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Who's Harry Crumb?

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Who's Harry Crumb?
Theatrical release poster
Directed byPaul Flaherty
Written byRobert Conte
Peter Martin Wortmann
Produced byArnon Milchan
Starring
CinematographyStephen M. Katz
Edited byDanford B. Greene
Music byMichel Colombier[1]
Production
companies
Frostbacks
NBC Productions
Distributed byTri-Star Pictures
Release date
  • February 3, 1989 (1989-02-03)
Running time
90 minutes[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$11 million

Who's Harry Crumb? is a 1989 American comedy-mystery film featuring John Candy as the title character. Paul Flaherty directed the film, which co-stars Annie Potts, Jeffrey Jones and Shawnee Smith. An uncredited cameo appearance is made by Jim Belushi.[3] The story concerns the often incompetent, sometimes brilliant, private investigator Harry Crumb, who searches for a kidnapping victim.

Plot

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In Beverly Hills, fashion model Jennifer Downing is kidnapped. Her father, multimillionaire P.J. Downing, turns to family friend Eliot Draisen—president of the Crumb & Crumb private detective agency—to investigate the case, unaware he is the kidnapper. Eliot offers them the aid of Harry Crumb, the last descendant of the agency's distinguished founders. A bumbling, clumsy, but dedicated detective with a penchant for disguises, Harry is recalled from the Tulsa, Oklahoma branch where he was assigned ten years earlier to keep him away from the head office. Eliot believes Harry will be completely ineffective in solving the case.

Harry meets with the Downing family, including Jennifer's overlooked younger sister Nikki and P.J.'s greedy new wife Helen, who is having an affair with her tennis coach Vince Barnes. Harry becomes suspicious of Helen after learning Jennifer was kidnapped while using Helen's salon appointment. P.J. receives a $10 million ransom demand to spare Jennifer's life. Meanwhile, Eliot meets with Helen, confessing he has been in love with her since they went to school together. Helen rebuffs him, admitting she only cares about money and would only be with Eliot if he possessed vast wealth.

Convinced that Helen and Vince are the kidnappers, Harry begins working with Nikki to investigate them. Concerned that P.J. will pay the ransom, Helen and Vince decide to implement their own long-planned effort to kill P.J. so she will inherit his money first. They sabotage the brakes on P.J.'s car but Harry and Nikki borrow it to covertly follow Helen and Vince. When the brakes fail, Harry unintentionally rams their car and they assume that he is chasing them. The pair escape after Harry crashes his car. Harry assumes they sabotaged the car to kill him and stop his investigation.

Harry infiltrates the vent system in Vince's apartment complex to spy on him and Helen, unaware that Vince has been lured away by Eliot who uses his knowledge of her affair to blackmail her for sex. Unable to see through the high vent in the apartment, Harry overhears film characters on the TV discussing traveling to Buenos Aires which he believes is Vince and Helen planning to flee the country; the location also inspires Eliot's own escape plans. Eliot sends a new ransom demanding the money by Friday, which Helen intercepts and changes to the following Monday, giving herself more time to kill P.J.. Eliot has his accomplice Dwayne force Jennifer to call and re-confirm the ransom for Friday, to be exchanged at the horse racing track. Eliot takes the briefcase containing the cash from Harry, ostensibly under instructions from the kidnapper, and leaves for the airport. Helen and Vince unsuccessfully try to follow him to steal the money.

At the airport, Eliot calls Helen, admits his role in the kidnapping, and asks her to come with him to Buenos Aires now that he is rich, to which she readily agrees. Vince overhears the call and intercepts the pair, taking the money and causing Helen to rejoin him. They bind and gag Eliot, leaving him in a utility room, before boarding the plane. Harry and Nikki arrive, commandeering a stair truck to pursue the plane. Their chaotic chase causes a luggage trolley to crash into the building in which Dwayne is holding Jennifer, inadvertently electrocuting Dwayne to death. Nikki rams the stair car into the plane, allowing Harry to capture Helen and Vince, who are taken into police custody. With Jennifer saved, Harry and Nikki celebrate until he overhears Eliot trying to free himself. Assuming Harry has deduced his part in the kidnapping and exasperated at his success, Eliot confesses and is arrested.

Harry is named the new president of Crumb & Crumb, and P.J. thanks him for reconciling the relationship between himself and Nikki. A new case is brought to Harry's attention—a murder at the Bottom's Up club in San Francisco.

Cast

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Release

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Box office

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See also: 1989 in film

Who's Harry Crumb? was released in the United States and Canada on February 3, 1989. During its opening weekend it grossed a total of $3.9 million from 1,197 theaters—an average of $3,227 per theater—making it the fifth-highest grossing film of the weekend, behind Beaches ($4.2 million) in its seventh week of release, and ahead of Twins ($3.3 million) in its ninth.[4] In its second weekend, Who's Harry Crumb? fell to the number 8 position with a $2.3 million gross—a 40.1% drop from the previous week—placing it behind Twins ($2.9 million) and ahead of the debuting Tap ($2.2 million).[5] In total, Who's Harry Crumb? grossed $11 million, making it only the 84th-highest-grossing film of 1989.[6][7]

The film was released in the United Kingdom on July 6, 1989, and failed to reach the Top 15.[8]

Critical reception

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Janet Maslin praised several of the performances in the film, including Candy's, but dismissed the film as a "weak comedy". Noting that Who's Harry Crumb? and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! center on detectives who both feign wisdom while being oblivious, not to mention the same fish sight gag, Maslin concludes that Leslie Nielsen comes out the better in the comparison.[9] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 27% based on 11 reviews.[10] On Metacritic it has a score of and 44% based on reviews from 10 critics.[11] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "C" on scale of A to F.[12]

According to motion picture-historian Leonard Maltin, "Candy is ideally cast, but the film itself is uneven...With some very funny moments, but too much outright silliness."[13]

In March 2018, Den of Geek included the film as one of "The Underrated Movies of 1989", commenting that it "isn't necessarily vintage Candy...it's still a lot of fun, and gives him a title role that he clearly enjoyed."[14]

References

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  1. ^ Hischak, Thomas S. (16 April 2015). The Encyclopedia of Film Composers. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-4422-4550-1.
  2. ^ Staff writer (21 April 1989). "Who's Harry Crumb (Film)". British Board of Film Classification. Approved running time 89m 40s... This work was cut. To obtain this category cuts of 0m 1s were required.
  3. ^ McLeod, Kembrew (February 2005). Freedom of Expression. Doubleday. pp. 191–192. ISBN 0-385-51325-9 – via Internet Archive.
  4. ^ "Domestic 1989 Weekend 5 February 3-5, 1989". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on December 16, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  5. ^ "Domestic 1989 Weekend 6 February 10-12, 1989". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on June 11, 2020. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  6. ^ "Who's Harry Crumb?". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on December 15, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  7. ^ "Domestic Box Office For 1989". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on December 15, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
  8. ^ "UK Weekend Box Office 7th July 1989 - 8th July 1989". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  9. ^ Maslin, Janet (1989-02-03). "Reviews/Film; Missteps of a Gumshoe: 'Who's Harry Crumb?'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-22.
  10. ^ "Who's Harry Crumb?". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on March 9, 2023. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  11. ^ "Who's Harry Crumb?". Metacritic. Archived from the original on March 7, 2023. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  12. ^ "WHO'S HARRY CRUMB? (1989) C". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20.
  13. ^ Maltin's TV, Movie, & Video Guide [ISBN missing]
  14. ^ Lambie, Ryan; Brew, Simon (23 March 2018). "The Underrated Movies of 1989". Den of Geek. Dennis Publishing.
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