Silver Streak Movie Review - Starring Gene Wilder- Jill Clayburgh- and Richard Pryor

By David Terr

"The Silver Streak" is a very funny and thrilling action/comedy film starring Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, and Richard Pryor. The movie has adventure, romance, comedy, and mystery. The comedic acting is quite good, particularly Pryor's role as a car thief.

George Caldwell (Wilder) is a simple man who decides to take a trip from LA to Chicago aboard an Amtrak train known as the Silver Streak. On board he meets secretary Hilly Burns (Clayburgh) and the two quickly fall in love. That night, from the window of her compartment, he witnesses a dead body falling from the top of the train. Hilly tries to calm him down, but the following morning he sees a photo of the man who was killed, who turns out to be Hilly's boss, an art professor.

George tries to investigate the murder and gets thrown off the train by a big hulk. He wanders through the desert until he comes to a ranch inhabited by an old woman. After he unsuccessfully tries to milk her cow, she gives him a lift back to the Silver Streak in her plane.

Back aboard the train, one of the passengers identifies himself to George as an FBI agent and tells him that the crime he'd witnessed was real by showing him a piece of the victim's shirt which had gotten caught on the roof of the train. He also tells George that Devereau, the suspected killer, had been looking for some very old letters from Rembrandt which proved that his Rembrandt painting was a fake. George had spotted the letters earlier and shows them to the agent. However, as they pass through a tunnel, a gun shot goes off, killing the agent. The train conductor comes in and sees George with the gun, which the agent had given him, and suspect that George is the killer. Meanwhile, Devereau and his associates are surprised to learn that George is still alive since the shot had been meant for him.

The hulk who'd thrown George off the train tries to kill him again. The two climb to the top of the train and George manages to kill him with a spear gun he'd taken from the train compartment. However, shortly after killing him, he accidentally gets thrown off the train again.

George wanders to the nearest town, where he meets an inept sheriff and tries to tell him what happened, but the sheriff doesn't believe him. The sheriff then gets a call from the train conductor telling him that George is a killer, whence the sheriff tries to go after him. George easily disarms the sheriff however and manages to drive away in his police car, only to find it occupied by a car thief named Grover Benson (Pryor). The two manage to get away from the police and cross the state line into Kansas.

George and Grover steal a car, which they drive across the state to Kansas city, where they arrive the following morning. George wants to board the Silver Streak again to rescue his new love Hilly from the killers, but his picture is in the paper as a killer and the cops are looking for him. In order to sneak back aboard the train, Grover gets George to disguise himself as a black man. The disguise works and he gets back on board.

Back on board, George finds Hilly being held hostage by Devereau and his gang, who take him hostage as well. Grover manages to rescue him, however. The two jump from the train into a ravine. They go to a police office in Illinois, where they learn that a group of cops are in pursuit of Devereau. To protect the passengers, they order the train to be evacuated in the town before Chicago. Once the passengers leave, Devereau and his gang battle it out with the police. Devereau manages to hijack the Silver Streak, killing the engineer and keeping it running by placing a tool chest on the gas pedal. As a result, the Silver Streak runs away at full speed towards Chicago. Devereau ends up getting decapitated.

With no more bad guys on board, George, Hilly, Grover, and the conductor, the only passengers left on board, now have the task of reaching Chicago safely. The manage to detach the engine from the rest of the train and jump onto the cars. The engine, however, crashes into the station in a spectacular crash, in which luckily no one gets killed.

The Silver Streak - Dave's Top Movies

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