Day 123 - 5/3/09 - Movie #121
BEFORE: Hey, if you don't make fun of my list of movies to watch, I won't make fun of yours... Train Movie Week keeps rolling down the track - this time Gene Wilder becomes involved with a woman on a train traveling from L.A. to Chicago, and then witnesses a murder...or does he?
THE PLOT: On a long-distance train trip, a man finds romance but also finds himself in danger of being killed, or at least pushed off the train.
AFTER: Essentially, it's sort of an update of Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes", except there's not enough suspense. And clearly they cast Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor to be funny, but there's not enough comedy. At the same time, the filmmakers were probably riffing off of action movies like "Airport" - (with Richard "Jaws" Kiel, who later was a James Bond villain, added for good measure) and it's not a terrible action movie. But unfortunately it's impossible to succeed as a mystery, comedy and action film all at the same time. Wilder and Pryor's later pairings were much more successful films...this one was most notable for Wilder's "blackface" scenes when in disguise.
RATING: 4 out of 10 train tickets
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this is a sentimental wilder/pryor favorite because it makes my dad laugh like a crazy man.
ReplyDeleteI cannot recall anything of this film, except for the ending. I though I knew it too well to watch it again, but I think I am cofusing it with the train scene in Trading Places
ReplyDeleteAnd if you saw my list of films, you would have quite a laugh. I just need to get around to writing it down.