Harvey Middleman, Fireman

In animator Pintoff's first live-action feature, Harvey is a fireman with a nice wife, nice children, nice house. He rescues a girl, falls in love with her, has attacks of conscience, and cools it; whereupon the girl stages another fire, falls into the arms of another fireman, and Harvey goes happily back to his domestic routine. At first this simple story is used as a peg for very effective humour derived from the contrast between the mundane, frightening 'normalness' of Harvey's daily routine, and the pride in it which he confides to camera in a series of monologues. But the film changes direction, and what started as sharp, subtle satire on a 'normal' American ends up as little more than standard domestic comedy, complete with pat happy ending.