Here’s an interesting one that I’ve been delayed in writing, but am finally going to finish. Watching it all these years and after multiple viewings, I didn’t realize how much of an impact John Candy had on my life when I was younger, because he was just in a lot of movies I enjoyed. To this day, I clearly remember in high school hearing that he passed and being super bummed because I knew he had so many more really good roles in him, and obviously a ton more as he got older and as he refined and changed what he was doing. To try to determine the first time I would have seen this, it definitely would have just been randomly on television. So I’m probably ten years old, at home, the TV’s on. Or I actually think this could be a copy off of TV that my dad had, so it would have been on VHS, and I would have watched a lot of this. I’ll have to go look through the photos I took of my dad’s old VHS. Need to see if this is one of them. But before I start rambling on about all of the John Candy films I love, just know that this is an absolute gem that I think people skip over when you talk about his best movies. But let’s jump into it.
So here’s the deal. Harry Crumb is the latest in a long line of legendary detectives from the Crumb family… a dynasty of brilliant investigators. Except Harry. Harry is a complete and total disaster of a private eye who has been stuck out in Tulsa doing whatever odd jobs the agency can find for him and managing to screw those up, too. The only one convinced of his own genius is Harry himself, and that’s kind of the sweet spot of John Candy. So when the daughter of wealthy shipping magnate P.J. Downing, played by the great Barry Corbin, gets kidnapped, you would think Harry is the last guy you’d want on the case. And you would be right… but that is exactly the point. Because the guy who runs the Crumb Detective Agency is Elliot Draisen, played brilliantly by Jeffrey Jones. And that’s where I’ll leave this without giving away too much of the plot: finding the kidnapped daughter and all of the hilarious pieces from that. But let’s jump to the good parts.
Let’s talk about the cast. John Candy is Harry Crumb, and this is just him at his most purely physical and comedic. He is doing disguises throughout this whole film, and it reminds you exactly where he came from: SCTV. I don’t think I’m qualified to write a book about that show, but let’s just say it’s on par with SNL in the early days as being probably the best comedy show of all time. On that show, Candy played dozens of characters, and in this film, he takes advantage of his comedic chops. A Hungarian hairdresser. An Indian air conditioning repairman. An overweight jockey. He was a master of physical character comedy, and this movie is him going back to those roots in a feature film. Where do I start when I talk about the films of John Candy? I will start with I used to have a VHS copy of The Clown Murders because it said John Candy on the cover for the longest time. Long since sold, but he’s in it. How about him being in:
- The Blues Brothers
- National Lampoon’s Vacation
- He’s great in Splash
- He’s awesome in Brewster’s Millions
- I love Summer Rental
- I love Armed and Dangerous
- I love Spaceballs
- I love The Great Outdoors
He’s amazing in Uncle Buck. He’s amazing in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. He’s amazing in Cool Runnings. I think he’s super underrated from a drama role in his quick scene in JFK. Honestly think that’s probably the best acting he’s ever done in his entire career. But My favorite is Who’s Harry Crumb? I think this is the only role that really is true to his comedic chops of SCTV, to be honest. That’s a lot on John Candy, but just know I was a huge huge fan even before Ryan Reynolds tried to save face by producing a movie about him. Okay, let’s talk about a couple other people on the cast. Next is Jeffrey Jones as Elliot Draisen. If you need a reminder of who Jeffrey Jones is, he is Principal Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and he is perfect as the slimy, conniving villain here. As I’ve ironically written about him multiple times, he ends up being in a lot of movies I like. I don’t talk about what happened to him with the arrests and all that stuff because that’s just not something this article is about. But man, he’s in a lot of stuff I liked. But I’ll quickly gloss over just a handful. He’s another one that’s awesome in Easy Money, Transylvania 6-5000, Howard the Duck, Beetlejuice, and the other two I wrote about, Mom and Dad Saved the World and Stay Tuned. Which, ironically, happened in the same year. How crazy? How about Annie Potts plays Helen Downing, the scheming trophy wife? You know her from Ghostbusters as Janine and later from Designing Women, but she is having a ball playing mean in this one. She is terrific. The kidnapper muscle is Vince Barnes, played by Tim Thomerson. If you are a B-movie person, which, if you are reading this, I have to assume you are, you know Thomerson as Jack Deth from the Trancers franchise. He was also in Uncommon Valor with Gene Hackman and in Iron Eagle. Solid solid guy who always brings something to whatever he is in. And then there is Shawnee Smith as Nikki Downing, the younger, neglected daughter of the victim. This is early Shawnee Smith, way before she became Amanda in the Saw franchise, but I clearly remember her from Summer School and The Blob. Her dynamic with Candy is one of the best parts of the film. Oh, and the director’s brother, Joe Flaherty, has a cameo as a doorman. If SCTV means anything to you, that one lands. How about the actual police detective is played by Valri Bromfield. And if you don’t know, she was Dan Aykroyd’s original comedy partner back in Canada, early on in Second City. She was also in with John Candy in Nothing But Trouble and had a smaller role, but was always a part of the Canadian comedy friend circle, kinda. She also had her hand in a little bit with The Kids In The Hall, which is why her name rings very important in my head. And one last name, Jim Belushi, shows up uncredited. Classic.
Now the people behind the camera. The director is Paul Flaherty. And yes, that is Joe’s brother. Paul was also a writer and performer on SCTV, which tells you everything about why he and Candy were a natural pairing here. This is his first feature film, and you can see the SCTV DNA all over it. The sketch comedy sensibility, the character disguises, the broad physical gags. The screenplay is written by Robert Conte and Peter Wortmann, a writing team who clearly understood what John Candy did best and gave him the vehicle to do it. The producer is Arnon Milchan, one of the most prolific producers in Hollywood history. The guy has his fingerprints on everything from Brazil to Pretty Woman to LA Confidential to Fight Club. So, not exactly a slouch. The music is done by Michel Colombier, a French composer who worked on a huge range of stuff. He did the music for Purple Rain, which is a thing I did not realize until I started writing this. The soundtrack is super cool. I actually think my favorite part of the movie is during the credits when the Temptations perform a song called “Big Fun, Harry Crumb.” Once you hear it, it will be etched in your brain for all of eternity, as it has been in mine, and since I just wrote it down, it will now be stuck in my head probably until Thanksgiving. But just an awesome crew that tackled this awesome film.
And now the reason I am really here. The quotes:
I am Djour Djilios.- Harry
“Can you spell that, please?” – Receptionist
“I don’t think so. Try it with a ‘D’” – Harry
“My reputation precedes me. Otherwise, I’d be late for all my appointments.” – Harry
“I don’t want to alarm you, but I have a very important question. Are you the kidnapper?”
“Would you like to see my badge? … I left it in my other pants.”
I will never understand why the February 1989 critics didn’t like this movie, but go back and watch it now, and think, “If this came out later, I feel like it would have done so much better.” It sadly opened up against Beaches (I think), which I can’t even remember what that movie is about, but I know that was a big hit. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 33 percent, which I think is criminal. But here is the thing about John Candy. Even in the movies that don’t get super critical acclaim, he’s just awesome. And this is the first one I feel in his entire career where you actually see him legit showing you how good at comedy he is. The disguise sequences are hilarious. The physical comedy holds up. And the setup of using the worst detective to commit the perfect crime is genuinely clever, even if the execution around it is uneven. A total fun flick that I think a lot of people skipped and should absolutely find. And sure, does this come out the year after The Naked Gun? It does, but John Candy has a different vibe than Frank Drebin/Leslie Nielsen. They’re just different kinds of movies, but this is the one I lean towards more.
It is available on Apple TV for the normal four bucks. Standard rule applies. You hate it, find me, and I owe you the singles. I just don’t think you’re coming to collect.
Fun Facts:
- John Laroquette was Candy’s first choice to play Elliot Draisen because the two were friends going back to Stripes in 1981. Laroquette was stuck on Night Court and could not do it. John Hughes suggested Jeffrey Jones since he had just directed him in Ferris Bueller. Candy initially didn’t want him, but he let John Hughes convince him, and glad he did because Jones was awesome in this.
- Harry’s final disguise in the film is in drag, which is a direct callback to a very similar bit Candy did in Armed and Dangerous three years earlier. But that’s not really the fun part. The part that’s important to me is that he receives a phone call from San Francisco from the Bottoms Up Club. I don’t believe it was a real bar, but there was one in the Mission District in San Francisco, and they just did karaoke. It wasn’t the type of bar that is implied in this movie. But you can imagine my surprise one day walking down the street and seeing that sign and almost being transported back to being 10 watching it on the screen and being like, “Holy shit, Harry Crumb got a call from this place.” I just really enjoy this film.
