Dois Vigaristas em Nova York

This is not gonna be a review more like a comment... This movie was not one of the best I've ever seen but because of this movie I exist. My parents were in this movie and met for the first time. This prison is in my hometown. Because of this movie and my parents' ability to be extras, (specifically my dad who looked like Robert Redford from Jeremiah Johnson), they moved in together after 4 days. 46 years later they are still married! Ted Cassidy actually walked up to my dad and called him Bob because he thought he was Robert Redford! How cool is that! You can actually see both my parents in their respective roles in this movie especially my dad as he has a kid on his shoulders in the beginning right up against the prison wall.

"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.

This is just a good, clean, fun movie with an excellent cast. It was shot back in the 1970's. It is amazing that the movie did not do better at the box office, because of all the stars that were cast in it. It is interesting to note that this movie was shot mostly in Mansfield, Ohio at the Mansfield Reformatory. Since then, Shawshank Redemption and Con Air were filmed there as well. The prison used for the movie has since been replaced by a new one and is now an historical site, open to the public. I think you will find some good laughs here. It is not brain surgery and a great way to experience some top stars in one package. I was an extra in this movie, playing both a prison guard and a prisoner. Chasing James Caan and Elliot Gould was a hoot. The cast and crew of this movie had a great time filming it. I might add that the director, Mark Rydell, went on to direct the movie,On Golden Pond.

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.

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.