Silver Streak (film)

This article is about the 1976 film. For the 1934 film, see The Silver Streak.

Silver Streak is a 1976 American thriller comedy film about a murder on a Los Angeles-to-Chicago train journey. It was directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Colin Higgins, and stars Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, and Richard Pryor, with Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty, Clifton James, Ray Walston, Scatman Crothers, and Richard Kiel in supporting roles. The film score is by Henry Mancini. This film marked the first pairing of Wilder and Pryor, who were later paired in three other films.^[5]

Silver Streak
Film poster, artwork by George Gross
Directed by	Arthur Hiller
Written by	Colin Higgins
Produced by	Thomas L. Miller Edward K. Milkis
Starring	Gene Wilder Jill Clayburgh Richard Pryor Ned Beatty Clifton James Patrick McGoohan
Cinematography	David M. Walsh
Edited by	David Bretherton
Music by	Henry Mancini
Production companies	Frank Yablans Presentations Miller-Milkis Productions
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	December 8, 1976 (1976-12-08)[1]
Running time	114 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5.5 million[2] or $6.5 million[3]
Box office	$51.1 million[4]

The film is primarily set on a train called Silver Streak. A passenger accidentally finds out about the murder of an art historian and about efforts to discredit the victim's book. A shady art dealer is profiting from forged works of Rembrandt and is willing to kill in order to maintain secrecy about his crimes.

The film was released on December 8, 1976 by 20th Century Fox, and it received positive reviews from critics as well as earning $51.1 million against a budget between $5.5 million and $6.5 million.

Plot

Aboard the Silver Streak train to Chicago for his sister's wedding, book editor George Caldwell meets salesman Bob Sweet and Hilly Burns, the secretary to Rembrandt historian Professor Schreiner. George and Hilly share an instant attraction, and she invites him to her cabin. There, George witnesses Schreiner's body falling from the train’s roof through her window. Although Hilly doubts what he saw, George investigates Schreiner's compartment, where he encounters Whiney and Reace searching through Schreiner's belongings. When Whiney hints that Hilly may be in danger, the burly Reace throws George off the train. Determined to help Hilly, George follows the tracks until he finds a farmer, who flies him ahead of the Silver Streak in her biplane so he can reboard.

Once back on the train, George sees Hilly with art dealer Roger Devereau and assumes they are romantically involved. Devereau claims that Whiney and Reace are his employees and their altercation was a misunderstanding. He also introduces George to a seemingly alive Schreiner—who is actually Devereau’s henchman, Johnson, in disguise. Convinced he was mistaken and upset by Hilly's apparent relationship with Devereau, George gets drunk and confides in Sweet. Sweet reveals himself as FBI agent Stevens and explains that the FBI has been investigating Devereau, a criminal posing as an art appraiser. Stevens believes Devereau seeks Schreiner's Rembrandt letters, which could expose him for authenticating forged Rembrandts. George then finds the letters hidden inside Schreiner's book.

Reace attempts to assassinate George but kills Stevens instead. George escapes onto the train's roof, where he kills Reace with a harpoon gun but is knocked off the train. On foot again, he encounters the local sheriff, who finds his story unbelievable and tries to arrest him as a suspect in Stevens's murder. George escapes, steals a patrol car, and discovers arrested car thief Grover T. Muldoon in the back seat. Together, they race to catch the train at Kansas City to save Hilly. With police searching for George, Grover disguises him in blackface using shoe polish to help him reboard.

On the train, Devereau captures George and burns the Rembrandt letters. Posing as a steward, Grover rescues George and Hilly, but after a shootout with Devereau's men, he and George are forced to jump from the train. They are quickly arrested and taken to FBI Chief Donaldson, who explains that George was publicly framed as guilty to lull Devereau into a false sense of security and ensure the police kept George safe.

George and Grover part on good terms before Donaldson halts the Silver Streak, evacuates the passengers, and surrounds it with police. A firefight ensues; Whiney is wounded, and George, aided by the returning Grover, reboards the train to kill Johnson and rescue Hilly. Devereau seizes the controls, sets the train to full speed, and throws Whiney off before George mortally wounds him. Devereau is then decapitated by an oncoming freight train.

With the Silver Streak out of control, George and a porter uncouple the passenger cars, activating their brakes, but the runaway engine crashes into Chicago's central station, causing massive destruction. George, Hilly, and Grover observe the wreckage before Grover drives off in a stolen car. George and Hilly bid him farewell and walk away together, ready to start their new relationship.

Cast

• Gene Wilder as George Caldwell
• Jill Clayburgh as Hildegarde "Hilly" Burns
• Richard Pryor as Grover T. Muldoon
• Patrick McGoohan as Roger Devereau
• Ned Beatty as FBI Agent Bob Stevens / Bob Sweet
• Clifton James as Sheriff Oliver Chauncey
• Gordon Hurst as Deputy "Moose"
• Ray Walston as Edgar Whiney
• Scatman Crothers as Porter Ralston
• Len Birman as FBI Agent Donaldson
• Lucille Benson as Rita Babtree
• Stefan Gierasch as Professor Arthur Schreiner / Johnson
• Valerie Curtin as Plain Jane
• Richard Kiel as Reace
• Fred Willard as Jerry Jarvis
• Ed McNamara as Benny
• Henry Beckman as Conventioneer
• Harvey Atkin as Conventioneer
• Robert Culp as FBI Agent (uncredited)
• J.A. Preston as The Waiter (uncredited)

Production

The train in the film was a disguised Canadian Pacific passenger train with an observation car. Much of the filming took place in Canada between Toronto and the Rocky Mountains.

The film was based on an original screenplay by Colin Higgins, who at the time was best known for writing Harold and Maude. He wrote Silver Streak "because I had always wanted to get on a train and meet some blonde. It never happened, so I wrote a script."^[6]

Higgins wrote Silver Streak for the producers of The Devil's Daughter, a TV film he had written. Both they and Higgins wanted to get into television.^[7] The script was sent out to auction. It was set on an Amtrak train and Paramount was interested, but wanted Amtrak to give its approval. Alan Ladd Jr. and Frank Yablans at 20th Century Fox didn't want to wait and bought the script for a then-record $400,000. Ladd said "It was like the old Laurel and Hardy comedies. The hero is Laurel, he falls off the train, stumbles about, makes a fool of himself, but still gets the pretty girl. Audiences have identified with that since Buster Keaton."^[2]

Colin Higgins wanted George Segal for the hero – the character's name is George – but Fox preferred Gene Wilder. Ladd reasoned that Wilder was "younger, more identifiable for the younger audience. And he's so average, so ordinary, and he gets caught up in all these crazy adventures." (Wilder was actually older than Segal.)^[2]

Colin Higgins claimed the producers did not want Richard Pryor cast because Pryor had recently walked off The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings; he says the producer at one stage considered casting another black actor as a backup. However, Pryor was very professional during the shoot.^[8]

As Amtrak objected to some elements of the script, the movie was instead filmed on the Canadian Pacific Railway (known as CP Rail at the time), using CP passenger equipment from The Canadian disguised as the fictional railway AM Road's "Silver Streak". Most of the scenes were shot on the CP system in western Canada, and main station scenes filmed at and around Toronto Union Station with US location footage inserted at times. The railway yard shootout was filmed at CP's Alyth Yard, and the final crash scene in Toronto Union Station was actually done at a studio lot.^[1]

Release

The film had over 400 previews around the United States starting November 28, 1976 in New York City.^[9] It had its premiere at Tower East Theater in New York on Tuesday, December 7, 1976 and opened in New York City the following day.^[1] It opened in Los Angeles on Friday, December 10 before opening nationwide in an additional 350 theaters on December 22.^[1][10][9]

Reception

The film grossed over $51 million at the box office and was praised by critics, including Roger Ebert.^{[citation needed]} in other contemporaneous reviews, Ruth Batchelor of the Los Angeles Free Press described it as a "fabulous, funny, suspenseful, wonderful, marvelous, sexy, fantastic trip on a train, with the most lovable group of characters ever assembled."^[11] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, however, called the film "a needlessly convoluted mystery yarn, which calls everyone's identity into question except Wilder's." Siskel, who gave the film just two stars, added that "the story isn't easy to follow" and that "I'm still not sure whether Clayburgh's character, secretary to Devereaux, was in on the hustle from the beginning."^[12] (Hilly Burns was actually Professor Schreiner's secretary, not Devereaux's.)

In the Internet era, Silver Streak maintains a 76% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 25 reviews.^[13]

Awards and honors

• Academy Award nomination: Best Sound (Donald O. Mitchell, Douglas O. Williams, Richard Tyler, and Harold M. Etherington)^[14]
• Nomination: Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy — Gene Wilder
• Writers Guild of America nomination: Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen – Colin Higgins
• The film was chosen for the Royal Film Performance in 1977.
• In 2000, American Film Institute included the film in AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #95.^[15]

Score and soundtrack

Though the film dates to 1976, Henry Mancini's score was never officially released on a soundtrack album. Intrada Records' 2002 compilation became one of the year's best-selling special releases.^[16]