Silver Streak (1976)

Directed by Arthur Hiller. Starring Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor, Ned Beatty, Patrick McGoohan, Ray Walston, Scatman Crothers, Clifton James, Lucille Benson, Len Birman, Stefan Gierasch. [PG]

Mild-mannered Wilder boards a cross-country train nicknamed the Silver Streak and gets swept up in a whirlwind of romance and adventure. He has an evening to remember with fellow passenger Clayburgh, witnesses a murder, and becomes the target of both police and criminals, the latter of which are desperate to get their hands on an entirely inconsequential Macguffin. Despite all the wild misadventures, including three occasions where the hero falls off the train only to catch up with it later (so much for the expeditious promise of the name Silver Streak), this is a surprisingly low-energy affair with uninteresting villains, no real sense of danger, and only a few instances of laugh-out-loud humor. Pryor shows up in the second half and provides intermittent spark as a thief who helps Wilder save the day. Fred Willard has a small part near the end, but it’s played completely straight.

63/100