Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? Directed by Ulu Grosbard
Produced by Ulu Grosbard, Herb Gardner
Written by Ulu Grosbard, Herb Gardner
Starring Dustin Hoffman
Dom DeLuise
Barbara Harris
Jack Warden
David Burns
Gabriel Dell
Music by Shel Silverstein
Cinematography Victor J. Kemper
Editing by Barry Malkin
Distributed by National General Pictures for Cinema Center Films
Release date(s) June 15, 1971 [My note: WTC 1 North Tower completed Dec. 1970. WTC 2 South Tower completed July 1971]
Running time 108 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? is an American comedy drama film released in 1971 starring Dustin Hoffman. It portrays a single day in the life of Georgie Soloway, played by Hoffman. The entire film is about events that take place in a single day. Its narrative is stream of consciousness filled with both comedy and drama.
Georgie Soloway is a rock music composer who experiences personal conflicts when trying to track down a man named Harry Kellerman, who had been spreading outrageous lies about him. Soloway is a man who has everything. One night, struggling with insomnia, he begins to examine his life more closely.
Enter Harry Kellerman, the mysterious man spreading rumors about Soloway. Soloway begins to obsess over finding Harry Kellerman and soon forgets about his own life's misery.
The film was widely panned as a vapid, pretentious mess by many when it was released. However, many critics singled out Barbara Harris for praise; she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film still holds the current (as of 2007[update]) record in Academy Awards history as having the longest title of any Oscar-nominated film.
Filming of the movie was done on location in New York City in 1970. Some of the locations include the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, the General Motors Building, and Fillmore East. At the Fillmore East, Soloway performs onstage with Shel Silverstein and Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show. This scene was filmed on September 18, 1970 prior to an actual Grateful Dead concert. The actual concert attendees were used as extras for the scene.
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Poster Comment:
Wikipedia sidenote on Dustin Hoffman: In 1970, Hoffman and [my note: his first wife, Anne] Byrne were living in Greenwich Village in a building next door to the townhouse destroyed by members of The Weatherman when they detonated a bomb in the building's basement, killing three people. In the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground, Hoffman can be seen standing in the street during the aftermath of the explosion.[20]
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The video for "Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?" is available in 11 parts at YouTube. I have only seen small segments at the beginning and the end but the building in the opening scene has a facade very similar to the WTC towers where the Hoffman character imagines himself as a suicidal jumper. At the end, he apparently commits suicide by targeting a building in NYC with a plane that he is piloting -- not one of the WTC towers but a Christian looking church. Embedding is disabled so I can only post links to those examples of this weirdly "coincidental" to 9/11 film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsoSOD48TSA - Pt. 1/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S1e3--Rtm4 - Pt. 11/11 @ 6:20