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The fate of Harry Reeves (the bank manager): SPOILERS

posted 13 years ago by hobnob53
10 replies | jump to latest

WARNING! SPOILERS!

Now that I've discharged my IMDb duty, much as Lee Marvin discharged his pistol....

I think Violent Saturday is a terrific movie, but I have one major bone to pick with its plot: the fate of the weasly, peeping-Tom banker, Harry (Tommy Noonan).

By all that is right and just in 1950s films, when Lee Marvin shoots him in the bank, he should have died. It would have been an eminently fitting resolution: this jerk is a loser, a whiner, and worse, a bizarre creep, spying on the young nurse, even to the point of watching her undress at night from the street, but without the guts to at least go up and proposition her (and, hopefully, get slapped for his insolence). He's the sort of introverted pervert who'd sooner or later end up kidnapping young girls and chaining them in his basement.

Okay, maybe not that, but consider this: he's the one who precipitates the gunplay during the robbery. The gang was all set to just go in and rob the joint without shooting anybody. But Harry the coward decides this is his moment to be a hero, even though he doesn't have the stuff to be one and is clearly endangering everyone else in the place. So what does Mr. Stud do? He pulls out his pistol to make his big stand, only to be shot even before he can point the thing -- so that when the errant-but-reforming wife rushes unthinkingly to his aid, she too is shot down by Marvin. Except that in her case, she's killed. Old Harry, we learn later, suffered only a minor wound (even though he collapsed unconscious like the wimp he is), and would go home to his unseen, and apparently unsuspecting, dumbbell missus after a night in the hospital.

From a 1950s plot p.o.v., what happens to the wife might be expected, given the era: she's a "tramp" (50s movie-speak for slut), and as such can only be redeemed through death. Besides, it allows her husband to demonstrate his grief by crying, then (presumably) go off with the nurse, who clearly knows a good thing when she latches onto it -- a rich hunk. (She's no babe in the woods.) But weirdo Harry, a sick peeper responsible for bringing on the shooting that killed the slutty wife and put everyone's lives at risk, makes it through with nary a scratch. He's not even publicly exposed or blamed. Plus he gets to 'fess up and apologize to the nurse for watching her undress, and immediately all is forgotten, and of course he never does such a thing ever again, cross his heart and hope to...well, been there, done that.

Nope. Sorry. Harry should have DIED. Violently. On Saturday. Period.

But at least we learned that, in 1955, being a perverse male wasn't as bad -- or as fatal -- as being a promiscuous female .

[–] hoov-4 13 years ago

Great synopsis. I'm watching it right now as I type. I love these old movies with color, it makes it so real as compared to the black and white film noir's. Harry was such a pervert. I really love seeing the old cars too.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

Thanks again, hoov. But I have to respectfully disagree about b&w noirs -- true noirs have to be in b&w, which is always a very expressive medium, in some ways more so than color. I agree that a film like Violent Saturday needed to have been shot in color, but others (like all but one of the films I recommended to you on my other post) did better being in black and white.

[–] hoov-4 13 years ago

You're absolutely correct hob. I do love the b&w movies but once in a while a movie with the color like Violent Saturday talks to you, in a manner of speaking. I really enjoyed this movie. Thanks again.

[–] hobnob53 13 years ago

You're most welcome, hoov, and I'm very glad you enjoyed it -- it's one of my favorites, and one I never thought I'd ever see on DVD.

[–] sleepybone 12 years ago

I must agree with the OP! It really bugs me that the peeping tom lives to "confess" to the nurse--as if that means he won't be a creep anymore--but the poor messed-up wife has to die when she was really trying to change.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Yes, not everybody here gets his or her just desserts. The nurse, who turns out not to be all that nice, practically tells the errant wife she'd steal her husband first chance she gets, and from what we see at the end will indeed wind up with him. Elsie Braden gets robbed of the money she's stolen just before making her payment -- in view of the robbery, is she credited as having paid by the bank? Or does the newly-reformed Harry rat her out for theft, while he sails off scot-free for window-peeping? Even the Amish lose their barn and have their little boy shot, while papa saves one life only by taking another, in violation of his most sacred beliefs, which will certainly give him a lifetime of guilt.

But I guess maybe all these unhappy or undeserved resolutions are meant to point up the unfairness of life.

[–] joeparkson 8 years ago

To be fair to the character of Reeves, he did confess to the nurse that he'd been peeping at her. That shows a sense of shame and desire to change. It's like willingly disclosing ones entire internet history. He who's without sin........

Soy 'un hijo de la playa'

[–] hobnob53 8 years ago

Actually, his confession only shows only that after his near-death experience Harry is jolted into feeling guilty. He may be ashamed but whether he truly has the desire -- or even the ability -- to change is something else. He wasn't just harmlessly gazing at her like a love-sick teenager. Harry was a stalker as well as a peeping Tom. If anyone deserved to be killed, by the film's logic, it's him.

[–] heyteegs (1207) 3 years ago

And he never apologized for looking in her window - just for watching her dance, walk down the street, and other things she told him she knew about. He never went further about the peeping. Probably wouldn't use the words 'peeping tom' until that 1960 British movie.

[–] MichaelJPollock (649) 4 years ago

I'm curious: how many of you guys or any viewers averted their eyes from the screen -out of decency- during the peeping tom sequence with Harry Reeves spying on Linda Sherman, when the shot of Linda in her night gown through the window was shown?

Harry survives because he's the quintessential film-goer, i.e. a voyeur.

He's also a more complex character than one might think; even though he's sort of being blackmailed by Sylvia Sydney's character -whom he knows stole a purse- and has no sympathy for her, he tells Lee Marvin to lay off her during the bank robbery.... and he takes the gun from the drawer. Maybe not the smartest move, but he displays some form of courage under fire, as well as some clear sense of morality that lets him transcend pettiness.

Finally, it's interesting to compare Harry's character arc and motivations to that of Borgnine's Amish character: both eventually decide to "take arms" and do something against evil, and even though one is a coward (Harry) and the other had renounced violence on religious grounds (Borgnine), the latter has more at stake (protect his family) than the former (stand for someone who can potentially blackmail him, and prevent a robbery).