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This is how they met: Elwood P. Dowd put Ed Hickey into a taxi (he’d been mixing rye with his gin, Ed had, and Mr. Dowd felt he needed conveying). After the taxi pulled away he heard a voice saying “Good evening, Mr. Dowd.” There, leaning against a lamp-post, was a six foot rabbit (six foot three and a half inches, according to Mr. Dowd). When he inquired as to the rabbit’s name, it responded “What name do you like?” Mr. Dowd replied “Harvey.” “What a coincidence,” said the rabbit. “My name happens to be Harvey.”

Harvey is possibly my favorite movie in the entire combustible world. It’s sweet without being overly-sentimental, it’s funny and intelligent without intruding on the sweetness, and it’s nostalgic without stepping on the funniness. It’s a story about eccentricity and tolerance and friendship. It’s a soft, rounded, misty story without any edges. Watching it is like being mildly and pleasantly intoxicated with friends. This soliloquy is from my favorite scene:

“Harvey and I sit in the bars, have a drink or two, play the juke box. And soon the faces of all the other people, they turn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, ‘We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fella.’ Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entered as strangers, soon we have friends. And they come over, and they sit with us, and they drink with us, and they talk to us. They tell about the big terrible things they’ve done and the big wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, and their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. And then I introduce them to Harvey, and he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back—but that’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us.”

Sometimes I have a little bit of envy for Elwood P. Dowd.

-- greg fallis

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