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.

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

Made on the HELLO DOLLY set, this bumbling farce looks sensational and in some ways is actually as lush as DOLLY itself. With a spectacular cast and some very funny lines - and especially the genuinely hilarious NOBODY'S PERFECT song - H&W somehow just misses being really really good. Any opportunity to see Carol Kane on screen is a must. Barely released in 1976 this film is worth seeing in glorious widescreen, just for the visuals around the DOLLY set. It actually looks as though you will see Streisand singing somewhere in the background. It is probably the only two million dollar film with a three million dollar set. Deserving of a lavish DVD release it could easily become a collectors item for many reasons...if only the comedy was genuinely one of them. The ideas are all there and the cast and the lushness, but you just fell it is all a bit forced.

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.

"Harry and Walter Go to New York" is growing on me. It's not as good as it should have been but it does have a lot going for it. The cast is very good and they all do a nice job. The set design and the costumes are top-notch. But for some reason, "Harry and Walter..." doesn't work as well as it should have. Sometimes a movie's production values and smother it's humor. I think that might have happened here. Also, especially in the first half, the editing seemed off. A lot of the jokes were ruined with too quick cutaways. That said, I do enjoy a lot of this movie. It's not a total write-off. It's definitely worth watching.