This week's Hyde Park Pick

“What’s your favourite film?”

Working in a cinema for as long as I have it’s probably the question I’ve been asked most, with “Why do you think the Picture House still exists?” following in close second.

Both are tricky questions to answer! Focusing on that question of a favourite film though, it’s so interesting as there are so many qualifying factors which could change one’s answer so dramatically. For example, we can phrase it with a focus on the context. What is my favourite film to watch with friends? What is my favourite film to watch at Christmas? What is my favourite film to watch in the cinema up on the big screen?

Alternatively, it’s quite a different prospect to phrase the question with a focus on impact. What is the film that has affected me the most on first viewing? That made me cry the most? What is the film from which I have learnt the most? What is the film that has changed my world view? What is the film that fills me with the greatest joy or carries me through when I’m sad?

There are too many answers to all of these different questions and often the questioner isn’t looking for an essay, so over the years I’ve focused the question, in my mind, to what is the film that first changed my understanding of the world? In answering this question, all the other answers can follow.

Now the answer brings me round, at last, to this week’s Hyde Park Pick, Harvey (1950, 100mins, U).

Directed by Henry Koster and adapted from a play of the same name by Mary Chase. Harvey stars James Stewart alongside a cracking supporting cast (with a particular shout out to the magnificent Josephine Hull). Stewart (just four years post It’s A Wonderful Life) is magnificently warm as Elwood P. Dowd, a local eccentric who whiles away his days ambling around town, meeting people, making small talk, and enjoying the odd drink or several. Oh, and keeping him company is his best friend, an invisible 6ft 3½-inches tall white rabbit called Harvey.

The film follows Elwood on an average day visiting his favourite watering hole whilst in the background his sister Veta works to try have him committed to a sanatorium to both save face for the family but also in what she believes is an act of care for a beloved brother she doesn’t understand.

I still remember my first-time watching Harvey with my Nana and Grandad one afternoon at their house. It was in their company I discovered a whole world of classic British and American cinema which meant that by 11 or 12 I’d probably spent more time with Gene Kelly and Katherine Hepburn than Mickey Mouse or any of the Disney princesses.

There was so much I experienced of film in those early years, not to mention two decades whiled away here at the Picture House, so why did Harvey stand out then and why now, all these years later, does it still bring me so much joy?  

Some of it is about the experience of watching. I reflect on it and I can still see my Nana’s face, I can picture almost every detail of her living room in perfect period detail. It is more than that though. I can’t quote passages without spoilers so won’t be too literal with the ideas I point to, but instead I will say that the sentiment at the heart of Harvey found me at exactly the right time. In my young girl’s reading of this film, we find a film about tolerance, understanding and kindness. It invites one to view the world with openness and curiosity. See what conversations come your way and enjoy them for each meeting has the potential for some form of loveliness.

Had I not discovered Harvey when I did, would I have been open to all the wonder and potential of the Picture House when it came my way? I can’t say but I’m happy that I don’t have to find out.

Harvey is showing at HPPH on Sunday 7th April at 14:00.