Yep, it's pretty bad. Since its flop release in 1984 I'd always been curious about Harry & Son, the movie Paul Newman not only starred in opposite Robby Benson, but also directed, co-wrote and co-produced (with Ronald Buck, Newman's lawyer and the owner of Hampton's, a popular chain of LA hamburger joints). Despite a stellar cast - including Joanne Woodward (the esteemed Mrs. Newman), Ellen Barkin, Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman, and Judith Ivey - the film is an absolutely deadly exploration of the strained relationship between a blue-collar wrecking ball operator father and his dreamy-eyed, would-be writer son. The screenplay is all over the map, but virtually nothing about it is credible, and Benson is miscast, though he gives the part his all, arguably more than Newman does.

Olive Film's Blu-ray offers a fine high-def presentation however, though the disc comes with no extra features at all, not even a trailer.

Newman is Harry Keach, a construction worker whose wife has been dead for two years, though Harry's still in obvious mourning over his loss. He resides in a ranch house in Florida, on a lot surrounded by concrete on all sides in a working-class Ft. Lauderdale, Florida neighborhood. He lives there with his son, Howie (Robby Benson), who likes to surf when not working as a luxury/sports car detailer at a car wash, while trying to establish himself as a writer. Harry does not approve of his son's work ethic.

Harry is fired when crippling headaches cause his vision to blur on the job. Unable to properly aim the wrecking ball, one of Harry's co-workers nearly winds up like Wile E. Coyote. Harry can't get another job in construction, yet refuses to go to work at his brother Tom's (Wilford Brimley) surplus store. (The movie implies Tom's the older brother, but Brimley was actually a decade younger than Newman, then pushing 60.)

Lonely and discouraged, Harry vents his spleen on hapless Howie. "I want to work and can't," Harry says. "You can and don't!" Howie, trying to placate his father, finds "respectable" work elsewhere, first at a cardboard manufacturing plant, and later repossessing cars, but he takes an instant dislike to these jobs, quitting almost as soon as he's begun.

Subplots worm their way into the story. Widower Lilly (Joanne Woodward), an eccentric pet shop owner and the best friend of Harry's late wife, keeps hinting that perhaps they should get together, but Harry ain't biting. Lilly's daughter and Howie's onetime girlfriend, Katie (Ellen Barkin), is nearly nine months' pregnant with another man's baby. The nonjudgmental Howie rekindles that relationship anyway. Meanwhile, things get so bad between Harry & Son, as they had between Harry & Daughter (Katherine Borowitz), that on Harry's birthday no less, he packs Howie's suitcase and kicks his son out of the house.

The movie chokes with good intentions, but the painful, tense, and long-strained relationship the story revolves around never once seems credible. Paul Newman could be superb in the hands of a director (like Sidney Lumet in 1982's The Verdict) who could push the actor out of his safe zone. Too often though, Newman relied on actorly performances that superficially almost always looked good, sometimes even in otherwise terrible movies, but which almost never dug deep into the emotional core of the characters he was playing. In Harry & Son, Newman gives the kind of performance one would expect from a huge movie star who was also sometimes a great actor. But it's not a great performance or even a very good one; it offers no surprises or internal/emotional insight at all. (Joanne Woodward reportedly "directed" Newman when he was on camera, but Newman later admitted that she neither asserted herself enough nor did he take much direction from her.)

Both Robby Benson and the character he plays really don't work on any level. Howie is supposed to be talented and aware of his abilities and failings, with Harry seeing only the latter. He's also supposed to be sensitive yet somewhat indefatigable: he never lets Harry's endless criticisms get him down and remains loyal to his father even when Harry is occasionally quite cruel toward Howie and his sister. Benson runs with this gamut of emotions but the volatile mixture of sensitivity and occasional emotional outbursts somehow makes the character come off as a bit dense.

The film almost adamantly refuses to scratch beyond the superficial, and this partly may have been due to the story's obvious but never-addressed parallels between Newman and his troubled son Scott, who unhappily lived in his famous father's shadow, drifting from one profession to the next. Scott Newman suffered from acute alcoholism (toward which his father was highly critical, ironic given Newman's own years of heavy drinking) before committing suicide in 1978 at the age of 28, the same age Benson was at the time Harry & Son was made. In interviews Newman steadfastly refused to make any comparisons or talk about his son's death much at all.

It's hard to hate a movie that tries so hard, but even halfway decent scenes are few and far between. The only moderately entertaining and surprising vignette in the picture occurs when Howie tries repossessing a car belonging to Ossie Davis's pragmatic, unemployed working-class man, an obvious link to Newman's more prickly character. It's a funny, believable few minutes the movie could have used a lot more of.

Video & Audio

Shot for 1.85:1 widescreen in spherical Panavision, Olive's Blu-ray of Harry & Son, licensed from MGM as part of that studio's Orion Library, looks excellent in high-def. The image is sharp and the color is bright and accurate. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono is acceptable, if in English only with no subtitle or alternate language options. And there are no Extra Features.

Parting Thoughts

A failed experiment still worth seeing once, if only for its cast, Harry & Son is a Rent It.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His credits include film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features.