Silver Streak (film)
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| Silver Streak | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover for Silver Streak |
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| Directed by | Arthur Hiller |
| Produced by | Edward K. Milkis |
| Written by | Colin Higgins |
| Starring | Gene Wilder Jill Clayburgh Richard Pryor Patrick McGoohan Ned Beatty |
| Music by | Henry Mancini |
| Cinematography | David M. Walsh |
| Editing by | David Bretherton |
| Distributed by | Fox |
| Release date(s) | December 8 1976 |
| Running time | 114 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Silver Streak is a 1976 comedy, action and mystery film about murder on a Los Angeles-to-Chicago train journey. It is not a remake of the 1934 film The Silver Streak. It stars Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor, Patrick McGoohan and Ned Beatty and is directed by Arthur Hiller. The film score is by Henry Mancini (The Pink Panther, Charade). This film marked the first pairing of Wilder and Pryor, who would become a well-known comedy duo.
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[edit] Synopsis
Saying that he "just wanted to be bored," book editor George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) eschews the airlines and travels from Los Angeles to Chicago aboard a train called "The Silver Streak." George meets and becomes romantically involved with Hilly Burns (Jill Clayburgh). After he witnesses the murder of Hilly's boss Professor Schreiner, a well known art historian, he is thrown off the train and is himself accused of the murder of undercover FBI agent Bob Sweet (Ned Beatty), who linked the murder to the mysterious "Rembrandt letters". George must enlist the help of professional criminal Grover Muldoon (Richard Pryor) to save Hilly. One of the most notable moments of the film comes at the end, when the train, now out-of-control, crashes through the wall of the railway station in Chicago.
[edit] Featured cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Gene Wilder | George Caldwell |
| Jill Clayburgh | Hilly Burns |
| Richard Pryor | Grover Muldoon |
| Patrick McGoohan | Roger Devereaux |
| Ned Beatty | Bob Sweet |
| Ray Walston | Edgar Whiney |
| Scatman Crothers | Conductor Ralston |
| Richard Kiel | Reace |
| Fred Willard | Jerry Jarvis |
Seven-foot-two actor Richard Kiel appears as a murderous henchman with strange-looking teeth; he would play a very similar character, Jaws a year later in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me and two years after that in Moonraker.
[edit] Reception
- The film grossed over $51,000,000 in the box office during its run and was well received by critics. Roger Ebert had also given the film a positive review. The film was the first collaboration between Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor (However, Pryor was a writer on and the original choice for "Black Bart" in the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles which also starred Wilder), who would go on to make more films together : Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Another You.
- More recently, it was listed at #95 on the AFI's list of the 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time and is number 84 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies.
[edit] Production
Ostensibly set in the United States and on the fictional railroad "AMRoad" (loosely based on Amtrak trains), Silver Streak is actually shot primarily in Canada. All exterior train shots were filmed on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in Alberta and Toronto after Amtrak reportedly backed out of the project due to disapproval of the scenes in which Caldwell accidentally bursts into Burns' bedroom while she is dressing, and the film's ending with the out-of-control train crashing through the terminal wall in Chicago.
Scenes of Midwestern U.S. landscapes appear behind train layouts and many action shots (as the protagonist and allies battle the villains on and off the train, and get thrown off or jump on and off the moving trains) to add narrative integrity to the fictional location. Most of the interior station scenes are of Toronto's Union Station, except for a brief sequence immediately prior to the crash where the train is rapidly approaching a dead end. The brief sequence was filmed from a Hi-Rail truck, entering the Chicago and North Western Railway's downtown terminal.
The train set was so lightly disguised as the fictional "AMRoad" that the locomotives and cars still carried their original names and numbers, along with the easily-identifiable CPR red-striped paint scheme. At the start of the climatic shoot-out, an obtrusive CPR GM switcher is seen calmly moving cars in the background. Most of the cars are still in revenue service on VIA Rail Canada; CP 4070, the lead locomotive is in Québec. But the second unit, CP 4067, has been scrapped.
[edit] Score and Soundtrack
Although the film dates to 1976, Henry Mancini's soundtrack was never officially released before his death in 1994. When Intrada released it in 2002, some 26 years after the film's release, it became one of the Top Special Releases of 2002.
[edit] External links
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