Episode 140: HARVEY (1950)

It’s impossible to deny the charm of HARVEY, because if you do, you’re choosing ‘smart’ over ‘pleasant.’ Of those two, you know which we’d recommend. The titular non-character might be described as an invisible, six-foot-three-and-a-half-inch, anthropomorphic rabbit, but Harvey is so much more than a “benign but mischievous creature”: it’s a highlight of the inherent value of personhood, an appeal to consciousness of the other, and a rejection of the bourgeois pressures of society – all wrapped in an all-time Jimmy Stewart performance. For a generation of people (including many of us) that came of age amid a cultural wave that deified sourness, pretense, and irony, its warmth and crucial insistence on pleasantness elevates it above feel-good cinema and into a personal entreaty. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Music: “Hippy Hippy Hop” from HARVEY (sung by Aileen Carlyle as Miss Tewksbury). 0:00 - Episode 140: HARVEY (1950) 5:37 - The episode actually starts 8:00 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary 9:55 - Jason’s thoughts 15:12 - Cody’s thoughts 19:46 - Harry’s thoughts 25:29 - Aaron’s thoughts 29:49 - Empathy vs. society 34:21 - The Ghibli-like scene where Elwood peaks 41:01 - Elwood as catalyst for social consciousness 44:19 - The mystery of Harvey the pooka 50:29 - Could’ve been edited as a horror film à la THE BABADOOK (2014) 52:26 - What makes Harvey more than a coping mechanism for Elwood’s grief 55:53 - Should they have shown the rabbit? 57:39 - The implications of Harvey being real 1:00:11 - Final thoughts 1:04:17 - Cody’s Noteys: Force of Rabbit (trivia)