Sometimes silly is just what you need. With the busy holidays coming up you might want to try a little stupid…just for fun!
Planes, Trains and Automobiles stars Steve Martin as Neal Page, an uppity marketing executive who, on a flight home at Thanksgiving, finds himself bumped from first class and forced to sit in the tourist section next to a boorish and emotionally needy Del Griffith, a shower curtain salesman played by none other than John Candy. Del dresses funny, is too eager to be helpful, and has abominable snacking habits. Most reprehensible, he stole a cab from Neal when both were fighting their way to the airport. When a snow storm in Chicago closes the airport, the plane is routed to Wichita. These two ill-matched travelers find themselves stuck together for a series of misadventures on the road.
You sense immediately that circumstances are going to make Neal and Del strange bedfellows in motel hell. You know too, that much worse will follow as this misalliance uses all the modes of transportation specified in the title (plus such unnamed delights as a farm truck, a refrigerator truck and a bus that grinds to an unpleasant halt) in the desperate effort to get home.
It is, of course, always a pleasure to watch Martin’s steam-gauge face register his rising internal pressures and to witness his exquisitely expressed blow-offs. But Candy offers even more insinuating delights. Covering lonely need with empty gab, insecurity with a not entirely trustworthy savvy, he is the most dangerous kind of pest, the type who worms rather than blusters his way into your life. The movie works the same way. For all its broadly farcical air, Planes, Trains and Automobiles finally seals its bond with the audience the same way.
Writer, director, producer John Hughes drew out superb performances by both leads. Man versus technology has been one of the staples of screen comedy since the earliest silent days, and Hughes makes the most of the format here packing as many of the frustrations of modern life as he can into this calamitous travelogue of roadside America.
Now a word about Canadian Actor John Candy. John Franklin Candy (yes, that was his real name) died of a heart attack at the age of 43 while filming Wagons East in Durango, Mexico. Primarily a character actor, John was in so many riotous comedies there are too many to list here. He left two children, one long term marriage and was memorialized on one Canadian stamp. He left a legacy of laughter.
While Planes, Trains and Automobiles has an R rating (Martin drops the F-word about 20 times in a single scene) it is still being quoted by a whole generation. So, either watch it after the young ones are abed or do some real explaining before it starts, but find the time during this season to cuddle up on the couch and laugh till your sides hurt. Once again, I invite your comments at chastings@rockcliff.com or view my archived movie reviews at www.CarolynHastings.com.
ALIVE AT THE MOVIES
CAROLYN HASTINGS