MIAWWISUTOC = Movies I Always Watch When I Stumble Upon Them On Cable



Silver Streak -- 1976

Starring Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor, Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty, Clifton James, Ray Walston, Richard Kiel, Scatman Crothers, Fred Willard

Someone needs to explain to me why movies like this one aren't considered for Academy Awards.

This movie is nonstop entertainment, from start to finish. It has suspense, comedy, romance, drama, comedy, action, suspense, and comedy, and does all of them well. It has great acting, spectacular writing, breathtaking photography. It made AFI's list of 100 Funniest Movies. Henry Mancini did the soundtrack, including a beautiful, simple, haunting love theme that stays in your head for a week every time you watch the film.

One nomination? One lousy Oscar nomination (not even a win, just a nomination)?? For sound editing??? Geez Louise, what do you people WANT from a movie???

A quick look at the 49th Academy Awards list shows that Rocky won Best Picture and Director; Network won just about everything else; and All the President's Men picked up the scraps left behind by those two.

I'll give Network props as a great movie, but the other two are highly overrated, IMO. I'll take Silver Streak over them, any day.

(I can only imagine that the film had too many similarities to "North by Northwest" to be considered for award hardware. If so, that's a shame, because this film can certainly stand on its own merits.)

Silver Streak stars Gene Wilder as the everyman, in this case a book editor named George Caldwell, travelling from Los Angeles to Chicago by train. Why train? "I want to be bored," George explains.

That plan gets shot down pretty quick. Literally.

On Day One of the trip, George meets an attractive secretary named Hilly Burns, played by Jill Clayburgh. They have dinner, get drunk, and head back to her compartment to screw, where George is startled to see a dead man hanging upsidedown for a moment just outside the window. Then the man falls, disappearing into the darkness.

George knows he's drunk, so he's not sure that he actually saw what he thinks he just saw. He does a crude, cursory investigation--even meeting the man he thought was dead and gone--and is convinced that he must have imagined the whole thing.

He confides all this to his new drinking buddy in the bar car, a vitamin salesman named Bob Sweet, played by Ned Beatty. Sweet doesn't like what he hears. When Caldwell wonders why Sweet is so upset about a story that involves strangers, Sweet confesses that he's not a vitamin salesman, but an undercover FBI agent. He's tailing Hilly's boss, Roger Devereau.

Patrick McGoohan plays Devereau. McGoohan has made a career out of playing villains, most famously as the evil King in "Braveheart" (remember him throwing that guy out the window?). Back in the day, McGoohan was pals with Peter Falk, and made several appearances as different villains on "Columbo". I love Patrick McGoohan in everything I see him in, but his turn in Silver Streak is my favorite.

It turns out that Caldwell did indeed stumble upon Devereau's evil plot. Worried about Caldwell being a potential witness, Devereau orders his henchmen to whack our poor hero. But they botch it, and George gets away--but he falls off the train in the process.

There's the usual, tried-and-true, "I can't go to the police, I'll have to stop the bad guys myself" angle, so George, in the middle of nowhere, needs the help of strangers to catch up to the train and save the girl from the evil bad guy. Enter Richard Pryor, a fast-talking, street-smart con who introduces himself to everyone with three simple words: "I'm a thief!"

You've heard of the on-screen chemistry between Wilder and Pryor, right? They made a few movies together, but it all started with this one. There's chemistry, and then there's CHEMISTRY. Don't flinch when I mention the CHEMISTRY between these two in the same breath as Newman-Redford or Hepburn-Tracy. Really, we're talking Hall Of Fame CHEMISTRY here. The more I watch this movie, the madder I get that the studio would not let Mel Brooks have his way and cast Pryor with Wilder in "Blazing Saddles".

So you've got the suspense. You've got the romance. You've got the great villain. Now, all of a sudden, here comes Richard Pryor to steal the movie. He certainly steals every scene in which he appears (insert "I'm a thief!" joke here).

Now that the plot is all set up by the first half of the film, the action kicks into gear in the second half. No car chases in this one, but there's plenty of shooting, and the helicopter chasing the train was pretty cool.

I'd better stop now, fearing that I've spoiled too much already. That's all the plot you get from me.

One minor thing I'd like to praise about this film is the use of minor background characters. We're on this train for a few days, and the other passengers (like the conventioneers, the fat guys, the Plain Janes in the bar) and the crew (engineer, conductor, porters) become a familiar part of the scenery. You have to see it to know what I'm talking about. They're not faceless extras in the background. They're extras, all right, but unlike most movie scenes that use extras, you recognize them when they reappear over and over. It's a nice touch.

Wow, that's a weak paragraph to end a rave review. I can't think of any way to segue back to hyperbole. I guess I'll just wrap this up with five words.


FIVE STARS




(did I stutter?)


MIAWWISUTOC review of "Down Periscope"
MIAWWISUTOC review of "Rollercoaster"
My review of "Crossroads", which lacks the MIAWWISUTOC tag because for some reason this movie is never on cable.

great review! I remember when this first came out and spending a whole weekend in the movie theater watching this over and over with my friends.

"I'd better go get my boss."

"You'd better do something, you idiot, because in ten minutes you're going to have 200 tons of locomotive smashing through Central Station on its way to Marshall Field's!"

(The reason that line is so cool is, you have to say it all in one breath. You can't stop for a breath in the middle. It takes practice. Try it.)

EDIT: Remember the "Actors who sing their roles" thread? The guy who plays Chief Donaldson in this movie (he had that awesome line quoted above) belongs on that list.

CALDWELL: (frantic) I didn't know they were federal agents!
DONALDSON: Well, let's see what you do know.

You've got to hear him "sing" that line to know what I mean. He starts out high in volume and pitch, staccato. As each word comes out, the pitch lowers, and the staccato softens. It really works to calm down the frenzied Caldwell.

The actor's name is Len Birman. I can't find anything else he was memorable in, but his voice sounds really familiar. I'd swear he did voices on Scooby Doo or SuperFriends.

He sings every word of his dialog in "Silver Streak". Like when he finds out that the guy he's talking to on the radio is the Assistant Controller.

DONALDSON: (to himself) Assistant? (into the radio) Get me your boss!

The change in cadence, pitch, tone, everything, works in every line this guy speaks in this movie. He uses his voice like few others. I love this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu1TZVX72Aw

Pryor and Wilder catch up to the train at the station in Kansas City. They're about to buy tickets to board, when they see Wilder's face on the front page of every newspaper in the newsstand, saying that he's wanted for murder. They also spot detectives at the gate, clutching his photo.

That's enough set-up. Click the link, watch the clip.

I watched Mel Brooks' commentary on the Blazing Saddles DVD not long ago. He gives background on the Richard Pryor story with the movie.

While it would have been great to see the Pryor/Wilder team begin on that movie, Cleavon Little was brilliant as Sheriff Bart.

Random tidbit: My uncle's brother was the producer of Silver Streak (no, he is not my uncle or father).

Come to think of it, there's a lot of this in this movie. Wilder, Pryor, Walston and McGoohan do it, as well. Fans of the film might remember not only these lines, but the musical way they were delivered:

CALDWELL: (building to a crescendo) You stupidignorantsonuvabitchdumbbastarrrrrd!

WHINEY: (really, really sing-song) Isn't that perfect? You want to see him, and he wants to see you.

DEVEREAU: KEEP...yourFOOT...onthePEDALLLLLLL.

Those are just the ones off the top of my head. I'm going to watch it again, and look for more examples.

This one often comes up in discussions of great old movies people love but that seem to be more or less forgotten. Really solid fun. Wilder and Pryor are so damn good together, it's a shame they stopped the team when they still fairly young and could have made so many more. Both are such world-class performers I often feel lucky to see them and get a feeling of gratitude for their performances.

Paddy McGoohan died today. Totally overshadowed by Montalbon's death, and that's a shame.


CALDWELL: don't look--DON'T LOOK!!

nice review! Haven't seen this one in a while....

It's the kind of film Hollywood doesn't or can not make anymore. If a studio remade Silver Streak now, the debate would be about which direction to push it in, as opposed to the perfectly balanced film that it was.

The remake would be: 1.) a cute romantic comedy on a train starring Jennifer Aniston and Hugh Grant with the suspense/violence toned down and no Pryor character. 2.) An action/comedy starring Martin Lawrence and Jack Black with no Jill Clayburgh character. 3.) A smash-mouth action flick with tons of bad guys with guns, a train loaded with nukes, no Pryor or Clayburgh characters, and only Ben Affleck to take them all down. Directed by Michael Bay. Tagline "This train's going ballistic!!!!"

Let's hope it never happens.

Yep, movies rarely have a place for two equal players anymore, unless they are romantically attached. And even then. Nor do they tend to have a place for good ensemble contributions. If a star sees a good line, he takes it for himself, and everyone else in the flick becomes more or less his on-call footman.

Agreed on all points. This was one of the movies we had on videodisc way back in the dark times.

Bump.

RIP not only Wilder, but also Toots Thielemans, the harmonica legend featured in this film's score. Only guy I ever heard who could make that instrument sound sweet instead of bagpipe-y. Leave a Tender Moment Alone, That's What Friends Are For, that was Toots all day. He passed away this week too.

While we reminisce Wonka and Frankenstein and the Waco Kid, take some time this week to find Silver Streak, if you haven't seen it yet.