User reviews

The narrative line of the script is scattered and seems to pick up ideas and problems and then drop them without resolution to tackle some other tangential issue. The issues all pertain to the relationship between the father and son but it would have been better to focus more on their interaction and less on exterior forces. Benson tries in the lead but just is not that strong of a screen presence especially when competing with Newman's star power. The rest of the cast is certainly talented even if what they are handed character wise is diffuse. It is interesting to see some like Freeman and Barkin who went on to long careers just starting out. Not a bad film but very average.

Paul Newman plays Harry Keach , a father who has been widowed for two years , who works as a demolition crane operator . He loses his hub due to a medical condition and finds himself battling his son and other personal demons .

When you think of Paul Newman films you don't think of Harry & Son and for good reason . This overlong , melodramatic film , directed by Newman is definitely not his best work .

It's nearly two hours of nothing much which ends extremely abruptly . Almost as if they ran out of money!

It definitely has the feel of a TV movie but actually wasn't .

Newman , unsurprisingly is the best thing about this film along with his real life wife , Joanne Woodward , but I haven't addressed the elephant in the room yet and that's Robby Benson who plays Howard , the son.

What a terrible actor ! He prances around looking like a cheep John Travolta, in a pair of shorts that should be on a twelve year old boy , flashing his eyelashes and whispering every line as if he's trying to be Brando . The worst thing is he has a massive amount of screen time as well .

He really is appalling and it's no wonder I've never seen him In anything since.

It was interesting to see a young Morgan Freeman in a small cameo and Wilfred Brimley whois criminally underused.

Unless you are a massive Paul Newman fan ( and I am ) , then I wouldn't bother .

You see, it can be done. It is possible, even in the last decades of the 20th century, to make a good feature film that concentrates on character and eschews action. We don't need car chases to help us through the story, because we care about Harry and Howie and want to see what befalls them. Paul Newman co-wrote, directed and produced this absorbing tale of father and son, continuing his long tradition of intelligent movie-making.

Harry works the wrecking ball on a demolition site. He is a gruff, inarticulate fifty-something who likes his job. Howie is maybe 20, a dreamy young man who wants to be a writer. He has no real work, dividing his time between the car wash where he has a part-time job, his surf board and the family's hot tub, in which he does most of his writing.

And therein lies the conflict which drives this story. Harry was brought up not to question the importance of working for a living. His inflexible blue-collar morality is offended by Howie's lazy, self-indulgent lifestyle. Howie, on the other hand, grew up in a climate where self-expression and leisure activities count for more than the humdrum business of earning a living.

A medical condition forces Harry out of his job. Newman is impressive as the ageing, weakening man's man who is gutted by the loss of his livelihood, because to him it means the loss of his validity as a man. He sees Howie's vitality and intelligence and cannot come to terms with his son's lack of ambition. In one of their regular fights, Harry encapsulates the situation neatly. "I want a job and can't get one," he tells Howie. "You can, and don't."

Bright and personable, if a little too pretty in the John Travolta way, Bobby Benson plays Howie with enthusiasm. The contrast between the dour widower and his cheerful, energetic son is nicely conveyed. Supporting the two central performances are Joanne Woodward as Lillie and Ellen Barkin (Katie). Lillie is a friend of the family who develops a 'thing' about Harry. Her daughter Katie is a girl of easy morals whose relationship with Howie rekindles after a break-up.

Nice touches include the black screen at the very start which is shattered by Harry's wrecking ball, and the backlighting which gives Katie a 'halo' as she sets out her ethical position. I didn't like the too-convenient cheque which arrives from John Davidson or the ease with which secretary Sally can be suborned for sex. For me, Benson overacts horribly in the 'discovery' scene. Indeed, what happens to Harry is an unnecessarily dramatic event in this gentle, understated film.

For a kid from the posh suburb of Shaker Heights, Ohio Paul Newman has a remarkable affinity for playing blue collar men. This is a guy who knows the value of hard work and it's his greatest disappointment in life is that he hasn't passed on that value to his children, Katherine Borowitz and Robby Benson.

It's Benson who Newman worries the most about. He wants to be a writer, but that just doesn't happen over night. One has to get out into the world and acquire a little life experience to learn what one wants to write about. The only one that didn't apply to was Emily Dickinson. Benson cites Hemingway as getting rejected 300 times before getting some money for his thoughts. But there certainly was a man who had himself a lot of life experience and earned a few dollars to pay his own way.

I could understand Newman very well since I came from a family of uncles just like Newman on my mother's side. I could understand Benson less so since all he wants is surf and sex. He tries working at some dead end jobs, his scenes with Morgan Freeman at a cardboard box factory and trying to repossess Ossie Davis's car are his best in the film.

In fact Newman's tragedy is that health issues cause him to stop working and he won't acknowledge them.

But it's Newman and Benson that's the heart of Harry&Son. Father and son Keach come to a kind of understanding toward the end. The film is not the best from either Newman or Benson, but nothing to be ashamed of here.

A well acted and dramatic film dealing with a construction worker and his family relationship . As Paul Newman is a depressed widower who loses his job and along the way he quarrels with their kids. As Newman is the ordinarily tired old man and we've all seen Robby Benson play the young character too many times .

The script and action are a little thin , and quite pleasantly for a while , until you start realising that Newman has decided to compose this entire movie out of them. Superb interpretations don't make up for a really boring and dull flick . It is nothing more than a constant succession of the sort of emotional peaks players love to do on screen . The result is a curiously tiring phenomenon , and sometimes indigestible and dullness . Nice duo of protagonists : Paul Newman as the widower construction labourer who faces the problems of raising his son Robby Benson, both of whom give awesome acting . Being well accompanied by a notorious plethora of secondaries as a young Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley , Judith Ivey , Ossie Davies , Morgan Freeman and of course Joanne Woodward .

It contais an atmospheric cinematography by Donald McAlpine , as well as sensitive and evocative musical score by Henry Mancini . The motion picture was well directed by Paul Newman , though it has a number of flaws and gaps. Being written by Ronald Buck and Paul Newman himself , dedicated to his son who early died due to overdose .The famous actor of hits as "The Hustler , Exodus , Torn Curtain , The Prize , Hud , Harper , Judge Roy Bean, Verdict , Color of Money" , among others , also directed some movies , such as : "The Glass Menagerie , The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds ,Sometimes a Great Nation , Rachel Rachel and this Harry and Son" . Rating : 6/10 , passable and acceptable . The flick will appeal to Paul Newman fans .

"Harry and Son" must have meant a lot to Paul Newman because he not only played Harry, but co-wrote the story and screenplay, as well as co-produced and directed the film. His wife, Joanne Woodward, also got dragged into this mess in a small supporting role.

Before Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, and Newman's buddy Robert Redford stepped behind the camera and won Oscars for directing, Newman won a lot of praise and some awards for his 1968 directorial debut, "Rachel, Rachel," for which Woodward received an Oscar nomination. The film was also nominated for best picture, but Newman was passed over by the director's branch who nominated Stanley Kubrick for "2001: A Space Odyssey" instead (although it might be more accurate to say the Academy gave the best picture nomination that "2001" deserved to the Newman-Woodward film). Whatever promise Newman showed behind the camera wasn't fulfilled, however, and Newman directed only a handful of other films, the best of which, in my opinion, was 1971's "Sometimes a Great Notion" from Ken Kesey's novel about a logging family in Oregon that featured a remarkable scene involving a drowning.

"Harry and Son" suggests that, as a director, Newman was spent. His first mistake was in casting himself as a construction worker, an ornery guy who would have been more suitable for George C. Scott, but made his biggest misstep by casting Robby Benson as his son. Robby Benson!? There was a time in the '70s before the Brat Pack era of the next decade when the soft-voiced, overly pretty, and annoyingly coy Benson seemed to get all the major male roles between the ages of 16 and 25. Fortunately, until the Brat Pack era of which he was not a part, there weren't too many major roles in movies for males aged 16 to 25. Movie audiences, even the 18-25 year olds said to represent the demographic Hollywood covets most, preferred stories with adult characters played by middle-aged actors, whether it was Sean Connery (or Roger Moore) as James Bond, Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, or any of the roles played by Newman, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Burt Reynolds, and the other box-office draws of that era.

Benson was awful in just about everything he did, and always too goody-goody and sensitive to be believed. He's not convincing as Newman's son, nor does he believably portray a writer which the construction worker's son aspires to be. He sits grimacing at his typewriter, aggressively pounding the keys, and when his father asks why the stories he writes are always being rejected, he calmly says, "It's part of the ritual." That sounds like a remark that a neophyte writer would write for a character who is a writer. It's not what a writer would likely utter while watching the rejection slips piling up, suffering a crisis of confidence on one hand, and feeling defensively superior on the other.

Newman isn't much better. I guess he couldn't help it if he looks too handsome and physically fit for a 58-year-old laborer, but that's because he wasn't a laborer. He was a 58-year-old movie star who kept himself in tip-top shape and resembles a male model more than a construction worker even in his snug jeans and flannel shirt. Newman would convincingly play a blue collar guy a decade later in the excellent "Nobody's Fool," but he didn't write the script for that and left the directing to Robert Benton. As for Benson, he went on to voice the beast in Disney's animated "Beauty and the Beast," and has mercifully remained behind-the-camera ever since. Sorry, Robby, but as an actor, you stank.

Brian W. Fairbanks

Harry was once an ace crane operator for a construction company, but failing health in his older years has weakened his eyesight and, after a near-miss on the job, he's unceremoniously canned. Harry's son, Howard, in his early 20s and still living with "Pa," has a goof-off job detailing and washing cars, which leaves him most of the day to surf at the beach or type his short stories. Unable to hold a steady job with regular hours, the kid eventually gets the boot by Harry; meanwhile, the best friend of Harry's deceased wife--who works in a bird store and talks to her parrots--has a pregnant daughter with eyes for Howard (she doesn't seem to notice or care that he's unemployed, so naturally the kid wants to marry her). Co-written, co-produced, directed and starring Paul Newman, "Harry & Son" can't help but be a disappointment. Where has Newman's artistry gone? It's as absent here as his talent handling actors. This is a one-dimensional family drama with unconvincing characters and arguments and situations. Harry pecks at his son like a jealous lover, which is rendered even more unpleasant by Robby Benson's penchant for acting without his shirt on. Benson gives a wet, mildewy performance, the kind of plastic acting that cancels out all interest in a performer. Directing himself, Newman doesn't fare much better. Joanne Woodward, Ellen Barkin, Ossie Davis and Judith Ivey should be a strong supporting ensemble but the baleful writing doesn't help them. Playing a warehouse supervisor producing cardboard boxes, Morgan Freeman (shouting over the machines) has the most ridiculous sequence--who wouldn't walk away after a nightmare like this? There's another scene involving cardboard boxes (that's two too many), wherein vindictive Newman tries making his daughter and her husband look foolish by packing dishes in a wet container. There are no conclusions to these episodes; Newman is only interested in setting up the circumstances and then bulldozing his way to the next chapter. It's a depressingly pedestrian piece of work. *1/2 from ****

The reason I have such fond memories of this movie is because I remember how I felt (and still do - but it's not the same as the first time) the first time I saw it on video, in maybe 1993, and the feelings it provoked in me.

I graduated from high school in 1984, the year the film was made, and my mother had passed away earlier in 1979, leaving me to grow up after 13 years of age with my father and younger sister. My older brother was soon to go into the Air Force, and my older sister was already away to college. While there were many differences between Paul Newman's character and my own father, the fundamental relationship he had with Robby Benson was right on the mark with me and my father. My father died when I was 26, in 1993. I think that Robby Benson's character was a few years younger when his dad in the movie died, but it was close enough to hit home with me. I, like the Benson character, was a little aimless after high school, and my father did seem to have more patience with me at times, he could give me some harsh input at other times. And my father went for 10 years without dating anyone after my mother passed away, but towards the end of his life he did find a woman that he had a lot of fun with, and we all did things together at times as well. My father was also about the same age as Newman's character when he died, and I was present right after he had his final heart attack and died at home.

Now that I have explained some similarities with my life and the movie, I'll get back to why I liked the movie so much. It wasn't because of the coincidental similarities between my life and the movie, but because my life is real, and many people have many of these same basic father-son dynamics, and the writers(half Newman), actors (big part Newman), and director (Newman again)somehow pulled off an amazing dose of reality with this film that is common to all of us. Newman just commits himself so honestly. He has that seriousness in his character that at times is how many capable, grounded, but real fathers are; sometimes mixes it up with a humor that is just as honest and bold, maybe even irreverent, and then other times when they're with their sons and they have a 'comradery'. And then other times when fathers are just plain irritated, and the son knows he's on his father's bad side at the moment, and he should be worried, but he also knows that his father is a softy down deep. However a son would never challenge him and expect that soft side, and the son also instinctively knows that his father isn't perfect but he is much wiser than the him, and he certainly knows the father really does love him and has the son's best interests at heart.

To summarize, first of all the performances in this movie are of a Team who were in touch with the bareness and essence of our life, of our American society and family reality. And then secondly, they somehow manage to give it back to us for us all to see on the screen, and allow us to see ourselves in a new and deeper way. I understand myself and my relationship with my father, and his relationship with me, a little better because of this movie. And that is the goal of any art, and should be the goal of people intending to make good movies. Because this movie taught me so much, I have to say that it I value it is a great movie, it (the whole Team) delivered what might be expected from the title and beyond; it was heart breaking and heart warming, it was meaningful, and I had fun watching it!. Thanks to the whole Team, but a very special thanks to Paul Newman!

Pat Wilson

The male response to "Terms of Endearment" fails badly at all levels as it's neither charming with its chaotic humor and neither fully satisfies as a drama. It breaks my heart to see Paul Newman being lead actor/director/writer of a piece so strange, trying to be too many things all at once and not delivering a single right note that makes us care for it. It's one of those cases that you may enjoy the performances (as he got a great ensemble with Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley, Judith Ivey, Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman and Newman's wife Joanne Woodward), enjoy some of the situations but you won't feel relating with anybody and won't learn anything from it, as the mountain of cliches pile up with almost no reward.

The relationship between a sick father (Newman) and his young son (Robby Benson) is given an awkward treatment as they swing back and forth between good buddies to unknown figures to each other who bicker for pointless things, or at times because the idealist promising writer fails to sustain a work. I sort of related with the sensitive kid failing at all the works he applied since he's totally wrong for it, and only writing could help him to come out to life (but his writing sucks, the little it was shown).

Why "Harry and Son" is so weak and never fully works? Newman's character is too stubborn, deeply rooted in his own persona and only thinks about himself; and even when he gets a new chance at love, with the advances from a friend of his deceased wife, he becomes a rude figure. With his son, it gets wildly confusing as to what he really wants from the boy, reaching a point where he kicks him out of home just because his room was a mess, and if one looks back at their very first scene, having a dinner by candlelight and having a nice talk, they never were the kind of men who were against each others throat. As the father's disease is never mentioned (neither treated) I assume he has a brain tumor that makes him such an erratic man, who barely generates any sympathy from the audience.

But what irritated me the most was the bizarre balance of comedy and drama, as none of them are convincing or interesting. Take the famous dish breaking scene where the guys invite the sister/daughter and her husband to lunch and Newman presents his daughter with some fancy dishes from the family and makes a whole "prank" that the estimated dishes break, much to the woman's horror, and ours as well. It goes from slightly funny, to heavily dramatic as she leaves the house, moves back to funny as Newman falls on the same prank while cleaning everything, a chase ensues around the house and then moves to more drama as he feels sick. It's the kind of thing it'd work in literature, here it just try so hard in getting a rollercoaster of emotions that you don't know for whom to care or reject. The whole film goes in between too much drama, too much comedy and it hardly gets right at any of those.

For a higher analysis, "Harry and Son" proves that some people will never grow or they'll never have the ability to change; others will have changes forced upon themselves way before their times and all the learning must be done quickly. But I've seen better with such proof. As a personal project for Mr. Newman, this lacked coherence, passion and heart. Like his character, a demolition crane operator, he crashes everything down in what could be a good film. 5/10.

"Harry & Son" is an opportunity for Paul Newman to wear four hats....actor, director, producer and writer. And, while his acting and direction are fine, I am not so sure of his producer skills and I am even less bowled over by his writing.

There isn't a huge amount of plot in this one. Instead, it's more a character study of two guys who seem absolutely nothing like family even though they are supposed to be father and son. And, as such, it's not a particularly enjoyable character study...and much of it is because Robby Benson's character is so childish and annoying. While not as bad, Newman's actually isn't so much better. As a result, the film just seemed aimless and difficult to like...even though I think Newman was one of our great actors. Here, it's hard to notice because the story and Benson are so weak...as is the ending...which seemed to come way too late.

Paul Newman is fired from his construction jobs. His eyes are giving out at odd moments, and it's too much risk. There are no other jobs available, except working with his brother, Wilford Brimley, and that's not going to happen. So he retreats unhappily to his house, where son Robby Benson is a severe disappointment to him. Benson graduated with honors. He wants to be a writer like Hemingway, but can't sell a story. Meanwhile, Benson goes through a spate of jobs, all of which he quickly quits. This offends Newman's working-class sensibilities. Also, Benson has a pregnant girlfriend.

Newman produced, directed, and wrote part of the screenplay. He stocked it with some high-powered acting talent, like Ellen Barkin, Judith Ivy, Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman, Joanne Woodward... I imagine that if Paul Newman asks you to be in his movie, "no" is not a word that comes to mind. But this movie about the struggle to maintain love in the face of a father whose ideas are so different from yours falls apart because Benson is not a very good actor. He can't command the screen when anyone else is present. Too bad. It might have been a very good movie if one of the other actors up for the role had gotten it. But even in the face of eventually being proven right about everything, Benson seems to be an outside character in this story about him and Newman.

Paul Newman wanted to make a film inspired by his troubled relationship with his own son. Scott Newman, 28, died in 1978 from an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. Newman, the film's director, co-producer and co-writer wanted Gene Hackman to play the lead role. However, the studio insisted that Newman also star as the father. Robbie Benson is fine as Newman's distant son. I was in Fort Lauderdale when Harry & Son was being filmed. It created some excitement when Paul Newman walked into a sandwich shop and ordered his takeout lunch.

Harry Keach (Paul Newman) and his son Howard (Robby Benson) are very different people. Harry is a blue collar working widower. His son is a surfing writer struggling to get his stuff published. Harry's eyes are going and he gets fired.

Neither father nor son are appealing. They are both self-destructive. The kid is a self-important passive-aggressive annoying little sit. Robby Benson would get a Razzie nomination. That's not really fair. It's not a good performance, but it's much more the way he's written. I have sympathy for Robby but not the movie. Paul Newman is the director and one of the writers. Maybe the Razzie had more reason to nominate him instead.

V cute movie. V nostalgic of old LA and the 80s. I think the location is Torrance. Harry Keach is a mid 50s or 60s construction worker who recently lost his wife. He lives in this cozy house w his son, Howard, the writer and surfer. Harry is bitter due to his recent loss.

Harry experiences migraines and vision impairment while he is operating a heavy crane at work and therefore loses his job. He becomes further disillusioned. He also starts to become highly irritable and stars fights w his son, daughter, neighbor etc.

His son is very affectionate and loves his dad unconditionally. Joanne Woodward plays a lovely neighbor and friend of recently departed Harry's wife.

Movie features new performances by young Ellen Barkin, Morgan Freeman, Judith Ivey, Ozzie Davis and Joanne Woodward.

Movie shows cozy, nostalgic dinners between father and son. Robbie Benson plays the very energetic, optimistic and very loving son, Howard. Ellen Barkin plays his girlfriend.

At the end, Harry comes around. Really great watch if you love a family movie. Takes places in 80s Southern California, Los Angeles county.

Harry & Son (1984)

** (out of 4)

Family drama centering on father Harry (Paul Newman), a blue collar construction worker who loses his job due to an unknown illness he's suffering from. Harry has trouble trying to connect to his growing son Howard (Robby Benson) who wants to make it as a writer. The son can't keep a "real" job, which rubs his father the wrong way since he actually wants to work but is unable to. You can tell this was a labor of love for Newman who not only plays the lead but he also directed, produced and co-wrote the screenplay. If you've seen some of Newman's earlier directorial films you'll know that he can create some very touching pictures and there are glimpses of that here but sadly the end result is that HARRY & SON is a complete misfire and without question the low point in Newman's directing career. The biggest problem is without question the screenplay, which is a real mess. I think this movie is supposed to be about a father and son relationship but you'd never know that because not for a second does Harry and Howard come off as some sort of connection. The relationship between the two never really comes off as a father-son thing and another major problem is that neither character really gets a chance to grow. I'd also say that the screenplay really doesn't give us much to go on because we never fully understand their motivations. We never really know why the father is so against his son. There's a subplot with an issue between Harry and his daughter that we never fully understand. There are a wide range of characters who pop up only to either disappear or you never fully get to know who they are. Another major problem with the film is that even though it runs 117-minutes, in the current form, that's way too long as scenes just seem to drag on or the obvious just happens. I'm not sure if this was originally much longer and perhaps some of the character development had to be cut out to get it down to its current length. The one saving grace here and what keeps the film from being a major dud are the performances, which for the most part are very strong. Newman has no trouble playing the troubled blue collar worker but one wishes the screenplay would have given him a stronger character to stick his teeth in. Joanne Woodward is very good in her small supporting role as a love interest. We get other good performances from a likable cast that includes Ellen Barkin, Wilford Brimley, Ossie Davis and Morgan Freeman. The one exception to the good performances is Robby Benson who is pretty bad here. Rumor has it that he actually got this part over Tom Cruise, which is a real shame because I think that actor could have done much more. Benson is really lackluster and his rather bizarre performance makes his character more creepy than anything else. Even worse are his incredibly horrid facial gestures, which quite often make the viewer break out in laughter, which certainly wasn't the intent. HARRY & SON was overlooked when it was released and today it's only of interest to Newman fans who want to see the lower side of his career.