Stir Crazy Blu-ray Review
That's Right. They Still Ba-a-d.
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, January 18, 2012
Stir Crazy was a huge hit for stars Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder and an even bigger hit for
director Sidney Poitier, who became the first African-American filmmaker to gross over $100
million (and in 1980 that
meant something). But I have to confess that, as big a fan as I am
of Pyror and Wilder (in the right vehicle), the film has never made me laugh. This may have
something to do with the fact that, when
Stir Crazy first appeared, I had just finished
studying criminal law and was so caught up in the fine points of how justice could miscarry that I couldn't
see the comedy in a film about two guys railroaded into prison sentences of 120 years each.
Watching the film now, though, I can appreciate the directorial skill with which Poitier steered
Pryor and Wilder, both incorrigible improvisers, through Bruce Jay Friedman's goofy script,
which works from the familiar premise that tragedy is what happens to
you and comedy is what
happens to
someone else. In the hands of another director, the film could have been a brutal
satire on the justice system, but under Poitier's eye it's a Hope and Crosby road movie where nothing
truly serious is ever at stake, and we know our heroes will come out OK in the end, after they get
knocked around for a while. There'll even be a pretty girl in the bargain.
The film opens in New York City in the late Seventies, when the metropolis was crumbling,
crime-ridden and nearly bankrupt and not the tourist destination and urban theme park it is today.
Harry Monroe (Pryor) is an aspiring actor who hasn't worked in over a year; so, like many
unemployed actors, he works as a waiter, currently for a private caterer. But he loses his job after
his private pot stash is mistaken for oregano and used liberally in the cuisine for a high society
dinner. Right at the outset, screenwriter Friedman and director Poitier establish the film's rules.
What might have been a minor plot point in other hands (Harry losing his job) becomes an
opportunity for extended comic riffs, as recriminations fly in the kitchen and stoned behavior
cuts through stuffiness in the dining room.
Harry's best friend, Skip Donahue (Wilder), is a would-be playwright, who is no more successful
than his buddy. Mostly he tries to thrust himself into interactions with people (which New
Yorkers
hate), calling it research. Meeting for a drink in a darkened bar, Skip and Harry
watch a cabby and his passenger come to blows over a fare, then impulsively decide to head west in a
beat-up old van. But in Arizona they run short of money and take a promotional gig at a local
bank dressed as woodpeckers (
woodpeckers?). It's going great, until bank robbers borrow the
costumes as a disguise, and everyone assumes the holdup was perpetrated by those damned New
Yorkers.
In the blink of an eye, and certainly without time for such details as a trial, our heroes go from
arrest to 120-year sentences. (Check out their clothes. From the time of arrest, they're in the same
outfits until they change to prison blues after sentencing.) They're sent to a state facility
populated by stereotypes, including a mincing queen named Rory (a brave performance by Georg
Sanford Brown), a good-hearted Latino named Jesus (Miguel Ángel Suárez), a bad-ass gang
leader named Blade (Charles Weldon) and a taciturn giant named Grossberger, billed as the most
prolific mass murderer in history (Erland van Lidth, who would go on to play Dynamo in
The
Running Man).
But in this alternate universe, the threats to Harry and Skip aren't from other inmates. They're
from Warden Walter Beatty (Barry Corbin) and his deputy, Wilson (Craig T. Nelson). Warden
Beatty cares more about the annual prison rodeo competition than he does about the welfare of
his inmates, and he tests each new arrival for cowboy aptitude on a mechanical bull in his office.
When he discovers that Skip is a natural, he uses every means at his disposal to "persuade" Skip
to compete (including several that wouldn't pass muster under the Eighth Amendment). Skip
holds out until the warden lets him pick his own team, because he, Harry, Angel and Rory plan to
use the rodeo as cover for an escape.
Meanwhile, their useless Legal Aid lawyer, Garber (Joel Brooks), is supposed to be looking for
the two
real bank robbers, but he needs a kick up the backside by his comely assistant,
Meredith (JoBeth Williams), who goes undercover as a waitress at a strip bar looking for a specific tatoo
that one witness spotted on the hand of a bandit. (If you're wondering whether the real purpose of
the scene is to show a bunch of topless dancers, you can stop wondering now.) Of course, it only
makes sense that Harry's and Skip's lawyers are acting as investigators, which lawyers never do
in real life, since there are no actual legal proceedings for them to handle.
Meredith succeeds, and so does the escape plan, largely in tandem. Everyone's happy as the
heroes and the pretty girl ride off into the sunset, or technically,
away from it, since
they're returning to New York. No one worries about paperwork, or charges for breaking out of prison,
or any of the various people who have tried to kill Skip and Harry (including a rival rider played
by veteran character actor Jonathan Banks, who's hard to recognize under sunglasses and a
cowboy hat, but he's currently playing tough guy Mike on
Breaking Bad). In a Heckle and Jeckle
cartoon, you don't sweat the details.
The real purpose of the ramshackle plot is to let Pryor and Wilder do bits in their signature styles,
bouncing off each other and various personalities they encounter. It must have been a novel
experience for Pryor to play the straight man of the pair, and one can just imagine director Poitier
chuckling to himself as he reversed all the usual cliches by having the
white half of his
interracial duo play the goggle-eyed innocent who's never seen working a straight job, has no practical
sense of the real world, plays music and miraculously displays inborn athletic talent. Wilder would later
disclose in his autobiography that he and Pryor were not close off-screen, and it's doubtful that
Pryor could have been close to anyone at the time, since, as we now know, he was descending
into a freebase addiction that would nearly kill him the year
Stir Crazy was released. But
their onscreen chemistry as Harry and Skip is undeniable, and all you have to do is watch the famous
scene where they enter county lock-up with Harry trying to teach Skip how to scare off potential
attackers by walking "bad". Not since Zero Mostel in
The Producers had another actor so
successfully tapped into Wilder's deep well of crazy.
Stir Crazy Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Appropriately enough, it was Richard Pryor himself who restored a sense of reality to the
imaginary world of
Stir Crazy. In his brilliant standup film,
Richard Pryor Live on the
Sunset Strip (1982), which is best known for its frank description of his near-fatal drug addiction,
Pryor also riffed on the experience of filming at Arizona State Prison. He began by describing his
anticipation of meeting his "brothers" in the prison population, who he imagined would include
many railroaded and wrongfully convicted innocents like Harry with whom he would have
natural feelings of solidarity. After varying this sentiment several times in an enthusiastic chant,
Pryor whirled to the audience with his face abruptly trembling in horror and choked: "
Thank God
we have penitentiaries!" He then proceeded with graphic impressions of some of the hardened
thugs he'd encountered, describing how uncomfortable it made him when Gene Wilder would
get too familiar with the prisoners and how finally he'd had to tell Wilder what these guys would
do to them if they were regular inmates instead of famous visitors with their own security. It
wouldn't have been a Skip-and-Harry experience.
It's probably my own fault that I can't suspend disbelief for
Stir Crazy, but for those who can, the disc is well-done
and recommended.
