The Monstrous Movie Photo Of The Day: Heralding The Completion Of Harvey

Written By: Ken Hulsey

As you probably have guessed by now all of today's posts have something to do with bunnies in honor of it being Easter and all so I decided to pull a rabbit out of my hat, or to be more precise, pull a rabbit themed image out of my collection. This particular image was released by Universal to herald the completion of the 1950 film which starred one of my favorite actors Jimmy Stewart and actress Josephine Hull. This photo was published in movie trade magazines and was never released to the general public to promote the film.

Here is some history:

Harvey is a 1950 film based on Mary Chase's play of the same name, directed by Henry Koster, and starring James Stewart and Josephine Hull. The story is about a man whose best friend is a pooka named Harvey—in the form of a six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall invisible rabbit.

The classic stage hit gets the Hollywood treatment in the story of Elwood P. Dowd who makes friends with a spirit taking the form of a human-sized rabbit named Harvey that only he sees (and a few privileged others on occasion also.) After his sister tries to commit him to a mental institution, a comedy of errors ensues. Elwood and Harvey become the catalysts for a family mending its wounds and for romance blossoming in unexpected places. - Dale Roloff

Hull's performance earned her an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress; Stewart's portrayal earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Stewart later declared in an interview that Hull had the most difficult role in the film, since she had to believe and not believe in the invisible rabbit... at the same time.

This film was ranked #35 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.

In June 2008, AFI revealed its "10 Top 10"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Harvey was acknowledged as the seventh best film in the fantasy genre.

- Wikipedia

I know that there are other "bunnies" out there that I could have posted photos of ... Bugs Bunny would have been an all too obvious choice and Playboy Bunnies Lisa Welch (Miss February 1980) and Patricia Farinelli (Miss December 1981)(both personal faves) would have driven a lot more traffic to this page but in the end I decided that the invisible 6'3" Harvey would be the choice.

I do of course realize that a good number of you have just jumped to Google to look up both Lisa Welch and Patricia Farinelli ... which is to be expected.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!