See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Ah, the gimmick. When it works, it can be great. When it doesn't, that blasted thing can ruin an entire movie single-handed. I was skeptical of the gimmick/premise from 1989's See No Evil, Hear No Evil, but the talent involved was too much to pass up. And throwing in that I've never heard of the movie and never heard anyone talk about it, I went in with a clean slate.

Running his newstand in a downtown NYC skyscraper, Dave Lyons (Gene Wilder) goes about his day-to-day work like nothing's going on. Well, there is. He's deaf, but Dave is pretty smooth as long as he can read the person's lips he's talking to. One day, he hires Wally Karew (Richard Pryor), the two having some struggle communicating almost immediately. Why exactly? Wally is blind. How can they make it work? They do, finding a way and a rhythm, but it is relatively short-lived. One morning, a man walks in demanding to see Karew but before anything can be resolved....the man is shot. Dave never gets a good look at the killer -- only seeing her legs as she walks away -- while Wally only smells her perfume as she walks away scot-free. That's one problem but just the start. The police walk in to find Dave and Wally perched over the body. They're suspects No. 1 and No. 2.

Okay, about that gimmick thing. There's more than one. A couple actually in this Arthur Hiller-directed comedy.  In the third of four pairings between Pryor and Wilder, the laughs are there from beginning to end in a 103-minute movie. Critics ripped it apart pretty good for those gimmicks. One works better than the other. The one that doesn't? A blind guy who's good friends with a deaf guy sounds almost sophomoric, but nope, that works. What doesn't work is the pretty forced, overdone way to get the duo into some kooky situations. The murder isn't even the dumb part, but what comes after it. None of it is a deal-breaker, but you can't help but shake your head at it at times, especially the MacGuffin that ties it all together.

It isn't something that kills the movie because, well, because Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are a comedy match made in heaven. Having already worked together on Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, they team up again here with similarly successful results. Say what you want about the movie itself, but their on-screen chemistry and banter are above any criticism. Like the best comedy teams from Laurel and Hardy to The Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, chemistry is key above it all. They make it look easy scene-in and scene-out, raising the sometimes forced story above its average roots. No matter how goofy or downright stupid the story is, it's fun to watch this duo do their thing.

Simply put, Pryor and Wilder commit to the gimmick, a blind man and a deaf man forced to work together. It works because it is simple. Pryor's Wally can't see, liking to pretend he can. Wilder's Dave can't hear, but he's an expert at lip-reading (except for some tough sound-alikes). There are too many great little set pieces and running jokes to even mention, but here's a few. Drinking at a bar, they get into a fistfight, the blind man punching while the deaf man calls out where to punch as if it was a clock. My favorite has the duo arrested and taking mug shots. Dave can't see the photographer's face (so he can't hear her), requiring Wally to tell him what to do, but he can't see that Dave isn't in the right position. Watch it HERE. Just more proof you don't need something big and obvious and over the top to be funny. Sometimes it's the littlest things that produce the biggest laughs. I don't want to spoil too many of the best bits, but know this. It's genuinely funny. I laughed out loud throughout, and hopefully you will too.

You don't really need too much else in the cast department, but there's some other parts worth mentioning. The beautiful Joan Severance plays Eve, the real killer who's working with her partner, Kirgo, played by Kevin Spacey sporting a well-manicured pencil mustache and a British accent. Both of them are working for a mysterious man, Sutherland (Anthony Zerbe), who has a twist/surprise of his own in the final act. Alan North and Louis Giambalvo play two NYC detectives forced to deal with our blind/deaf duo and progressively losing it while Kirsten Childs plays Wally's sister, Adele, brought into the craziness.

Downright dumb at times with plenty of laughs. You wouldn't expect anything else from a comedy starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. Turn off your brain for a couple hours and sit back and enjoy the laughs.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989): ***/****

Hit!

Though he has starred in countless films and television shows, I can't say I've seen Billy Dee Williams in more than two or three movies. And yes, those movies are the Star Wars movies. As roguish Lando Calrissian, he left quite the impression, but what about all those other movies? Well, let's start here with 1973's Hit!

A veteran government agent, Nick Allen (Williams) is on a mission. His teenage daughter has died from a heroin overdose, but Allen can find no one who will do anything about the dealer, pushers or suppliers, leaving his daughter's memory haunting him. With no options in front of him, Nick improvises, deciding to take the fight to the drug suppliers in Marseilles. He can't do it by himself though and without the backing of the government, he's forced to recruit an odd team of vigilantes to aid the cause. His incentive to convince these individuals? Each and every one of them has been affected in one way or another by drugs -- themselves, their families, their friends -- so an opportunity to take the war back at the suppliers? Nick has his team but can this unlikely team somehow pull off the impossible mission he has in store for them?

From what I read about this 1973 action flick, it sounded like I was heading into a blaxploitation flick full of black power and white hate. Yeah, about that....nope. I was surprised by what film I ended up getting. From director Sidney J. Furie, 'Hit' is a fun if dark, pretty entertaining movie that does try to deliver a message. Thankfully, it's not overdone. That message? The U.S. government isn't doing enough to curb drug trafficking into the states, if doing anything at all. Williams' Nick Allen hits his breaking point when his daughter dies from an overdose. Even when Nick presents his superiors with a gimme of a case, his requests fall on deaf ears. It isn't the message that's overdone, but instead a script that is a tad too leisurely at 134 minutes.

What's more surprising is the portions of 'Hit' that are far too leisurely. I love a good specialist movie, a good, old-fashioned men-on-a-mission movie, and at its heart that is what this movie is. In seeking out help for his mission overseas, Allen seeks out an odd assortment of people who form the unlikeliest of specialists. His crew includes Mike Willmer (Richard Pryor), a widower who saw his wife raped and murdered by a drug addict, Barry Strong (Paul Hampton), an ex-soldier who got involved in drugs during his tour in Vietnam, Sherry Nielson (Gwen Welles), a prostitute with a heroin addiction, Dutch Schiller (Warren J. Kemmerling), a frustrated cop who keeps seeing his arrests come up empty, and Ida (Janet Brandt) and Herman (Sid Melton), an old married couple that saw their son die because of his drug addiction. An emotional investment in these characters is a positive, but 'Hit' takes far too long in Allen's recruiting. These little episodes just take their time too much. Well over an hour is spent on the recruiting process, leaving the actual mission as almost an after-thought.

Oh, and Billy Dee Williams is very cool. We're talking effortless cool, the same cool he brought to Lando Calrissian a few years later. We see little snippets of his anger poking through, his extreme frustration at a system that allows deaths like his daughter's. As the leader of his specialists and vigilantes, he isn't recruiting mercenaries looking for a payday, just individuals looking for vengeance in one form or another. I liked that dynamic from beginning to end. Of his vigilantes, I especially liked Richard Pryor as the widowed husband who's calm and cool....until you mention his wife. It's a part that has some comedy, some drama and mostly shows what a talent Pryor was bouncing back and forth between the two. The rest of the cast is okay -- I liked Kemmerling as the tough street cop always on the search for a hamburger -- without a ton of star power.

In a crime action-thriller like this, a couple action sequences stand out. The obvious is the Godfather-esque finale, Allen's team unleashing surprise attacks on a handful of very rich, well to do drug suppliers as they go about their daily extravagances in Marseilles. It is a cool sequence, hard-hitting, aggressive and bloody but it feels almost rushed. Solid but could have been better. An early car chase is pretty cool, two hit men trying to knock off Allen before he can put his plan into action.

In general, I liked this movie. It should have been better. I liked its grittiness, its vulgarity in its dialogue, its aggressive qualities across the board. Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor are cool, and really, do you need anything else?

Hit! (1973): ** 1/2 /****

Carter's Army

You can't help but shake your head sometimes. Fighting in World War II, hoping to stop Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany from worldwide domination, American fighting units were still segregated. It's weird. Something just doesn't add up in that equation. Several movies have addressed the subject, but more tend to tell the story of desegregation heading into the Korean War. Not all of them though, like a 1970 TV movie, Carter's Army, also known as Black Brigade in the dollar DVD bin.

It's July 1944 and Allied forces are fighting their way through France toward Germany. An experienced commando, Captain Beau Carter (Stephen Boyd) has been tasked with a dangerous behind the lines mission, but even he doesn't know how dangerous, and seemingly ill-advised. A dam some 40 miles behind German lines is a key point in the Allied plan of advance, but the only troops in the area who can assist are a unit of African-American soldiers who haven't seen combat and are used for burial and latrine detail. Carter can't believe his orders, but he parachutes into the area, meeting B Company's commander, Lt. Wallace (Robert Hooks), and finding the remnants of an army unit. Not sure if he'll be able to complete the mission with the men assigned, Carter and Wallace head out with six other men, hell bent on getting to the dam and taking it, time running out as the lines are constantly changing.

This 1970 made for TV movie was part of the Combat Classic 50 Movie Pack that I got as a birthday present last summer. I'd heard of it -- mostly because of the cast -- but had never found a watchable copy. This copy? Tolerable if not good, but that's what you get with public domain DVDs. The final verdict in this WWII flick from director George McGowan is a mixed bag. It's dealing with racism during World War II is a solid jumping off point -- a racist, redneck white officer commanding black troops -- but it is ultimately its undone by its TV roots. It clocks in at just 70 minutes (did it air in a 90-minute window or 2 hour time slot?) but still manages to be dull, not featuring enough action or any coherence to be any good. How many long shots can we have of Carter and his team walking through the woods? More than you'd think for a 70-minute movie.

As the already short movie developed, I thought there was the most potential with the dynamic between Boyd's racist white officer and Hooks' frustrated black officer. Given a nearly suicidal mission anyways, Carter is stunned to find a unit of black soldiers with no semblance of order or command at a filthy, broken-down camp. His counterpart, Wallace, is sick of his men being used in mop-up duty, digging latrines and burying dead soldiers rather than being used in the fighting. Carter thinks little of the men, Wallace wants the new officer to give them a chance. That racist element never plays out enough, never really gets any needed resolution. Some scenes crackle, like Wallace talking to a French woman in the resistance (Susan Oliver) only to have Carter interrupt, telling him he'd better never catch him talking to a white woman. Like so many scenes though, it's cut short before it can explore anything in actually interesting fashion.

I'm all sorts of talented when it comes to overanalyzing....well, everything, but the portrayal of the black troops seemed a little politically incorrect too. They're portrayed stealing, drinking, gambling, being delusional, cowardly and generally, pretty dumb. Now........that said, there's some good actors assembled, even if they're given little to do. Carter's crew includes Big Jim (Roosevelt Grier), a behemoth of a man, Hayes (Moses Gunn), a physics teacher, Crunk (Richard Pryor), a soldier scared of his fears overtaking him, Brightman (Glynn Turman), a soldier who makes things up and writes them in his journal, Lewis (Billy Dee Williams), a knife-throwing bully, and Fuzzy (Napoleon Whiting), a deaf soldier. There is potential in each of these characters for development, some interesting background, but there's absolutely no time for any of that in such a short movie. I'm curious what a 2-hour version of this movie would have played like.

What I thought might save 'Brigade' (or at least bring it up a notch) was the actual mission. Unfortunately....yeah, not really. This is where the budget concerns affect the story. This dam Carter and Co. are gunning for is essential to both sides, but it's guarded by seven, maybe eight soldiers? If it's so important, why were just eight soldiers sent to complete the mission? If you can parachute Carter in, can't you just parachute more commandos in? No. Why? Because then we couldn't have this movie. Paul Stewart makes an appearance as General Clark, the possibly racist officer who sends Carter on his mission.

The ending is disappointing as the mission unfolds, only about 10 actual minutes, small scale right to the very end. There is an attempt at a message that is actually pretty good, but by then, it was just too late. If you're curious, watch it at Youtube HERE. Certainly potential, but it never lives up to any of it.

Black Brigade (1970): * 1/2 /****

Silver Streak

This spring I reviewed Stir Crazy starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor and liked it a lot, the complete random nature of the comedy appealing to me. I didn't want to rush into other Wilder-Pryor pairings though, letting it breathe a bet, so recently after a several month wait, I dove back in, watching 1976's Silver Streak, the duo's first film pairing.

Traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago via the Silver Streak train, editor George Caldwell (Wilder) is looking forward to a couple days of quiet travel. Aboard the Streak, he meets Hilly (Jill Clayburgh), an assistant to an author traveling on-board, and they quickly hit it off. Back in George's sleeper bunk (uh-oh, adult situations!), George swears he sees a dead body, Hilly's boss, hanging outside his window but shakes it off as his head playing tricks on him. The next morning he goes to the boss' sleeper only to find a mysterious character (Ray Walston) rummaging through his bags. What the heck is going on in this train?

I don't know exactly what I was expecting out of this movie, but with Wilder and Pryor involved, I feel safe saying I expected a pretty funny flick. And you know what? It was. It's not a mile a minute laugh fest, but when I laughed, it was genuine. But overall, what a weird movie. The first 30 minutes are basically a slow burn as George and Hilly seduce each other. Then there's a murder, more murders, some investigating, new characters, shootouts, and a twist with a vicious, murdering art appraiser. I assure you that's the first time I've ever wrote that in a review. Director Arthur Hiller has an entertaining mess of a movie here, but it's a mess in a good way. A romantic, action-packed comedy. How often can you see those, and good ones at that?

What surprised me most was that Pryor doesn't appear until an hour-plus into the movie. What isn't surprising? The movie is at its best when Wilder and Pryor are on-screen together. There is a natural, easy-going and very funny chemistry between them that most actors and duos can only aspire to. Pryor plays Grover T. Muldoon, a small-time crook who ends up helping Wilder's George in his efforts to save Hilly. How do you ask? George is thrown off or falls off the Silver Streak three or four times, meeting Grover in the process. For no other reason than the story requires it, Grover helps the efforts, teaching this very un-criminal-like George how to be a crook. Things get crazier and crazier, but through it all the hijinks and shenanigans from Wilder and Pryor keep this one going at its frenetic pace.

The bits do come fast and furious after the dramatic, mystery scenes. A running bit with George being suspected as a rapist is hilarious in its bizarre oddness and inherent darkness. The highlight though is obvious; George -- being looked for by the police for murder....it's a long story -- is forced to pretend to be a black man. Courtesy of some shoe polish, a Rastafarian hat, a shiny jacket, and some "cool" lessons from Grover, George tries to embrace his inner cool black guy with some obviously politically incorrect but truly funny scenes. That's probably the biggest laugh, but most of the humor comes from a simple line delivery or a perfectly expressed facial reaction. It doesn't always have to be a big laugh to be effective, it just has to work for what it is.

I loved the Wilder-Pryor duo, but the cast here is nothing to shake your head at. Clayburgh does her best as the damsel in distress, having some surprising chemistry with Wilder. Because he always played a bad guy, Patrick McGoohan plays the Bad Guy, the conniving, murdering art appraiser with Walston, Bond villain Richard Kiel and Stefan Gierasch as his henchmen. Ned Beatty has a very funny supporting part as Bob Sweet, a vitamin salesman who strikes it up with George aboard the train, waiting to deliver a twist. Also look for Clifton James, Lucille Benson, Scatman Crothers and a young Fred Willard in supporting parts. 

Another winner for Wilder and Pryor, a definitively different, unique comedy that wasn't quite what I was expecting. Off-the-point expectations aside, this was a winner with a good cast, a lot of laughs, and just a good old-fashioned goofy comedy.

Silver Streak <---trailer (1976): ***/****

Stir Crazy

Go through Hollywood history, and it's easy to name some of the great comedy teams, not just duos. There's Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbot and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and one of the best, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. The duo starred together in four films, including 1980's Stir Crazy, a prime example of a stupid but entertaining 1980s comedy.

Having both lost their jobs on the same day, New Yorkers Harry (Pryor) and Skip (Wilder) decide to move west and put the nastiness of the city behind them. They take odd jobs for money, and their plan is working...for awhile. Taking a job in Arizona, they're mistaken for two bank robbers and sent to jail, earning 120 year sentences. Without much hope of an appeal, they settle in, finding out the prison is run by a -- surprise, surprise -- corrupt warden (Barry Corbin). Skip finds out he's a talented cowboy, and the warden sees a chance for some easy cash at the prison rodeo. Skip, Harry and their fellow inmates also see a choice opportunity...to escape.

I can't think of a more misleading plot review than that one. If I didn't know any better -- besides the New Yorker turned prisoner turned rodeo cowboy -- I'd peg this 1980 comedy as a drama. What's even weirder than that? Well-respected and award-winning actor Sidney Poitier is the director, one of nine movies he's directed during his career. This isn't a classic comedy to end all comedies. It's harmless and means well, and wants to do one thing and one thing only. It wants to make you laugh, and it succeeds there in a big way. The story has its fair share of meandering along with its episodic plot -- most of it routines for Wilder and Pryor to show off -- but it is always funny. Some of it leans toward more physical bits (both actors were great physical comedians) while also counting on them to sell their lines with some pitch perfect, immaculately delivered lines. A comedy that's fun. Novel concept, huh?

Four years since they first teamed in 1976's Silver Streak, Wilder and Pryor show why they were such a great team together. And that's the important thing; team. As comedic actors, they're both very capable of carrying a movie on their own. But like the best comedy teams/duos, they play off each other so well, setting each other up for jokes and laughs in every scene. Pryor's Harry is a nervous guy who sees things at their worst. Wilder's Skip is a naive idealist, constantly looking for the good in people. He doesn't seem to get that prison is a nasty place, and that "suggestions" to the warden aren't going to go over well. Harry is always looking out for his friend Skip as they navigate their new lives in the prison system, Skip always looking for stories and characters for his soon-to-be written novel. Some actors -- comedic or dramatic -- just work well together, and these two have some of the best chemistry I've ever seen. It's effortless, making the at-times stupid humor seem really smart. Dumb, smart, it doesn't matter. Pryor and Wilder make it good.

Like any memorable comedy, there's got to be something that sticks with fans after the movie concludes. 'Stir' has more than enough, those iconic scenes that keep you laughing whether you're watching the movie or not. The most iconic here is Harry and Skip first arriving in prison, Harry deciding they've got to show how "bad" they are, Skip falling in step. The physical mannerisms, the forceful deeper voices, it's priceless. Watch it HERE.There's too many to mention though, one just as good as the other. The running bit with the meanest prisoner around, Grossberger (Erland van Lidth), a serial killer, is perfect, Skip proving he's not so bad after all. Skip also survives countless torturing at the hands of the warden, shaking them off one by one like it's nothing, including a hanging torture that gets all the kinks out of his back. Long story short? Both Wilder and Pryor get a ton of chances to show off their ability.

The rest of the cast fills in nicely around the two, including Corbin and Craig T. Nelson as Warden Beatty and his head guard, Deputy Wilson. For the most part, they get to play the straight role to Wilder and Pryor's antics, doing so capably while keeping some personality in their roles. Georg Stanford Brown has a lot of fun with some stereotypes as Rory, the gay prisoner who likes Harry and ends up becoming part of the group along with Jesus, played by Miguel Angel Suarez and van Lidth as the immense Grossberger. Joel Brooks plays their incompetent lawyer, Garber, with JoBeth Williams playing his assistant, Meredith.

If there's an issue with the movie, it comes in the ending as 'Stir' struggles to get to any sort of finale. The prison rodeo drags on a little too long as Skip, Harry and the guys try to make their escape. The laughs are still there, but they're fewer and further between. Minor complaint though. The movie is a gem though thanks to the extraordinary talents involved.

Stir Crazy <---TCM clips (1980): ***/****