SILVER STREAK (1976) ** We're right to expect even more than this from Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, at the height of their powers. It's not a bad film, it's enjoyable enough, but rather than a canvass for comedic genius it's more like an Agatha Christie with portions of dialogue written by a Hugh Hefner reject. In fact Dick and Gene allow themselves to be so confined by the script that Scatman Crothers damn near steals what show there is with a mere fraction of the air time. Of course it's also true that Richard and Gene need not be great to be good, even less so than other people. You can't help liking them on sight, no matter what their roles or intent, and they don't betray that benevolent intrinsic life force. But you also get the feeling that the writers and production people don't know much about it. The dialogue in the.ahem, extended, heh heh.romantic scene between Gene and Jill Clayburgh represents something that went terribly wrong in the late '70s. The sexual revolution was great stuff, generally, but they ran out of worthy categories of erotic experimentation and just kind of stumbled about with whatever silliness came to mind. Again, they're good enough actors that you're mad at the writers instead. Still, you just think of what the principals could have done with some of this stuff if they'd just been true to themselves and played it so far over the top that no one could even see their ass.
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