Buried Treasures: Silver Streak
Following his recent death at 83, actor-comedian Gene Wilder received accolades for his memorable performances in the children’s musical classic “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” along with his roles in Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein.” But nowhere did I see any mention of what I consider to be his best film and his best (or at least most realistic) performance – Arthur Hiller’s 1976 comedy-action flick “Silver Streak.” As Hiller has also recently departed this life, “Silver Streak” is this month’s Buried Treasure.
While any performance in any Mel Brooks film is more caricature than character, Wilder’s George Caldwell is the classic everyman. En route from Los Angeles to Chicago aboard a passenger train known as the Silver Streak, George quickly becomes entangled in a plot to assassinate a well-known professor and art historian who has just published a book about Rembrandt’s paintings. In the book, the professor accuses art dealer George Devereau (Patrick McGoohan) of authenticating two forgeries as original Rembrandts. Once the professor has been killed, one of Devereau’s men is to impersonate the professor and publicly discredit his own book.
So how is mild-mannered George involved in all this? Well you see on the first night of the voyage, he meets, has drinks with and dines with Hilly Burns (Jill Clayburgh), who happens to work for the professor. Unbeknownst to Hilly, Devereau’s henchmen have knocked off the professor, and away we go. While “Silver Streak” is a wild ride, the plot is not nearly as difficult to follow as you might think. The screenplay (by writer-director Colin Higgins) is reminiscent of some of Alfred Hitchcock’s best work; think Cary Grant as the Joe Blow who, via mistaken identity, becomes involved in a plot to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets out of the country in “North By Northwest.”
And while “Silver Streak” is obviously a comedy, it also works as a mystery film (the Hitchcockian storyline) and a rollicking adventure. Had it not starred Wilder and frequent collaborator Richard Pryor, it could easily have worked as a standard action flick. A little of the humorous dialogue would have to be altered, but not much. If “Willy Wonka” hadn’t already done so, “Silver Streak” proved that Wilder could act in a more straightforward manner than he had done for Brooks.
McGoohan is perfectly devilish as the evil Devereau, and he embraces the role of the classy criminal in much the same way James Mason did in “North By Northwest.” As always, Clayburgh brings a ray of sunshine to any film, the venerable Scatman Crothers plays a porter, and the presence of Ned Beatty as an FBI agent investigating Devereau gives the ensemble some heft. Devereau’s henchmen are depicted as serious and abhorrent (as opposed to the bumbling idiot bad guys from any number of Brooks comedies).
“Silver Streak” also marked the first of four pairings of Wilder and Pryor, and it is the only one of those four films that is worth so much as a second viewing. And Pryor doesn’t even appear until halfway through the picture! But when he does, the pairing is instant magic. When Wilder’s George is wanted by the FBI, Pryor’s Grover attempts to reboard the train with George disguised as a black man. The result is one of the funniest scenes in modern cinema. It’s a shame these two comedic talents were unable to rekindle the magic of their hour of screen time in “Silver Streak.” Much credit must be given to screenwriter Higgins, who two years later directed a similar tale of an everyday librarian caught in a plot to assassinate the Pope. That film, “Foul Play,” is another of my all-time favorites, and may just show up as a Buried Treasure in a future month.
Unfortunately, “Silver Streak” proved to be the peak of Wilder’s career (and Pryor’s cinematic career too, for that matter). Following “Silver Streak,” Wilder directed himself in a series of unremarkable comedies. Then he appeared with his wife Gilda Radnor in three 1980s pictures, the best of which was 1984’s “The Woman in Red.” In the ‘90s, he starred in a short-lived television comedy called “Something Wilder,” which I liked but apparently nobody else did.
I can recommend a half dozen Wilder performances that will make you laugh heartily. But I cannot recommend any better Wilder films than “Willy Wonka” (which was well-noted upon Wilder’s death) and “Silver Streak” (which, for some reason, was not). Even though it was a big hit in 1976, its surprising omission from Wilder’s playbook is why “Silver Streak” is this month’s Buried Treasure.
Andy Ray's reviews of current films can be found on http://www.artschannelindy.com/
and on http://www.currentnightandday.com/