Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989)

(On TV, March 2021) John Candy doesn’t step all that far away from his screen persona in Who’s Harry Crumb?, playing a bumbling private detective who eventually rises to the occasion in the face of adversity. It’s strictly on rails as far as John Candy comedies of the era go, an impression reinforced by obvious casting (Annie Potts looking amazing? Jeffrey Jones as a villain? Who could have seen that coming?)  Candy’s character loves to dress up as part of the job, which is a perfect excuse for movie-quality costumes and quirky accents. The similarities with Fletch are there, but it’s somewhat more slap-sticky than the Chevy Chase films. The result is not bad — even if your appreciation of the result will depend quite a bit on how you feel about John Candy’s roles in general, this one is enjoyable on its own terms, and the advantage of a bumbling-gets-better comic arc is that it ends on a moment of triumph that compensates for quite a bit of exasperating buffoonery. (It would have been better if his character had been consistently clever throughout the film, but those are the conventions of the subgenre.)  Some lines of dialogue are surprisingly good in a film mostly concerned about physical comedy. While nowhere near a classic, Who’s Harry Crumb? still works reasonably well even in the crowded bumbling-detective subgenre.