Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things about Me?

1971 dark comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: It's a day in the life of Georgie Soloway, a rich and successful songwriter who is not successful in love. 

You know what I needed in this movie? I needed a scene that explains how Georgie Soloway got his surname like in that Han Solo movie. Of course, it might be an explanation that's as boring as it being the last name of his father. Soloway. That's as obvious a name as I would have given a character in some of the crap I wrote in high school.

I was distracted during the early parts of this movie while trying to think of movie titles that were longer. I know Borat has a longer subtitle that nobody would ever bother saying, and that Ray Dennis Steckler Incredibly Strange Creatures movie has a really long title. And then there's Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. That has to be the longest title for a movie I've personally seen. 

I've got nothing better to do with my life and decided to research it. Typing that out has made me almost unbearably sad, by the way. Turns out that the de Sade movie has the second longest title. Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 2: In Shocking 2-D is the movie with the longest title. This movie gets bonus points for both having a long title and ending in a question mark though.

For a song about a musician, you might expect some music. There is a bit, but it's not Dustin Hoffman who gets most of the big moments. He dicks around at a guitar and a piano in brief scenes and mumbles his way through some rudimentary songs, and there's a really great moment on a plane where he and Barbara Harris sing a "Ricky Ticky Song." Children's poet and raunchy songwriter Shel Silverstein wrote that and a few of the other songs in that movie, and it was a lot of fun seeing him perform one of those songs. Man, that guy had a lot of energy, just the type of performer who seemed like he could chew your head off at any moment. There's also a steel drum infused "Jump Now" song in a dream sequence that was a real knock-out. And Soloway's psychologist, played by a daffy Jack Warden, gets a surprising musical number.

That shocking psychologist musical number is just one of many playful moments in this. The movie opens with a suicide, a long fall from a penthouse where Hoffman, aided by some truly magical early 70's special effects, dances through the air and the opening credits. The irreverence sets you up for a frolicsome but also sneakily dense and nearly profound look at lost time, self-sabotage, and ennui. The story takes place in a single day of Soloway's insomniac life, but it blends into flashbacks and dream sequences effortlessly. It constantly surprises, even for people who have seen similarly playful movies in the last 50 years.

There are times when things get a little too silly--hello, Santa!--but this has a lot of great moments. Dom DeLuise plays an accountant in one nice scene where his character has to be a friend to Soloway. There are a couple tender moments between Hoffman's character and his father played by David Burns who died the year this movie was released. And Barbara Harris is just fantastic in every scene she's in, especially an audition scene. The way Hoffman studies her in those scenes is very likely acting, since that's what Dustin Hoffman does, but there's part of me that wonders if he was just as blown away as I was watching her.

The script is sharp and smart, and I'd like to see this again sometime to put some pieces of it together more. Hoffman's in, as I recall, every single scene in this movie, and he's really good as this Dylanesque figure. So much of what he does just seems like he's doing his Dustin Hoffman thing, but he's so gifted at finding all this space with his characters that other actors might not find, all these little gestures and expressions.

As expected, this movie ends in a completely unexpected way.