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Silver Streak

Silver Streak

List Price: $9.98
Your Price: $9.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Silver Streak is one of my favorite 70's movies and is an excellent mix of comedy with mystery and suspense, everyone is great in this movie, Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Jill Clayburg, Patrick McGoohan, etc, the movie also has one of the best endings I have ever seen in a movie and this is a movie I defintely could watch again!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Greatest Comedy Ever
Review: Silver Streak is the greatest comedy ever. Gene Wilder is George. George is on his way to Chicago by train from L.A. On his way he falls in love with Hilly played by the beautiful Jill Clayburgh. While on the train George witnesses a murder which leads to trouble for George who is thrown of the train by the actual murderurs. While George is off the train he meets Grover played by the comic genuis Richard Pryor. This is when the movie realy gets good. I will stop there not to give to much away. I have waited a long time for Silver Streak to be released on DVD. I hope you will enjoy the movie as much as I have.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not Pryor and Wilders best, but has a few funny parts
Review: This is a pretty decent movie, but it doesn't touch
any of the other movies in which Pryor and Wilder appear in together. It's not bad, but it's not hilarious. It's actually half murder mystery and half comedy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Adventure on a Train
Review: This movie is one I can watch over and over again. While Gene Wilder's cluelessness may seem to wear a little thin in places, the chemistry between the characters works. Admittedly when Richard Pryor appears the movie goes from humorous to hilarious, but in the meantime the Hitchcockian flavor will keep most viewers entertained.

Gene Wilder is a book editor travelling by train from Los Angeles to Chicago. Jill Clayburgh is a professor's assistant. During a romantic interval in Jill's compartment Gene see's a man killed. Of course the man is the professor. Let the fun begin.

Gene Wilder is a perfect straight man for this movie. He is clearly intelligent, but unused to crime and guns. His bravado is likely that of a typical suburbanite, and while we laugh at his actions, we also identify with his character.

Other stars make this movie an absolute joy to watch over and over. Richard Kiel of James Bond "Jaws" fame makes another silent appearance. Ray Walston is a sleazy hood. Clifton James, another James Bond movie character, also makes an appearance about the same time as Richard Pryor. Ned Beatty plays a government agent and Scatman Crothers plays a conductor. An all-star cast of characters actors in somewhat stereotypical roles, but they are so instantly recognizable that their appearance is enjoyable.

The train is a center piece of the movie, and the most important action scenes take place on or around the train. Train buffs who also enjoy comedies will find this movie to be fascinating. The end of the movie is particularly spectacular and intense as we wonder whether Jill, Richard, Gene and Scatman are going to survive to the end.

This movie was nearly an instant classic when it was released. Light comedy and very good entertainment, this movie is worth having on DVD.




Rating: 4 stars
Summary: They Never Got Better Than This
Review: This, the first teaming of Wilder and Prior, was their best. Hollywood kept on trying, though, hoping that lightning would strike again.

I'm a train fan (i mentioned that in another review). That means i see a lot of films i might otherwise not have, if they feature a train prominently enough. (Though not even that sort of addiction could get me to "Thomas and the Magic Railroad"...)

And it meant i saw this one.

As many reviewers have noted, it's a variant on Hitchcock's "Tha Lady Vanishes", with strange things going on aboard a transcontinental train in which an innocent bystander (Wilder) becomes involved.

Patrick McGoohan makes an excellent villain for this sort of thing, and it's interesting to see Ray Walston as a thug, given that he mostly played Nice Guys in his later career. Also, Scatman Crothers is fun.

The best part starts about halfway through the filom when Wilder, having been tossed off the train and determined to get back on to rescue the girl, hooks up with Richard Prior, a thief and conman. The sight of Gene Wilder, Mr White Bread, in blackface with a radio on his shoulder, bopping and jiving his way past cops and/or bad guys to get back on the train, is one of the great moments in movie comedy.

The "action" part of "action comedy" is not slighted, as there are some decent stunt sequences (one turned up in the opening credits for "The Fall Guy" TV series), and the last ten or fifteen minutes, as Our Heroes try to figure out how to survive the coming smash as the train, an out-of-control runaway, roars into the "Chicago" station, are tense enough for almost anyone.

And as for the climactic sequence... it was done with full-scale replicas of the actual engines and is *very* spectacular; it's almost worth seeing the film just for that.

My rating? Three stars for a decent action/thriller/comedy, plus half-a-star each extra for the Wilder/Prior team and the train action, for a Grand Total of four stars.

Well worth a look.


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