Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA (March 31, 2024).
Edited by Aliece Pickett
(EDWARD SCHROEDER:) Today’s film is a late entry in the Screwball Comedy genre.
The film “Harvey” (1950), is about a man whose best friend is a 6-foot 3-1/2 inch invisible rabbit.
It stars Jimmy Stewart in one of his most beloved roles, and for which he received an Academy Award nomination.
Director Henry Koster was ideally suited for the subject matter of today’s film, after his Oscar win for directing the fantasy film, “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947).
“Harvey” opened on Broadway in 1944 and was a smash hit.
It ran for over five years.
The play was written by Mary Chase, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for her story.
She was paid an astounding one million dollars for the screen rights, a record amount at the time, according to “Newsweek”.
And for her winning the Pulitzer Prize, we’ll talk more why the Pulitzer Prize would be awarded for what, at first blush, seems like a simple comedy.
Mary Chase also adapted the film’s screenplay with Oscar Brodney.
Jimmy Stewart had already starred in a seven-week run of the play on Broadway in 1947, substituting for its star Frank Fay, and substituting again in 1948.
But Stewart wasn’t the studio’s first choice for the film.
Bing Crosby had all but signed the contract before backing out.
He said he thought his fans wouldn’t accept a priest as “Elwood”.
It would have been interesting casting.
But Stewart is brilliant as the loveable eccentric, convincing audiences of the existence of his unusual best friend.
One of America’s greatest actors, Stewart gave an extra layer of complexity to the part.
Stewart’s compensation included a percentage of the profits.
He made an extra $200,000 for that.
Stewart reprised his role in a Broadway revival in 1970, again for TV in 1972 with Helen Hayes, and a final time in London in 1975.
The film costars Josephine Hull.
She had a 50-year career in the theater and took some of her roles to film, as she did today’s role.
You may remember her as one of the aunts in “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944).
She received an Oscar nomination for that role, and she won for “Harvey” (1950).
“Variety” said her contribution was immense, socking the comedy for every bit of its worth.
The rest of the cast is equally impressive.
Director Henry Koster used most of the Broadway cast for the film.
Watch especially for Jesse White.
You may recognize him as the original Maytag repairman.
Brilliant performance.
The cinematographer was William Daniels.
He had a 50-year career, which began with silent films, and he was Greta Garbo’s favorite lensman.
Two years before “Harvey”, he received an Academy Award for filming “The Naked City” (1948).
He did that mostly on the streets of New York.
The music score was composed by Frank Skinner.
As film music historian Stephen C. Smith explained at our screening of “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944), music for comedy is especially tricky to write.
Here, Skinner balances Screwball Comedy characters and fantasy elements with a joyful, upbeat vibe.
And one character, who shall remain unnamed for now, gets his own four-note melody.
It’s whimsical and mysterioso, just like he is.
The film was edited by Ralph Dawson.
He was nominated for four Academy Awards and won three times.
The story is set after the tumult of the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, nuclear threat, and the impending Korean War.
People were paranoid, retreating into fearful conformity. So much so that this period of time is known as the “Age of Conformity”.
A record number of children were born, beginning the “baby boom”.
A record number of families moved out of cities to the suburbs.
Men and women observed strict gender roles to comply with society’s expectations.
And there was nearly universal homophobia, racism, and sex discrimination.
Against this backdrop, “Harvey” spoofs conformity and normality.
It was a popular and critical hit.
It was nominated for two Academy Awards and three Golden Globes.
As for the film’s legacy, “Harvey” is a beloved classic that the American Film Institute ranks as #7 in its Top Ten Fantasy Films.
The Screwball Comedy genre we’ve been discussing throughout our film series has distinct elements.
>> (ALIECE PICKETT:) First and foremost, they’re hilarious.
They’re strong comedy, strong physicality.
You have eccentric characters acting zany and crazy.
And there’s a satire element in Screwball Comedy.
Common subjects of the satire are relationships, traditional institutions.
Academia is lampooned.
Law enforcement is a favorite target.
The banking industry.
>> No sacred cows.
>> You have mature actors and adult situations, as opposed to many Romantic Comedies.
And when there is a romantic relationship, because of the censorship rules, in lieu of a visual depiction or dialogue reference to sex, they have sexually charged antagonism.
You’ll have verbal battles, like you saw tonight between “Dr. Sanderson” and “Nurse Kelly”.
>> It takes more work to create those subtleties.
>> The overt sexuality of today’s films is easier (to write) than this.
Also, the dialogue is witty in Screwball Comedy, and fast-paced.
And they’re silly, not sentimental.
The best Screwball Comedies have a social commentary, or social issues, that undergird the laughs.
>>This film definitely has social messages, addressed in a clever way. But, a bit of background on “Harvey”.
It was a late entry for the “classic” Screwball Comedy era.
The Depression was over, but it’s still a Screwball Comedy.
>> We laugh at the crazy behavior.
We had all eccentric characters.
And the satire here was on the idle, foolish rich, the society class.
Psychiatry is skewered terribly, as is conformity.
>> As I said in my Intro, if you look at “Harvey”, the backdrop of what was going on at the time in our country, people were paranoid.
They were frightened.
All the changes.
There were many different things coming in.
They were scared into conformity.
And Mary Chase as a writer–what a bold and brave thing for her to tackle.
>> With the advent of the Atom Bomb, that changed everything.
Americans had been very comfortable, almost complacent, if you will, being so far away from the wars of Europe.
With the advent of the Atom Bomb, all of a sudden–wow– this could come right to our shores and annihilate us.
That, with all the other social and political and economic upheaval that the country had gone through, people cleave to things that are like them.
They want to be in their comfort zone, surrounded by people that think like them, that look like them, that act like them. And so anybody different is going to be treated poorly.
>> And I think part of the reason that Mary Chase won the Pulitzer Prize for her story on this is because of all the symbology, and all the subtle things that are being addressed.
The rabbit, for instance, is a symbol.
>> And her taking on conformity in the “Age of Conformity”, what a brave thing she did.
For those of us in 2024, it’s hard to imagine what life was like in the Age of Conformity.
“Duck and cover” drills.
We were so afraid of the Red Scare.
>> But if you think of the television shows that were popular in that era, “Leave It To Beaver”, “Father Knows Best”, “Ozzie and Harriet”, the message in all those TV shows was, “Conform and you’ll be happy like these TV families”.
>>We saw that was all a lead-up to the 60s and the revolution.
In so many areas, the conformity didn’t last.
>> You can try to keep people down, but eventually things are going to explode.
>> What do you think the rabbit symbolized?
>> I perceived the rabbit in this film as “Elwood’s” coping mechanism.
We learned from (sister) “Veta” that “Elwood” had not seen the rabbit until after his mother died.
“Veta” also says “Elwood” was very close to his mother.
It was clearly a traumatic event.
We know that we can deal with trauma through escapism and fantasy, to get through life.
Putting it into a bigger perspective, the rabbit can be a symbol for any immutable characteristic that makes you different from everyone else, whether it be race, being gay, disabled.
Anything that separates you from others.
Him seeing a rabbit is different than everybody around him.
>> And if somebody’s different, society’s norms are “Let’s change him” and “We can treat him horribly”.
“We can do any kind of indignity to him and it doesn’t matter”.
>> I think the film asks “What is normal”?
We learn from the various characters, they believe “Elwood” should be going to the Yale alumni dances.
He should be seen at the “Club”.
He should be socializing with people whose names his sister knows and recognizes.
He should have a job on the Water Board.
“He can do anything.
He can make a place for himself if he’d only apply himself”. >> I love the quote from his mother.
“My mother used to say, ‘In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant.’ Well for years I was smart.
I recommend pleasant”.
And for that, he was a problem.
>> He was not going to conform with what everyone expected of him and wanted him to do.
>> Then, when he was getting ready for the injection, “977”.
What is the injection?
I think it was the cure for being different.
My takeaway is anytime society is trying to enforce, make people change, make people suppress what they feel, what is objectionable to the rest of society.
For instance, “conversion” therapy for being gay.
“That’s your cure.” “We need you to be like the rest of us”.
>> Go back to the Middle Age if you were left-handed, you were “possessed” for being different.
You don’t choose to be left-handed.
>> Another immutable characteristic.
>> Ultimately, the film’s message, it’s such a great message, is there’s no need to be cured just because you’re different.
You can be fine just the way you are.
“Elwood” is just fine.
>> They kept saying the injection’s going to make him a “normal” human being.
But if you look at the characters in the film, he is happy, he’s content.
He’s the most well-adjusted of them all.
>> I loved when he said, “I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor.
I finally won out over it”.
>> “Elwood” is just fine with his invisible rabbit friend.
>> I love the way Mary Chase took on one of Screwball Comedy’s favorite targets, psychiatry, involuntary commitment.
Being committed was like going to jail.
Look at the front gate, the noise, when you’re hearing the gates clanging shut.
You’re there forever.
>> It’s like bars in jail or prison.
The beauty of Screwball Comedy is the fact they take on and lampoon, skewer, the powerful institutions.
Psychiatry had been getting more and more powerful and people, less and less powerful against psychiatry.
You see here, the satire is played broadly.
These doctors are willing to involuntarily commit “Elwood” at the drop of a hat, or anybody at the drop of a hat.
>> Though he’s not hurting himself or anyone else.
He’s not hurting anyone.
As you look at these scenes, it’s a hilarious look at a disturbing problem.
Even if you don’t go outside, just looking within Hollywood.
You have Frances Farmer who was involuntarily committed to a mental institute.
Cary Grant’s mother, he was eight years old.
The father was involved–this was in Bristol, England, where he was growing up–his father was involved with another woman and impregnated her.
He needed to get rid of his wife, Cary Grant’s mother.
He had her involuntarily committed to a mental institute and then told Cary Grant that she had mother had gone to the sea, and eventually said she was “gone”.
Grant didn’t know that she was rotting away in a mental institute until after his father died.
>> How despicable, yet convenient for the old man.
That’s the beauty of Screwball Comedy.
What it tries to bring to you, from the audience perspective, we get to look at these issues, that if somebody did a documentary expose, 60 Minutes-type expose, the institutions are going to fight back.
They have something to fight back to.
But when you make fun of them, we get to see these issues from a safe distance.
We get to evaluate and go, you know what, maybe that isn’t right.
We can draw our own conclusions, through comedy.
>> And through the film medium, it allows us to look at these issues from the safe distance, in a movie theater, in the seat, and be able to just let it percolate.
We reach our own conclusions about the issues.
>> The beauty of seeing it on the big screen. But to make that effective, you have to have great performances.
We’ve got to talk about Josephine Hull.
>> Wasn’t she wonderful, as sister “Veta”.
She won the Academy Award for it. She had also been nominated for her role in another Screwball Comedy, “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944).
She plays ditzy and confused so well.
But what makes her performance so masterful in this film is that she is able to evoke our sympathy, even though her conduct is despicable.
She’s so superficial. Totally self-centered.
She’s willing to institutionalize her brother because his presence is interfering with her social life.
>> But she’s not malevolent.
>> No, but appearances are everything to her.
She prioritizes the appearance of how she’ll look to her social-set above family.
That’s the beauty of Screwball Comedy, taking “society folk” down a peg or two.
>> These terrible things happen to her, but we laugh because she’s getting her comeuppance.
>> And it feels good.
When she gets hauled in and institutionalized herself as she’s trying to commit her brother– love it.
>> I also love Peggy Dow.
I didn’t know her before this movie.
>>She plays “Nurse Kelly”.
She had a short career, but productive.
She had 11 films in three years before she stepped aside from the movie industry.
She got married and then, again, stepped aside.
Later she became a generous philanthropist.
As of this week, she is alive and well at 94 years old.
>> That’s amazing.
I especially love Jesse White, “Wilson” the orderly, the original future Maytag man.
He played this, what otherwise could have been a dark and sinister character.
He went from zero to 100–he was just waiting to pound on somebody, under the color of authority.
>> When you think of Jesse White the actor, his character is violent and his words are disrespectful.
He dehumanizes everybody he’s in contact with, he dehumanizes them.
It would be frightening and scary, except for the fact the actor’s performance makes it–he’s such a good comic actor that we can relax and laugh, instead of being terrified at the treatment of these people at his hands.
>> Even when “Wilson” brought back the police officer, “I’ve got help now!” And the cop does the same zero to 100.
He starts manhandling, just taking somebody else’s word, no due diligence, no investigation, no questions.
Just immediate violence.
Mary Chase was taking on different institutions here.
Moving on to the director.
After directing “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947), Henry Koster was the perfect director for today’s film because he had won the Oscar for “The Bishop’s Wife” and has a real touch for bringing a story like this to life on the screen.
>> He was born in Berlin, and had a life-incident that occurred after Adolf Hitler came to power.
He went to the bank, and his savings account had been seized.
He realized he was in danger.
He immediately left the country.
He had started to work in film, working his way up to directing in Germany.
Then he went to Budapest and he met the future famous producer Joe Pasternak. They ended up having a decades-long collaboration and friendship.
Joe Pasternak was responsible for bringing Henry Koster over from Europe to sign a contract with Universal Studios, where he was for decades.
Together Pasternak and Koster developed the duo Abbott and Costello.
Our director here directed their first film, which has the iconic “Who’s On First” comedy routine.
Pasternak and Koster developed the singing actress Deanna Durbin.
>>Mostly forgotten, but what a talent.
>> She was a superstar in her age and they groomed her for stardom.
She also performed in Screwball Comedies, “Three Smart Girls” (1936), “It Started With Eve” (1941), “Lady On a Train” (1946), “For the Love of Mary” (1948).
>> Those are titles you wouldn’t know.
>> Koster had a big career, and a varied career in different genres of film.
To illustrate his character and the diversity of films, he directed “The Flower Drum Song” (1961), a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical.
What was especially noteworthy about it is Henry Koster did something unconventional.
He had an all Asian cast singing, dancing, cracking jokes, portraying prominent Americans.
You didn’t see that in a Hollywood film–that was 1961, until 2018 with “Crazy Rich Asians”.
>>That’s almost 60 years.
>> Yes, isn’t that something?
>> You think something groundbreaking is always going to be that way.
There are many advances we’re seeing in today’s society.
We take three steps forward, two steps back.
It takes time to move mountains and make changes.
>> It’s with these trailblazers like Henry Koster.
His son, Bob Koster, was interviewed by next week’s special guest speaker, Kristen Lopez.
When she interviewed him, he talked about his discussion with his dad about social commentaries that were discreetly interwoven into his films.
When he asked his dad about that, his father whispered back to him, “Don’t tell anyone”.
Clearly, he was unconventional, but he wasn’t didactic.
He didn’t want to beat people over the head with the messages.
That’s why this movie is so brilliant.
>> Koster went on to direct individuals, though he never earned an Oscar himself.
>> Six actors, including James Stewart.
Henry Koster told his son his best working experience in his entire career was working on “Harvey” with James Stewart.
He, Henry Koster, made five films with Stewart.
>>James Stewart was brilliant.
He’s acting to empty space.
But you believe the rabbit is there.
I would imagine that would be the most difficult acting job.
>> He had a huge career.
I think one of our greatest actors, and a war hero.
He was our highest ranked Hollywood actor, wasn’t he?
>> Yes, Brigadier General was the highest rank he received.
>> People talk about his career pre-war and post-war.
He came back a changed man, and you see it in his roles.
>> They become more complex, darker.
You don’t see the roles with the idealism, like in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939) and “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938). All his young, idealistic roles.
>> But he’s left this legacy for us of Screwball Comedy, some of our favorites.
He won the Oscar for “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), which we screened last season, “You Can’t Take It With You” (1938), “Vivacious Lady”, (1938).
“It’s a Wonderful World” (1939), this is a film we recently discovered.
>> So fun, with Claudette Colbert.
You don’t think of Jimmy Stewart as a Screwball Comedy star. Yet, he’s right up there with Cary Grant, Melvyn Douglas, Ralph Bellamy, Fred MacMurray.
But you don’t because Jimmy Stewart was accomplished in many different genres, with his suspense and westerns.
>> He was one of the most versatile.
(Looking at empty chair), Oh, what’s that, Harvey?
Harvey would like to apologize for being late.
His hair dryer broke.
He was wet, and didn’t want to embarrass anyone.
He wanted to be a fluffy Puca.