Archive for December, 2009
Preserving Harvey
by Jane Coutts on Dec.29, 2009, under Jane's Blog Posts
Every Christmas, no matter where I am or what I am doing, I like to watch the original version of the film “Harvey”, made in 1950. James Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, an amiable and sensitive, but distracted man of means who is highly regarded by waifs, strays and lost souls but considered a serious social nuisance to his own family.
He embarrasses his sister and niece by attempting to introduce their society friends to his constant companion, a pooka, or tall white rabbit, which no-one else can see. Harvey, as the rabbit is called, follows him to bars where he is humoured and welcomed, to the abject horror of Dowd’s sister and niece who would prefer him to take up his responsibilities and his place in society. They try to have him committed to a sanatorium until they realise that, if he is given the drugs to make him “normal”, he may lose his humanity and his pleasantness.
When reminded of his duty to reality, James Stewart issues forth the immortal line, “Well, I’ve wrestled with reality of the best part of 30 years and I’m delighted to say I finally got the better of it,” or something to that effect. This line has never ceased to be a fundamental source of inspiration and has helped me through some of the more disturbing encounters I have had to wade through in life.
When one of my sons was about seven, his teacher was concerned that he appeared to believe in some of the characters from the stories his father told him every night, and suggested that we “might want to address it.” The same teacher was not against imagination in children, and even tolerated it in adults provided it conformed to legitimate shapes and sizes, and was put to valid use.
I have never been particularly good at defending myself at the right time, but thankfully, James Stewart, in an interview, has provided me with the ultimate counter attack to this incident. He was apparently often approached by people in the street, people who did not look as though life was treating them with much respect, who asked if Harvey was with him. When he replied that Harvey had a cold and had decided to stay at home, the people invariably gave him the same answer: “The next time you see him, will you give him my regards?”
Thank goodness for Harvey.
Jane Coutts, who recently wrote Merinder’s House, Scottish fiction with a European flavour.