Art Carney was the surprise winner of the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Harry in Paul Mazursky's "Harry and Tonto". Already middle-aged Carney was a well-known face from television but was certainly not known as a film actor and there was a lot of competition that year but you might say the role itself was Oscar bait, an old man who, after being evicted from his New York apartment decides to go on a cross-country trip to California visiting his grown-up children on the way and taking his cat, Tonto, with him.
This could have been a painfully sentimental film but Mazursky doesn't do sentimental and the result is a genuinely likeable road movie with a great supporting cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Herbert Berghof, Josh Mostel, Melanie Mayron, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Arthur Hunnicut, Chief Dan George and Larry Hagman.. It's a character study from the old school and one of the very best; its humor is authentically American and Carney was a worthy winner. He was only 56 at the time and didn't bring any of the 'old man' tics to his acting. His performance and the film itself are small gems.
No comments:
Post a Comment