Who's Harry Crumb? (1989)

I loved this movie. I laughed through the entire thing. Candy played a lovable Idiot Savant with the best of them. I have watched it 5 or 6 times since it came out. Still laugh. This isn't Shakespeare, but silly well written and well acted fun. The interplay, and evolving friendship, between Shawnee Smith and Candy was funny and sweet. Annie Potts was perfect as well. As my other reviews, I am too ADHD to write a real review. If you are a John Candy fan this should not be missed. If you are not, give it a try anyway.

While maybe not as funny as it once was for me when I was a kid, but Candy's dandy in this 80s star vehicle, overshadowed by Uncle Buck in the same year. He's a clueless (for the most part), bumbling private dick called on by kidnapping mastermind Jeffrey Jones who operates as boss of private investigation agency (Candy's ancestors started it but his Harry was working out of a modest Tulsa office with few clients) because he's considered so moronic he couldn't possibly solve the case. Jones wants Barry Corbin's gold-digger wife, Annie Potts (in rare sexpot role), and kidnaps the millionaire's model daughter for a hefty ransom. Shawnee Smith is Corbin's younger daughter, a wise young woman (she's gorgeous) who knows Potts is cheating on her dad, assisting Candy during the investigation. Tim Thomerson is dimbulb tennis pro lover of Potts, helping her plot to kill Corbin. Valri Bromfield is Candy's rival, an experienced cop who considers him out of his depth...their one-upsmanship, insults towards each other, and snarling glances make for fun moments. Candy gets to disguise himself in various characters in order to fish out the truth, including Indian air conditioning repairman, fried-spikey haired window washer, and bald European spa health inspector. Candy has good chemistry with Shawnee, and how he drives Jones crazy (pictures taken with him and Potts while in a ventilation shaft, and the incidents involving dinosaur bones, including pterodactyl egg) gets plenty of laughs. The ceiling fan, his problems with Corbin's fish and lures (and a dartboard mishap), incident involving mud bath and fake hair from his chest to face, trying to fit into a jockey phone booth, dinner table crotch footsies, pictures taken of folks in uncompromising situations that he fails to inspect, among other comedic goodies give Candy fans what they expect. Remember fondly a poster of this film on a rental store window when I was young. Candy made the most of these kinds of films, knowing exactly how to attack scenes where he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, while other times his uncanny memory and stumbling into the truth rescue him from total disaster. Plots for his comedies were average at best, but the cast for this one excels when opposite Candy. Thomerson steals his scenes as someone about as airheaded as Candy. Joe Flaherty, Candy's old pal from the SCTV days, directs this film and has a great cameo as a hotel proprietor who is surprised to find Candy flying at him out of ventilation shaft. The formula for many of these Candy comedies has him enduring slapsticky pratfalls and incidents that would embarrass most. His facial expressions, ad always, are priceless. He was a treasure.

John Candy is the whole show(despite a good supporting cast with Annie Potts, Jeffrey Jones, Barry Corbin) in this mostly strained and unfunny comedy about Harry Crumb, an inept Private detective who is hired to solve the kidnapping of a young heiress, only to discover that the culprits are close to home...Many sight gags(none funny) and Candy is game as always, but plot is utterly routine and uninspired, and may have just as easily served as a pilot to a rejected TV series. Only bright moment is at the end with the unexpected and amusing use of "Holding Out For A Hero", while Crumb tries to stop an airplane.

It's a shame that he chose to waste his comedic gifts on cheap movies like this. He hits the few goods jokes squarely and trudges through the bad ones like the professional that he is. Jeffrey Jones does the same and plays well off of Candy while Annie Potts is decent as the money seeking wife. Barry Corbin, Tim Thomerson, and Shawnee Smith round out the serviceable cast. It's the script that is the disappointment. One of it's "gems" has Crumb trying to take pictures of a cheating husband for his wife, but ends up taking pictures of the couple together. His response? He says he found the mistress, her. Ha, huh? Whatever. My favorite has to be that Jones' character thinks that the women who personally tried to kill her husband and betrayed the lover she told to do it could ever be trusted. Just because the main character is supposed to be oblivious doesn't mean that entire movie has to be.