists to be this strange idea that the movie itself can play coy with on his existence -a couple scenes do show doors closing on their own -and to manifest some tangible effect on Elwood. We don't know what Elwood's life was like before Harvey appeared in it -by accounts it seems to have been fairly ordinary for an upper-class bachelor, without any major troubles or foibles (though he was going to the same regular bar he still frequents). Changes in character may be difficult to ascertain, but the spirit of Harvey and the apparently wholesome friendship that Elwood relates seems to come out in his unyielding generosity and considerate demeanour. It can be cute at times, and the movie seems to ask if this is the impact, what does it matter that Elwood is possibly deluded? In fact, he appears so content, so at ease, it would be a cruelty to force him back into our reality. Which Veta realizes in the end when she stops the injection that would supposedly cure Elwood of his delusion. It is a situation and argument that is provocative, whether you think the movie makes the right determination or not.
Though ultimately it is hard to side against this version of Jimmy Stewart, irrespective of whether you believe in or can see Harvey. I think the best of us would humour him too. Directed by Henry Koster, the film isn't particularly whimsical -indeed it is about empathy and sincerity in a very intelligent way. Perhaps that is what appealed so much to Stewart, who always seemed to embody a certain middle-American sentimentality (there was a brief time where Spielberg considered remaking this movie with Tom Hanks -perfect casting but probably an imperfect approach). Harvey is fundamentally endearing; for as funny as it is and as quirky as Elwood may be as a character it seems to espouse an aversion to judgement. Leave Elwood alone, it says. Leave Harvey alone. Maybe, just maybe learn from them instead.
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