Trailer
Plot summary
Harry Coombes has lived in the same Upper West Side apartment in New York City for much of his adult life, and the widowed retired teacher has no wish to leave it. The building is scheduled for demolition, so he stays with his eldest son's family in the suburbs, an arrangement that suits neither Harry nor his son's wife. He intends to fly to Chicago to visit his daughter Shirley, who runs a bookstore there, but trouble with Tonto's carrier at the airport puts him and his cat on a long-distance bus instead. From there Harry keeps heading west, meeting strangers along the way with Tonto beside him.
Cast
- Avon Longas Leroy
- Dolly Jonahas Elaine
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Harry and Tonto (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Cast as an elderly man, Carney, who was born in 1918, was only 13 years older than Larry Hagman and Phil Bruns, who played his sons, and 14 years older than Ellen Burstyn, who played his daughter; the makeup of Emmy-winning artist Bob O'Bradovich transformed him into the elderly Harry.
- Carney did not like cats before Harry and Tonto but established a good relationship with the cats in the film. After filming, the animal wrangler offered Mazursky one of the two cats who played Tonto, but Mazursky declined because his wife had become allergic to them.
- Mazursky wanted James Cagney for the role of Harry, but Cagney declined the offer, as did Laurence Olivier and Cary Grant.
- Muriel Beerman, who plays the cab driver, was a talkative part-time taxi driver in real life, and she had driven Mazursky to the casting office one day.
- Art Carney won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Harry, the role at the center of Harry and Tonto.
- Sally Marr, the mother of Lenny Bruce, also turns up in a small part toward the end of the film.
