Colin Higgins' original script is a joyous pastiche of Hitchcock train movies - part Lady Vanishes, part North by Northwest with a bit of 39 Steps. Gene Wilder is the innocent travelling on a train who hooks up with a sexy blonde whose boss may or may not have been killed.
Patrick McGoohan is a great villain and Richard Kiel and Ray Walston are impressive goons. Jill Clayburgh is lively as the girl. Ned Beatty is a tubby lecherous vitamin salesman who turns out to be a secret agent - his body double clambers all over the train in what seems to be an extraneous sequence; and I wonder if the lechery was part of his act or just something his character liked to do.
The film is probably best remembered today for introducing the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder partnership - but Pryor doesn't turn up until one hour in. He does give this movie a massive kick of energy.
I watched this film a lot on VHS at various holiday places growing up; it still holds up, except maybe for the blackface sequence and the bad body doubles. It does go on too long and occasionally got repetitive (Wilder gets kicked off the train and hops back on four times). I laughed at how the cops gave Wilder a weapon at the end, expecting him to join in on the fighting.
Everyone wears brown slacks - they seemed to be a thing in the 70s.
No comments:
Post a Comment