Harry is a man who has no place in the world; with his orange cat Tonto, his partner, they search for a place in the world that is changing. Through a repression, changing values, and rapid changing scenery, he sticks out like a sore thumb with his family, his friends, and people. He then is on a destination to Chicago to stay with his daughter, but after he's thrown off a plane, he travels on a bus, but when his cat won't go to the bathroom, he's thrown off the bus and is stranded and decides to drive. On the way to Chicago he has an adventure meeting different people, people that are symbols of the changing society and he learns to cope with them and tries to adapt, yet can't find his place in society. Harry must find a place in the world and he intends to find one. This is a heartbreaking, poignant and engrossing view into a man's life in old age. Art Carney gives an excellent performance of a man conflicted with changing society, and a man who must force himself to adapt whether he likes it or not. Will he ever find his place in the world? You have to watch to see.

*** out of **** stars.

Art Carney took home the Academy Award for Best Actor not only for his work in this movie, but for his entire career. The movie is about a man living his final years. His best friend and partner is his side kick cat Tonto. Together they travel from New York City to the far ends of the west coast. On the way, they bump into one situation and conversation to the next. The final scene shows Carney meeting another face along the path of life as he makes his final goodbye to the audience. In a way, Carney's character has to make this journey in order to say goodbye to the world. A heart gripping scene, Carney must say goodbye to his best of friends as Tonto get old himself. This is in a way not a coming of age story but a coming of life story. This is a terrific movie that has a moral that needs to be learned.

"Harry and Tonto" is one of those films that surprises you. It seems very simplistic with an old man traveling with his trusty cat, however; there is more to the film than that. Harry(Art Carney) is a 72 year-old man displaced from his apartment building in New York that is scheduled for demolition. This is when his journey begins taking him from his son's home and comes across various people along the way including Ginger, a 16 year-old hitchhiker, a former lover with a shaky memory (Geraldine Fitzgerald), his bookstore owner daughter, Shirley(Ellen Burnstyn) in Chicago, a vitamin salesman, a Las Vegas hooker and an Indian Chief. Harry is an intelligent man in his twilight years prone to fussing over his aging cat. The film is good natured and at the same time sad. It plays as a slice of life movie but one thinks of the old saying, "It is not the destination but the journey that matters." Art Carney gives a very real, complex performance while being understated and I am not surprised that he won an Oscar for this film. I am glad that I finally came across this film and certainly appreciate it more as an adult than I did as a kid.