Harvey was a hit with both the public and the critics when it opened on November 1, 1944. One reason that was often cited was the casting of the actors. Critics were especially impressed with Frank Fay, who was an old vaudeville actor who came out of retirement to take the role of Elwood P. Dowd, and with Josephine Hull, who played his sister, Veta Louise Simmons. As Russell Rhodes put it in a review in 1944, "For the remarkable performance of these two, the author and producer should rub Harvey's foot every night in gratitude. Even if he is a pooka."

John L. Toohey's book, A History of the Pulitzer Prize, gives a brief summation of some of the notices that ran when Harvey first ran on Broadway. Toohey quotes John Chapman in the New York Daily News who could hardly contain his excitement: "Harvey is the most...