Movie Review: Stir Crazy (1980)

A frantic but rarely funny comedy, Stir Crazy bounces along as a wayward vehicle for the mostly tiresome antics of stars Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.

In New York City, waiter and aspiring actor Harry (Pryor) and his best friend Skip (Wilder), a kind-hearted writer moonlighting as a store detective, are both fired on the same day. They pack up their belongings and hit the road, heading to California. But their van breaks down in a small Arizona town, where they are soon framed for a bank robbery. Their court-appointed lawyer is next to useless, and Harry and Skip are sentenced to 125 years in prison.

Once behind bars they make friends with fellow-inmates Rory (Georg Stanford Brown), Jesus (Miguel Ángel Suárez), and eventually Grossberger (Erland Van Lidth). Warden Walter Beatty (Barry Corbin) discovers Skip has a hidden talent for mechanical bull riding, and pressures him into representing the facility in an annual rodeo competition. This leads to a series of confrontations with Deputy Warden Wilson (Craig T. Nelson) and a daring escape plan at the rodeo.

Featuring plenty of improvisation, incomplete scenes, loose narrative threads and just plain silliness, Stir Crazy only rarely rises to mediocre standards. A few laughs are found in the story of two none-too-bright men finding trouble at every turn, but director Sidney Poitier has only a loose grip on the thin script by Bruce Jay Friedman. And at regular intervals everything anyway pauses for Wilder and Pryor to engage in impromptu scenes of physical humour, and these are more often miss than hit.

Embracing a structure of disjointed sketches rather than a cohesive story, the film moves from New York to Arizona, then into prison and finally to the centrepiece rodeo event. As a result the tone is choppy and discontinuous, Friedman lacking the material to invest in any one place or theme. The casualties include barely defined secondary characters, with lawyer Len Garber (Joel Brooks) and his assistant/cousin Meredith (JoBeth Williams) failing to overcome the stature of props.

With Pryor surprisingly subdued and regularly fading into the background, Wilder occasionally prods the movie to life with a decent representation of a joyful man who refuses to allow his troubles to bring him down, frequently too empathetic for his own good. His character may have been interesting, but Stir Crazy never settles down long enough to find out.

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Movie Review: See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

The third big screen teaming of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a mostly dull on-the-run crime comedy.

In New York City, Dave Lyons (Wilder) is deaf but can read lips and runs a newsstand. Wally Carew (Pryor) is blind and secures a job as Dave's assistant. Both of them refuse to allow their disabilities to slow them down. One morning assassin Eve (Joan Severance) kills a target at the newsstand as she pursues a precious coin with her partner Kirgo (Kevin Spacey). Wally smells Eve's perfume but does not see anything, Dave sees Eve's legs but does not hear anything. Wally inadvertently ends up with the coin in his pocket.

With no witnesses to the murder police Captain Braddock (Alan North) arrests Dave and Wally, but they escape and go on a wild trip to clear their name, a journey leading to the estate of master criminal Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe).

Using disabilities as crutches for comedy is suspect enough, but See No Evil, Hear No Evil also suffers from a limp script and bland execution. Five screenwriters (including Wilder) somehow contrive to create a non-story solely dependent on a couple of set-pieces, and director Arthur Hiller is unable to enliven the material.

Two scenes actually work and salvage some laughs. In the first Dave and Wally team up to engage in a comic fist fight against a boorish opponent. Wally fancies himself a boxer and Dave steers him and provides on-the-fly targeting advice. The second and only other highlight features a long and rowdy car chase, the blind Wally steering at high speed while Dave in handcuffs issues frantic instructions from the passenger seat.

Wilder and Pryor are both surprisingly lacklustre, both stars appearing distracted. Dave and Wally's insistence on marching on with life and mostly ignoring their disabilities is admirable, although in the few moments of reflection the film appears unsure whether to celebrate or criticize their stubbornness. Not that is matters; See No Evil, Hear No Evil is frivolous comedy, best left unseen and unheard.

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The Movies Of Gene Wilder

All movies starring Gene Wilder and reviewed on the Ace Black Blog are linked below:

Bonnie And Clyde (1967)

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Silver Streak (1976)

Stir Crazy (1980)

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
The Index of Movie Stars is here.

Movie Review: Silver Streak (1976)

A comedy thriller with buddy elements, Silver Streak is a reasonably slick production but too goofy as a thriller and not funny enough as a comedy.

Book publisher George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) boards the Silver Streak train in Los Angeles for a relaxing two day trip to Chicago, where he plans to attend his sister's wedding. On board he first meets vitamin salesman Bob Sweet (Ned Beatty), and then flirts with secretary Hilly Burns (Jill Clayburgh). In the middle of a passionate encounter with Hilly, George glimpses her boss Professor Schreiner, a Rembrandt scholar, being thrown to his death from the roof of the train.

Nobody seems to believe George but he doggedly investigates, and discovers that Schreiner was about to publish revelations harmful to corrupt businessman Roger Devereau (Patrick McGoohan). George finds himself threatened by Devereau's goons and repeatedly thrown off the train. With the body count mounting, he teams up with street thief Grover T. Muldoon (Richard Pryor) to rescue Hilly and crack the case.

Directed by Arthur Hiller, Silver Streak aims for a madcap action-filled tone, but only rarely flickers to life. A sloppy script by Colin Higgins does not even pretend to care about characters or logic, and so offers a tweedy book publisher happy to fire spearguns and handguns at bad guys without pausing to bat an eyelid. The central plot of the evil Devereau intent on silencing a meek professor does not stand up to even rudimentary scrutiny, and the supposed romance between George and Hilly remains shallow and suffers from a distinct lack of chemistry.

Hiller does better with some of the attempts at humour. The running gag has George repeatedly bundled off the moving train and forced to scramble his way back. An interlude with a crusty farmer (Lucille Benson) works well, but the frantic attempts to re-board the train with Grover feature an unfortunate and clumsy blackface incident.

The laughs dry up as the plot runs out of ideas and Higgins piles on the nonsense, including federal agents supplying Caldwell with a gun and ammunition and inviting him to join the climactic confrontation. Hiller has more budget than good material to work with, and the film ends with a soulless over-the-top helicopter / train chase and a spectacular crash. Silver Streak rolls along the tracks at a fast pace and features plenty of scenery, but delivers a glossy trip to blandsville.

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Movie Review: Blazing Saddles (1974)

A satirical western comedy, Blazing Saddles mixes the hits and misses in a wildly uneven effort.

It's the era of rail expansion in the wild west. When a railway construction crew encounters quicksand, the re-route suddenly makes the small town of Rock Ridge extremely valuable. Evil Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) and his main hired gun Taggart (Slim Pickens) hatch up a plan to scare away Rock Ridge's residents. Lamarr convinces corrupt Governor William J. Le Petomane (Mel Brooks) to appoint black man Bart (Cleavon Little) as the town's new Sheriff.

The Rock Ridge residents, all called Johnson, are scandalized, but Bart teams up with semi-retired gunslinger the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder) and proves his worth by subduing the rampaging goon Mongo (Alex Karras). For his next attempt, Lamarr sends in alluring singer Lili von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn) to seduce Bart into submission.

Directed and co-written by Brooks (along with four other writers), Blazing Saddles does not even try to take itself seriously. With a non-plot consisting of contrived set-pieces and mostly juvenile antics leaning heavily on racial stereotypes, at least half the film's jokes are of the eye-rollingly bad variety. The performances are routinely over-the-top, and all the scenes featuring Korman, Pickens and specifically Brooks himself are played at the amateur pantomime level.

The better sequences feature Little and Wilder, who appear to be enjoying themselves and understand the difference between winking at the audience and screaming at them. The film's main running gag is the insanity of having a black man in charge of anything, and when it works it's thanks to Little, who brings a sense of detached cool with a glint of humour to the role.

The farting-around-the-campfire scene is perhaps the best remembered joke, and can probably take the blame and the credit for popularizing body function humour in countless low brow comedies. But the funniest thing in Blazing Saddles is the dense Mongo, a not-easy-to-stop horse-punching man-tank.

The film's ending strays far from movie conventions and into the realm of the intentionally ridiculous. It can be perceived as either ferociously hilarious or recklessly condescending.

Blazing Saddles fires wildly in all directions, causing a ruckus despite plenty of off-target shots.

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Movie Review: Young Frankenstein (1974)

A comic parody of 1930s monster movies, Young Frankenstein combines biting satire with quality production values to deliver a constant stream of laughs. Director Mel Brooks and a perfect cast find the right balance between winking at the screen and losing themselves in faux theatrical melodrama to great comic effect.

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is a professor of medicine in the United States, and eager to distance himself from the legacy of his grandfather, the infamous mad grave robber and re-animator of dead bodies. Frederick is engaged to Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn), but she won't as much as let him kiss her, lest her lipstick be smudged. When he receives word that he has inherited the long-abandoned family estate in Europe, Frederick travels to Transylvania, where he re-opens the family's spooky mansion on the hill.

Three assistants are ready to help him fulfil the family destiny: Inga (Teri Garr) seems to have no specific skills but plenty of curves; Igor (Marty Feldman) is a willing hunchback with beady eyes; and housekeeper Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman) mainly looks stern and terrifies the horses, but still harbours a crush on Frederick's long-dead grandfather. Warming up to the task, Frederick steals the body of an imposing criminal and reanimates him into a Monster (Peter Boyle), but Igor's botched brain robbery means that although the Monster is none too bright, he is sensitive and capable of exhibiting human emotions in response to sad music. When the lumbering Monster predictably breaks loose and terrifies the local community, Frederick has to find a way to control the damage, safeguard his legacy, and save the Monster's life.

Mel Brooks takes aim at the monster movie brand with his sharp style of wit, and hits the target dead centre. Plundering the fertile ground of creepy eastern European towns, grave digging, experimentation in reanimation, and unnecessarily thick accents, Young Frankenstein never misses a beat in resurrecting the legendary films of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Despite all the farcical comedy and within its efficient 105 minutes of running time, Young Frankenstein still finds the time to raise a few interesting themes. Frederick's control over his destiny is a running thread through the movie. Initially firm that he wants nothing to do with the family history (to the point of insisting that his name is pronounced Frankensteen), Frederick is gradually and irresistibly drawn to the vision and mission of his ancestors. Society's treatment of those who are a bit different is another motif born with the Monster, with the innocent child showing no fear and the blindman displaying nothing but hospitality, while all the other townsfolk default to the torches-and-pitchforks stance.

Gene Wilder co-wrote the screenplay with Brooks, and plays Frederick with the smooth confidence of an actor finding the perfect groove. Marty Feldman's hunchback with the ever shifting hump is simply a riot, and is deservedly the most memorable character from the movie. But Peter Boyle delivers the best performance, a hideous Monster who talks only in loud grunts and yet has to display a range of emotions. Boyle's eyes and gestures are outstanding, and soon the Monster becomes a full-fledged person deserving of pity and coddling.

Gene Hackman has fun with a small but hilarious role as the lonely blindman attempting to kindly serve the Monster food and drink. In comparison, Kenneth Mars' performance as Inspector Kemp with one mechanical hand has not stood the test of time as well as the rest of the film.

A large part of Young Frankenstein's enduring success resides in the film's visuals, Brooks and cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld recreating in spooky black and white the prototypical mansion on the steep mountaintop surrounded by incessant lightning; the secret laboratory filled with meaningless yet noisy and sparking switches, dials and levers; and the village of simpletons living in perpetual fog and fear of the experiments carried out by generations of Frankensteins.

A comedy masterpiece, Young Frankenstein is monstrously fun.

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