Harry and Tonto

Harry and Tonto is a 1974 road movie written by Paul Mazursky and Josh Greenfeld and directed by Mazursky. It features Art Carney as Harry in an Academy Award-winning performance. Tonto is his pet cat.

Plot

Harry Coombes (Art Carney) is an elderly widower and retired teacher who is forced from his Upper West Side apartment in New York City when his building is condemned. He initially stays with his eldest son Burt's family in the suburbs but eventually chooses to travel cross country with his pet cat "Tonto" in tow.

Initially planning to fly to Chicago, he instead boards a long-distance bus, then buys a used car after Tonto wanders away from the bus. During his episodic journey, he befriends a Bible-quoting hitchhiker (Michael Butler) and underage runaway Ginger (Melanie Mayron), visits his daughter (Ellen Burstyn), a bookstore owner in Chicago, and drops in on an early sweetheart (Geraldine Fitzgerald) in a retirement home, where she suffers from dementia.

Continuing west, Harry accepts a ride with a health-food salesman (Arthur Hunnicutt), makes the acquaintance of an attractive hooker (Barbara Rhoades) on his way to Las Vegas, then spends a night in jail with a friendly Native American (Chief Dan George). He eventually makes it to Los Angeles, where he stays with his youngest son (Larry Hagman) before finding a place of his own with Tonto, who, much like Harry, is dealing the best he can with the hardships of old age.