I was really blindsided by this film. I found a few clips of it online and was instantly interested. After seeing the film I was really touched. It seemed so much like something studio Ghibli would make. Slow, thoughtful, not laugh out loud funny but still comic. I’ve read about how so many people were upset about Carney’s Oscar win but he did a fantastic job carrying that film with a very believable performance. Don’t get me wrong, Chinatown is in my top ten best films of all time and it’s a toss up on godfather 1 and 2, but I feel that this performance stands up there with those two. It’s not a popular opinion I know that, but I wish more people knew this film.
HARRY AND TONTO was on PBS in like my late teens and it was one of those films where I knew little about it but the name and the actor but watched it almost entirely after missing like the first five minutes of it. I can see how Art Carney squeezed through all these juggernauts battling each other to win Best Actor, but he also totally deserved it (1974 is a low key GOAT film year, right at the peak of that era). One of my all-time faves for sure.
I highly recommend Vittorio De Sica's UMBERTO D., which explores similar things, but with an elderly man and his dog
3
ZorroMeansFoxMar 27, 2026
+2
Art Carney won the Best Actor Oscar that year over Albert Finney, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and Jack Nicholson. And they all said that he deserved it.
It's one of the greatest Road Movies ever made. And the "Roamin' in the Gloamin'" farewell to Tonto is unbelievably heartbreaking.
guy_incognito42069, if you haven't yet, be sure to also check out other films by director Paul Mazursky, especially **An Unmarried Woman, Moscow on the Hudson, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice**, and his incredible period film **Next Stop, Greenwich Village** (about a young Jewish guy who moves to Greenwich Village in the 1950s to become an actor) --featuring some of the very earliest work from Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum
2
[deleted]Mar 26, 2026
+1
[deleted]
1
guy_incognito42069Mar 26, 2026
+1
No, I took awhile until I watched it. But definitely set aside the time to do so.
4 Comments