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As with Christmas, Easter brings certain films that are played (and replayed) on various movie channels. Henry Koster's hilarious Harvey is often among them, partly because of the association of rabbits with the holiday … and who can ever forget Jimmy Stewart's imaginary six-foot rabbit of that classic comedy?

Koster made films that Christians embrace

There's a bit of irony that a Jewish director's film would be associated with a holiday associated with Christ's death and resurrection. But while Harvey has nothing to do with the Christian faith, several of Koster's other films do—including The Bishop's Wife, A Man Called Peter, and The Robe.

So, how did a Jew who lived in Nazi Germany end up making movies embraced by Christians? Let's follow his story …

Born Herman Kosterlitz in Germany shortly after the turn of the century, Koster grew up in the cinema, literally, as his mother played the piano to accompany the silent films in his uncle's pioneering movie house. Koster cut his teeth as a writer and director working for years at the legendary UFA in Berlin, even making an anti-abortion film for the man who would become Pope Pius, his first foray into religious film subjects.

Koster, as with many Jews in 1930s Germany, was subject to the anti-Semitic zeitgeist of the day. "My parents were not very good Jews," Koster told an interviewer. "I never realized I was Jewish until Hitler came in. That was my luck that I was Jewish. I got to Hollywood, while the others were killed at Stalingrad, the ones who were with me in school."

"Dad had a bad temper," Koster's son, Robert, says, "He was directing a movie in Berlin in 1933 when a Nazi SS officer said some very silly things relating to Dad's family and heritage. Dad knocked him out, and was forced to leave the country during his lunch hour."

Three Smart Girls

Koster signed on with Universal, a studio facing bankruptcy at the time. Despite not knowing a word of English, he molded soprano Deanna Durbin into a child star in his first studio film Three Smart Girls (1936), which, against the studio heads' predictions, proved to be a smash hit, single-handedly saving Universal. Their next picture, One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), made Universal the top studio again and cemented Koster's position as a musical and comedy director. (It also featured the famous musical conductor Leopold Stokowski as an actor, a role he would replay later in Fantasia.)

Even with his success, Koster was considered an "enemy alien," until he had lived here for five years. He was befriended by actor Charles Laughton, who would come over and read to him in English to teach him about the language.

Koster made four more pictures with Durbin and comedies with other young female stars like Margaret O'Brien.

Koster is remembered for his light touch. Without Koster, we might never have known the genius of Abbott and Costello. He discovered them in a New York nightclub and gave them their break in One Night in the Tropics, featuring their famous "Who's On First?" routine.

While with Universal, Koster met his second wife, Peggy Moran, who remains famous as the damsel in distress in the classic horror film The Mummy's Hand. Koster vowed to put Moran in all his remaining films. He did: but as a statue—usually a bust on a piano, a mantle or a desk.

This light touch was as important behind the camera as well: Koster encouraged a relaxed and warm atmosphere on his sets, in contrast to many other German é migré directors. "I found out that the best acting comes out of complete relaxation, not out of complete tension," he told an interviewer.

After working with Betty Grable (Wabash Avenue, My Blue Heaven) and Danny Kaye (The Inspector General), Koster's next film, Harvey, was an even bigger success than the Durbin musicals. He said the story was "right up my alley. There was so much whimsy, so much fairytale, so much deep thought, so much decency in people. I loved it."

In Harvey, Jimmy Stewart's character Elwood P. Dowd is spirited: he tends to drink, and he tends to see things that others cannot, particularly a six-foot white rabbit. "Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor," Dowd tells a psychiatrist, "and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it." When Elwood's socially conscious sister has him committed to an insane asylum, the troubles start to multiply like, well, rabbits.

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