Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a 1987 American road trip comedy[3] film written, produced, and directed by John Hughes and starring Steve Martin and John Candy, with supporting roles by Laila Robins and Michael McKean. It tells the story of Neal, an uptight marketing executive, and Del, a well-meaning but annoying salesman, who become travel companions when their flight is diverted, and embark on a three-day odyssey of misadventures trying to reach Chicago in time for Neal's Thanksgiving Day dinner with his family.
| Planes, Trains and Automobiles | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John Hughes |
| Written by | John Hughes |
| Produced by | John Hughes |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Donald Peterman |
| Edited by | Paul Hirsch |
| Music by | Ira Newborn |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 92 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15 million[2] |
| Box office | $49.5 million |
The film was released on November 25, 1987 to critical acclaim, with many praising it for Hughes branching out from teen comedies, and for Candy's and Martin's performances. It was also a box office success, earning $49.5 million on a $15 million budget. Watching the film has since become a Thanksgiving Day tradition for many.[4]
Plot
Neal Page is an advertising executive on a business trip in New York City, eager to return to his family in Chicago two days before Thanksgiving. After a late-running business meeting with an indecisive client named Mr. Bryant, Neal struggles to hail a cab during rush hour. As he bribes a man to let him have a cab he has hailed, someone else takes it.
Neal arrives at LaGuardia Airport just as his flight is delayed. While waiting, he meets the person who unwittingly stole his cab, Del Griffith, a talkative shower curtain ring salesman. To his dismay, Neal is assigned a seat next to Del on a crowded flight to O'Hare International Airport.
A blizzard in Chicago diverts the plane to Wichita, Kansas, where Neal and Del must stay overnight. Neal tells his wife, Susan, what happened. Neal is unable to book a room, but Del has reserved one. Neal reluctantly accepts Del's deal: Del will ensure that Neal gets a room if Neal pays for their taxi ride to the motel. During check-in, Del mistakenly takes Neal's credit card and vice versa. Forced to share the last available room, Neal loses his temper over Del's irritating behavior. Del is hurt, but both men calm down and awkwardly share a bed. While they sleep, a burglar steals their cash.
The next day, with air travel still prohibitively delayed, Neal buys them both train tickets to Chicago, with seats in separate cars. However, the locomotive breaks down near Jefferson City, Missouri, stranding its passengers in a field. Neal takes pity on Del, who is struggling with his trunk; and they reunite, traveling on a crowded bus to St. Louis, where Del raises cash by selling shower curtain rings to passersby, presenting the rings as earrings. However, Neal accidentally offends Del over lunch by suggesting that they go their own directions, and the men part ways again.
At the St. Louis Airport, Neal attempts to rent a car, but it is missing when he gets to the lot. After a long and perilous walk back to the terminal, he vents his anger in a profane tirade at a rental agent to no avail. He attempts to book a taxi to Chicago and impatiently insults a dispatcher, who then punches him in the face. By chance, Del arrives at the scene in his own rental car and takes the dazed Neal with him. As they drive, they argue again. Del nearly gets them killed overnight when he drives in the wrong direction on a freeway. As they compose themselves by the side of the road, Del's carelessly discarded cigarette sets the car on fire. Neal initially gloats, thinking that Del is liable for the damage, until Del reveals that he had found Neal's credit card in his wallet and used it to rent the car, much to Neal’s ire.
With his credit cards destroyed in the fire, Neal barters his expensive watch for a motel room. Del has nothing of value, so he attempts to sleep in the charred, roofless car. Seeing this, Neal pities Del and invites him inside. They share Del's collection of miniature liquors and laugh about the events of the past two days. The next day, the pair resumes their trip in the burnt car, but the Illinois State Police impounds it for being unroadworthy. Del persuades a trucker to take them to Chicago, and they ride in the truck's refrigerated trailer.
At a Chicago "L" station, Neal sincerely thanks Del for getting him home, and they part ways with affection. As Neal rides a commuter train to his neighborhood, he recalls some of Del's odd comments and silences during the journey. It occurs to him that Del has not been trying to get home. Neal returns to the station, where he finds Del still sitting. Del explains to him that he is homeless and a widower, as his wife died eight years earlier. Neal decides to bring Del home for Thanksgiving dinner and introduces his family to his new friend. In a post-credits scene, Mr. Bryant is still in the office alongside a half-eaten Thanksgiving dinner, still trying to decide on a poster.
Cast
- Steve Martin as Neal Page, an advertising executive
- John Candy as Del Griffith, a shower curtain ring salesman
- Laila Robins as Susan Page, Neal's wife
- Michael McKean as a state trooper who impounds a fire-damaged car that Neal and Del are driving
- Dylan Baker as Owen Mooney, a man who lets Del and Neal ride in the bed of his pickup truck
- Lulie Newcomb as Owen's wife
- Olivia Burnette as Marti Page, Neal and Susan's daughter
- Larry Hankin as Doobby
- Matthew Lawrence as Neal Page, Jr., Neal and Susan's son
- Carol Bruce as Joy, Neal's mother
- George O. Petrie as Martin, Neal's father
- Richard Herd as Walt, Susan's father
- Diana Dill as Peg, Susan's mother
- Charles Tyner as Gus Mooney, Owen's father and a motel owner
- Kevin Bacon as a man racing Neal to a taxi
- Martin Ferrero as the second motel clerk
- Diana Castle as a stewardess
- Gary Riley as a thief who robs Neal and Del while they are sleeping
- Bill Erwin as a man on a plane
- Ruth de Sosa as a New York ticket agent
- John Randolph Jones as a cab dispatcher
- Edie McClurg as a car rental agent
- Ben Stein as a Wichita airport representative
- Lyman Ward as John (uncredited)
- William Windom as Mr. Bryant (uncredited), an indecisive client[5]
Production
Filming
Planes, Trains and Automobiles began filming in February 1987 and lasted 85 days.[6][7] It was filmed mostly in Batavia, New York, and South Dayton, New York.[8] A scene that takes place in St. Louis was filmed at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.[9][10] There was also a scene in Braidwood, Illinois, at the Sun Motel, as well as a scene in Woodstock, Illinois, where the city's old courthouse was shown.[11] Rewrites Hughes did during filming made the amount of footage he shot much larger than the original screenplay needed, and the film's first cut was three hours and 45 minutes long, featuring a number of additional characters and subplots.[7] One key subplot about Neal's wife not believing him and suspecting that he is with other women was cut. The young man who robs Neal and Del was to be introduced as a pizza deliveryman who places a six-pack of beer on a vibrating motel bed, causing a can to burst when Neal attempts to open it.[7]
Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Planes, Trains and Automobiles features a mix of rock and roll, country, and pop. The frenetic musical score by Ira Newborn makes extensive use of the folk song "Red River Valley," including a cover of Johnny and the Hurricanes' rock and roll version, "Red River Rock", performed by the British group Silicon Teens. Among other tracks is a cover version of "Back in Baby's Arms". The song, popularized by Patsy Cline, is performed by Emmylou Harris. Another popular song used in the movie is "Mess Around" written by Ahmet Ertegun and performed by Ray Charles.
A cover version of "Six Days on the Road" was used in the film, performed by Steve Earle & The Dukes. The film also featured the contemporary pop song "Modigliani (Lost in Your Eyes)" by Book of Love, using both the original single and the Requiem Mass Remix. A special instrumental version of "Power to Believe" by The Dream Academy, which the band recorded at Hughes's request, is extensively used in the film as Del's unofficial theme.
A cover of "Everytime You Go Away" performed by Blue Room is played over the final scene and the credits; Hughes planned to use Paul Young's well-known hit version but was denied the rights by the record company even though Young approved of Hughes's planned use of the song and wanted to see it included.[12] The soundtrack album was released in 1987 as a physical vinyl and compact disc, but has since gone out of print. It is available for download on iTunes.[13] "Everytime You Go Away" and "Power to Believe" were not included on the album (the soundtrack instead featured the original version of "Power to Believe" with lyrics). The instrumental version of "Power to Believe" was not released until 2014, when The Dream Academy included it on its compilation album The Morning Lasted All Day: A Retrospective.
Release
Box office
The movie opened in American theaters on November 25, 1987 (the day before Thanksgiving), and finished third for the weekend, grossing $7,009,482. After its first five days, the film grossed $10,131,242 and stayed in the top ten for seven weeks. The movie finished its 12-week American run on January 22, 1988, with $49,530,280.[14] The production budget was $15 million.[2] The film was released in the United Kingdom on February 12, 1988, and topped the country's box office that weekend.[15]
Reception
Planes, Trains and Automobiles marked a widely noticed change in the repertoire of John Hughes, generally considered a teen angst filmmaker at the time.[16][17] It was greeted with critical acclaim upon release,[18][19][20][21] in particular receiving two thumbs up from Siskel & Ebert, with Gene Siskel declaring it Candy's best role to date. The film was featured in Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" collection, Ebert writing that it "is perfectly cast and soundly constructed, and all else flows naturally. Steve Martin and John Candy don't play characters; they embody themselves. That's why the comedy, which begins securely planted in the twin genres of the road movie and the buddy picture, is able to reveal so much heart and truth."[22] Leonard Maltin called the movie a "bittersweet farce", arguing that while the film was "hurt by an awful music score", Hughes "refuses to make either one (Martin or Candy) a caricature—which keeps this amiable film teetering between slapstick shenanigans and compassionate comedy."[23]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 66 reviews, with an average score of 7.9/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Thanks to the impeccable chemistry between Steve Martin and John Candy, as well as a deft mix of humor and heart, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a hilarious, heartfelt holiday classic."[24] On Metacritic it has a score of 72 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[25] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade "B+" on scale of A+ to F.[26]
Post-release
Themes
Argun Ulgen categorized Planes, Trains and Automobiles as a lively portrayal of in-person interactions between people of different economic classes: "people curse, make out in public, speak in platitudes, and retell the same jokes; generally, they are coarse and loud, imperfect, but not without love."[27]
Home media
In October 2022, Paramount announced a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release. The release includes 75 minutes of deleted and extended footage, much of which was thought to be lost but was rediscovered and cleaned up from the John Hughes archive. It was released in the U.S. on November 22, 2022.[28][29]
Remake
In August 2020, a remake was reported to be in development, with Will Smith and Kevin Hart as the leads, and later Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler.[30][31]
References
External links
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