Harry and Walter Go to New York

This film is one of those films in which the elements fail to come together. It is clearly an attempt to recreate the lightning in a bottle of The Sting some years earlier. However it does not measure up for a number of reasons.

Firstly the truly boring title does the film no favours. It is not surprising the audience stayed away despite this having obvious star power. Like The Sting the main stars are a couple of con men. The comedy is very broad, almost slapstick at times. This tends to undermine any tension in the film. And I'm not convinced that either Caan or Gould have any aptitude for this kind of broad comedy (and neither, I think, do they, if their subsequent career moves are an indication).

However, there are certain times when nastiness creeps in, the most obvious example is when Gould is locked in a safe. Yes, that's comedy gold, having a man almost suffocate to death.

Not only are the con men much more buffoonish than in The Sting, but they are also more contemptible. When we first see them, they are stealing money from ordinary members of the public. Why on earth would we be sympathetic to their escapades from then on? While in The Sting the objective was to rob another (and worse) villain, here the target is a normal bank containing real people's money. An attempt to show the manager as corrupt and lecherous does not undermine the fact that the bank contains real people's money and at a time when banks could go out of business.

Ultimately, no one really cares about these two thieves and whether they succeed in their venture.

The idea was good but the outcome was bad, 2 quite stupid song and dance conmen, with the help of a printing team gang, frustrate a top bank robber and pull his heist before him, their bumbling plot worked but the film didn't. A very unlikely story.

This film has a great cast, leading was Caan & Gould, with excellent suport. mostly unused, if they had more substantial roles it could have been better, Diane Keaton was probably the best, closely followed by Jack Gilford, always a class act. Caan & Gould, and Michael Caine probably overdo their roles, possibly by direction, the film was well made apart from photography which was poor.

The trouble was with the conversion of the story to screen, and it did not work, trying to rob a bank in between doing song and dance routines was not good on the transfer to screen, so maybe a good idea, but in retrospect not, its probably why no film like it has been made since.

I gave it a 5 for the acting and intrigue.

I saw this movie when it was first released, then again on television sometime in the Eighties. Why this film is largely forgotten is beyond me. For that matter, why are some of the most entertaining films of the Seventies collecting dust, while the critics continue to insist that we bow and scrape to pretentious self-absorbed WoodyBogdanovichMazurskyAltman? Anyhoo, this film is funny -- maybe not side-splitting, but certainly a lot more entertaining than many films calling themselves comedies. It's atmospheric, with that yellow/sepia look Coppola first introduced in Godfather II. It's well-acted: James Caan is a great comic actor -- let's face it, a great actor, period. Michael Caine is especially good as the kid glove villain. Almost nothing here to offend anybody, (but kids under age 10 might have trouble following it). And after all these years, I still remember the "owls who" joke.

more or less stuck in my hotel room on standby duty for five days during queenly coronation celebrations many moons ago, i found this movie on the hotel network and watched it over and over again. and then some on a parr with :

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The Three Amigos this movie is deliciously absurd And not only James Khan and Elliot Gould but Michael Cain is in the cast with Diane Keaton Cannot believe the guy who gave this a 5.4 rating has even sat down for the first five minutes cos if he had he wouldn't have ever left his seat unless the building was burning down and he certainly would not have given anything less than an 8

Netflicks has still not found this gem guess I am gonna have to go out and buy it but how

A thoroughly well-made and well-paced movie, with a wonderful score, both in the lead characters' signature song "Nobody's Perfect" and in the incidental music. James Caan and Elliot Gould do a great job of playing the low comedy foils of high comedy master Michael Caine.

Excellent for kids, too...although there are touches of violence, romance, and illegal behavior, they are all mild, and it's got a delightfully old-fashioned morality to it.