''Harry's War'' is a 1981 American

comedy-drama Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...

film from American Film Consortium and

Taft International Pictures Sunn Classic Pictures, also known as Sunn International Pictures, Schick Sunn Classic Pictures, and Taft International Pictures was an independent U.S.-based film distributor, founded in 1971. The company was notable for family films and document ...

, starring

Edward Herrmann Edward Kirk Herrmann (July 21, 1943 – December 31, 2014) was an American actor, director, and writer. He was known for his portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the miniseries '' Eleanor and Franklin'' (1976) and 1982 film musical '' An ...

Geraldine Page Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924June 13, 1987) was an American actress. With a career which spanned four decades across film, stage, and television, Page was the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Geraldine Page, numer ...

Karen Grassle Karen Grassle ( ; born February 25, 1942) is an American actress, known for her role as Caroline Ingalls in the NBC television drama series ''Little House on the Prairie''. Early life Karen Grassle was born in northern California and moved to ...

David Ogden Stiers David Allen Ogden Stiers ( ; October 31, 1942 – March 3, 2018) was an American actor and conductor. He appeared in numerous productions on Broadway, and originated the role of Feldman in '' The Magic Show'', in 1974. In 1977, Stiers was cast ...

Elisha Cook Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. (December 26, 1903 – May 18, 1995) was an American character actor famed for his work in film noir. According to Bill Georgaris of They Shoot Pictures, Don't They, Cook appeared in 21 films noir, more than any ...

Salome Jens Salome Jens (born May 8, 1935) is an American dancer and actress of stage, film and television. She is also known for portraying the Female Changeling on '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (19941999). Early years Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Je ...

and

Noble Willingham Noble Henry Willingham, Jr. (August 31, 1931 – January 17, 2004) was an American actor who appeared in more than thirty films and in many television shows, including a stint opposite Chuck Norris in ''Walker, Texas Ranger''. Early life Will ...

. It was written and directed by

Kieth Merrill Kieth W. Merrill (born May 22, 1940) is an American filmmaker who has worked as a writer, director, and producer in the film industry since 1967. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Directors Guild of America ...

Plot

After his aunt dies of a heart attack while fighting the US

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

(IRS), mild-mannered accountant Harry Johnson decides to take up the cause in what may seem to be an unconventional manner: He declares war on the IRS. After the funeral of Harry's aunt, Harry uses a

half-track A half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with wheels at the front for steering and continuous tracks at the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. A half-track combines the soft-ground traction of a tank with the Car handl ...

to sabotage a television interview of his IRS nemesis. Several violent outcomes occur with some anti-government (or, at least, anti-IRS) rhetoric.

Cast

- Harry Johnson *

- "Aunt" Beverly Payne *

- Kathy Johnson *

- Ernie Scelera, IRS district director *

- Wilda Crawley, IRS agent * Elisha Cook, Jr. (as Elisha Cook) - Sergeant Billy Floyd *James Ray - Croft, IRS commissioner *Douglas Dirkson - Francis Kane (alias Draper), IRS agent *

Jim McKrell James McKrell (October 12, 1937, also written MacKrell), sometimes known on-air as Jimmy Kaye, is a retired American actor, radio host, and television personality, best known for hosting television game shows such as ''Celebrity Sweepstakes'' an ...

- Roger Scofield, Newsman *

- Major F. Andrews, United States Army * Alan Cherry - Chester Clim, IRS agent #1 *

Bruce Robinson Bruce Robinson (born 2 May 1946) is an English actor, director, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote and directed '' Withnail and I'' (1987), a film with comic and tragic elements set in London in the late 1960s, which drew on his experiences as ...

- IRS agent #2

Production

Parts of the film were shot in

St. George, Utah St. George or Saint George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border, it is the principal city of the St. George metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The cit ...

Theatrical run

This film saw a limited two-week release in theaters in March 1981.

Television

SelecTV, ONTV,

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

, and other premium cable movie channels ran the film in 1982, but it has never had a network television premiere or any other broadcast in the US since. In the UK, it was shown on

Talking Pictures TV Talking Pictures TV (TPTV) is a British free-to-air vintage film and nostalgia television channel. It was launched on 26 May 2015 on Sky. Later it also became available on Freeview, Freesat and Virgin Media. It is on air 24 hours a day and fe ...

in 2021.

Home media

Image Home Video released a

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

version of the film on April 1, 1988 and using the same video transfer also did a

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

release on August 1, 2005.

Legacy

In a mid-1980s interview with David Ogden Stiers, who played the IRS director in the film, was asked what his favorite role had been and the interviewer was expecting him to say something about his character in ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richa ...

'', but instead he paused for a second and said "There was this movie about the IRS and I was the biggest leepin the office...."

References

External links

* *{{Rotten Tomatoes, harrys_war
The New York Times Movies
1981 films 1980s political comedy-drama films 1981 independent films American independent films American political comedy-drama films Films directed by Kieth Merrill Films shot in Utah 1980s English-language films 1980s American films Films scored by Merrill Jenson English-language comedy-drama films English-language independent films