For a brief time in the early '70s, Utah's Salt Lake City seemed poised to become a viable alternative to Hollywood, as feature films such as Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and Airport 1975 (1974)--as well as the Emmy award-winning made-for-TV drama The Glass House (1972), filmed within the walls of the Utah State Prison in Bluffdale--revealed more to the 45th State than had been glimpsed in the Westerns of John Ford. Stanley Kramer premiered his 1971 film Bless the Beasts and Children at Brigham Young University and the following year veteran TV writer and Mission: Impossible creator Bruce Geller chose the city as a backdrop for his feature film debut, Harry In Your Pocket (1973). Shot under the working title Harry Never Holds--reflecting the code of its pickpocket protagonist (James Coburn), whose network of accomplices (Michael Sarrazin, Walter Pidgeon, Trish Van Devere) guarantees he is never caught holding stolen goods--the United Artists release made picturesque use of such local landmarks as the Utah State Capitol Building, Pioneer Park, and the Mormon Tabernacle. Geller had his cast schooled in the art of the dip by magician and sleight-of-hand artist Tony Giorgio, whom Geller had employed as a technical advisor on Mission: Impossible and who appears in Harry In Your Pocket as a Seattle cop who intimidates Coburn's "cannon" into finding new hunting grounds; classic film fans should remember Giorgio as the brutal Bruno Tattaglia, who facilitates the murder of Corleone family enforcer Luca Brasi in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972).

By Richard Harland Smith