Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

MOVIE REVIEW OF Planes, Trains, & Automobiles (1987) R

Cast
Director:	john hughes	Runtime: 1hrs 33min (93min)
neal page	.....	steve martin
del griffith	.....	john candy
susan page	.....	laila robins
state trooper	.....	michael mcKean
taxi racer	.....	kevin bacon
owen	.....	dylan baker
joy	.....	carol bruce
marti	.....	olivia burnette
peg	.....	diana douglas
second motel clerk	.....	martin ferrero
doobie	.....	larry hankin
walt	.....	richard herd
waitress	.....	susan kellerman
little neal	.....	matthew lawrence
car rental agent	.....	eddie mcClurg
martin	.....	george o. petrie
motel thief	.....	gary riley
gus	.....	charles tyner
marie	.....	susan isaacs
owen's wife	.....	lulie newcomb
cab dispatcher	.....	john randolph jones
new york lawyer	.....	nicholas wyman
new york cab driver	.....	gaetano lisi
stewardess #1	.....	diana castle
stewardess #2	.....	julie h. morgan
man on plane	.....	bill erwin
new york ticket agent	.....	ruth de soza
wichita airport representative	.....	ben stein
brand manager	.....	grant forsberg
bus lover	.....	andrew j. hentz
bus loverette	.....	karen meisinger
screaming driver	.....	john moio
screaming driver's wife	.....	victoria vanderkloot
anti-social trucker	.....	troy evans
mother in airport	.....	nancy kusley
man #1 at wichita airport	.....	larry ludwig
man #2 at wichita airport	.....	daniel niswander
holiday traveler	.....	kevin tipton
john	.....	lyman ward
bryant	.....	william windom

WHAT I KNOW

The journey begins in a meeting room in an office building in New York City two days before Thanksgiving. Neal Page (Steve Martin) is waiting for a decision on an advertising project from his boss, Bryant (William Windom), who appears to have no concern with giving a quick response...or perhaps any. Bryant decides to adjourn the meeting and reconvene after the holidays. So Neal leaves and heads home to Chicago. Ignoring parting advice from his co-worker (Lyman Ward) to be patient and take a later flight, he is determined he will make the 6:00 flight out of the city.

Beginning with a frantic race with a fellow New Yorker (Kevin Bacon) to acquire a cab, Neal stumbles (in some cases, literally) upon every conceivable roadblock to delay his arriving home on time.

At the airport, Neal meets Del Griffith (John Candy), a traveling shower-curtain ring salesman. The two (to Neal's dismay) keep running into each other. Finally, their flight is cancelled because of a snowstorm. Neal realized that there are no vacant motel rooms in the city as a result of the storm. Del tells him that he has managed to get a motel room (because he sold the owner some shower-curtain rings) and that he could probably do the same for him. Seeing others camped out on the floor of the airport, Neal reluctantly accepts the offer. Almost immediately, Neal realizes why he might have hesitated at the idea of joining Del. Del is a clingycompanion. Neal is weary and just wants to get home in time for Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Del doesn't seem interested in making a deadline, but is determined to help Neal get home. In the process, however, Del manages to drive Neal crazy with stories and anecdotes meant to distract from the peril of the delay.

They attempt to go their separate ways, but fate always brings them back together. This ends up being a good thing (although Neal has trouble believing this) because Neal isn't having much luck. This may be because Del is having it all. Del tells Neal his philosophy to go with the flow. They travel together on this pretense while still running into problems at every turn. While every turn of unfortunate events (including their rental car catching fire at the side of the freeway). Neal becomes increasingly frustrated and angry while Del hangs on to his smile and laughter. Even when Neal flat-out says he wants to break up and continue on his own, it isn't but a few hours later that they are once again reunited with each other, clearly to be traveling companions until Neal is safely home with his family for Thanksgiving dinner.

WHAT I THINK

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...oh, man! I'm sorry. This movie is just so funny, my laughter spills over into my writing…literally!

I have always been a big fan of John Candy. I first caught note of him on SCTV and have loved his comedy ever since - there you go with those Canadians again! Note, ironically, that he has shown his ability to play serious roles as well, as he has a small part in Oliver Stone's JFK.

Steve Martin cracks me up here as well. This is not surprising to me as this is an original screenplay as opposed to a remake of a classic. I have mentioned before that as a rule, remakes of classics are more than likely going to be disasters in my book. For some reason, Steve Martin seems to show up in some of the worst ones (e.g. Cheaper by the Dozen, The Out-of-Towners).

These two are a great team, comparable to Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello with Candy as the bumbling Lou Costello/Stan Laurel and Martin the straight man, i.e. Bud Abbott/Oliver Hardy.

Ironically, I can compare this movie to one of Steve Martin's disaster remakes, The Out-of-Towners,. However, I make the comparison only to the original screenplay starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis (previously reviewed -- see Friday, November 20, 2012 below). Both of these movies' plots rely on two people travelling together to get from one city to another with Murphy and his infamous law intervening (read intruding) at every turn.

There are two obvious differences making this film unique from The Out-of-Towners. First, George and Gwen Kellerman (the couple in The Out-of-Towners) are trying to get from Ohio (Twin Oaks, to be exact) to New York City, whereas Neal is trying to get to Chicago from New York City.

Second, the events that lead to disaster on Neal's journey seem to result from none other than pure luck (or un-luck) and circumstance. George Kellerman has similar circumstances arise, but his personal decisions play a bigger role in the unfortunate results (e.g. resulting the meal on the plane, and then never eating for the remaining of the movie).

There are countless verbal jokes that have me in stitches, as are not nearly covered sufficiently below in the Memorable Dialogue section. But for those times when dialogue is lax, visual comedy takes over. Which brings me to present to you the motivation for watching this movie in addition to reading this review. If you were a subscriber of Cliff's Notes in school, that religion will not suffice here. Without actually seeing this movie, you miss a lot of comedy and laughs that are not realized in this article. For example, when Del and Neal are driving along on the freeway late at night in their rental car, Del explains that because he has a bad back, there are only a limited number of positions that allow him to sleep. So he keeps readjusting the mechanical seat. When they switch seats to allow Neal a break from driving, he claims that Del broke the seat. In this case, there is memorable dialogue (seen below, You broke the seat. You broke the Goddamn seat! I don't believe it.), but additional laughs come from the accompanying events. Neal is being thrown around by the seat, which is apparently out of his control. This contributes to half the comedy.

Note…This was a freebie example. You have to watch the movie to get the rest. Besides, the main point of these reviews is to persuade you to watch some really great films (or in a few cases to warn you to avoid wasting your time with bad ones).

I know you can't wait another minute to turn on this movie (boy, you have no idea how much I love butter…) okay, I'm not quite sure where that came from.

Before I let you go, however, I would like to give honorable mention to the music in this movie. There are several times when the action involves little more than Del and Neal in travel mode with only a small amount of dialogue. Without some sort of background, this of course, would be awkward for everyone. It is, of course, SOP for music to be inserted in these instances. Here, though, I think the choice and composure of the music is especially noteworthy. I find the musical accompaniment to be analogous to onomatopoeia in the world of grammar. Extra Note…If you don't know what onomatopoeia is…shame on you.

Now, go watch Planes, Trains, & Automobiles!

REMARKABLE DIALOGUE
Finally, a short list of quotes I think are worth repeating. You may recognize some, but these are my own picks, not ones that are particularly famous:

• Car Rental Agent : Welcome to Marathon. May I help you?
  Neal : Yes.
  Agent : How may I help you?
  Neal : You can start by wiping that fucking dumbass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks. Then you can give me a fucking automobile. A fucking Datsun, a fucking Toyota, a fucking Mustang, a fucking Buick. Four fucking wheels and a seat.
  Agent : I really don't care for the way you're speaking to me.
  Neal : And I really don't care for the way your company left me in the middle of fucking nowhere with fucking keys to a fucking car that isn't fucking there. And I really didn't care to fucking walk down a fucking highway and across a fucking runway…to get back here to have you smile at my fucking face. I want a fucking car…right…fucking…now.
  Agent : May I see your rental agreement?
  Neal : I threw it away.
  Agent : Oh, boy.
  Neal : Oh, boy, what?
  Agent : You're fucked.
• Del : Potato chips. They're everywhere!
• Del : Top o' the mornin', officer.
  State Trooper : Hi.
  Del : Is there something I could help you with?
  Trooper : What the hell you drivin' here?
  Del : We had a small fire last night, but we caught it in the nick of time.
  Trooper : Do you have any idea how fast you were going?
  Del : Oddly enough, I was just talking to my friend about that. Our speedometer's melted, and as a result, it's very hard to say with any degree of accuracy exactly how fast we were going.
  Trooper : Seventy-eight miles an hour.
  Del : Whew! Seventy-eight, huh? Yeah, I could buy that. Sure. I guess. You know, uh, you'd know better 'n us. 'Specially since we've got a melted speedometer.
  Trooper : Do you feel this vehicle is safe for highway travel?
  Del : Yes. I do. I really do believe that. I…I…I know it's not pretty to look at but it'll get'cha where you wanna go.
  Trooper : You got no outside mirror.
  Del : No, we lost that.
  Trooper : You have no functioning guages.
  Del : No, not a one. However, the radio still works!
• John : You'll never make the 6.
• Del : Do you still honor those discount credit cards?
  Gus : Well, I'll have to charge you for a double. But, uh, with the discount, it'll come out even.
  Del : Well, there ya' go. That's pretty good. We're savin' money already!
• Neal : Didn't you notice on the plane when you started talking, eventually I started reading the vomit bag? Didn't that give you some sort of clue like, 'Hey, maybe this guy's not enjoying it? You know, everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting. You're a miracle. Your stories have none of that. They're not even amusing…accidentally.
• Del : We were robbed!
  Neal : Do ya' think so?!
• Owen : Her first baby…come out sideways. She didn't scream or nothin'.
• Del : Beautiful country, though, isn't it?
  Neal : Whaddya' think the temperature is?
  [long pause]
  Del : One.
• Del : You ever travel by bus before?
  [Neal shakes his head No]
  Del : Your mood's probably not gonna improve much.
• Del : They're selling for $5 a pair, two for $7.
• Neal : You broke the seat. You broke the Goddamn seat! I don't believe it.
• Del : You know you coulda killed me sluggin' me in the gut when I wasn't ready…That's how Houdini died, ya' know?

RATING

Here is my personal rating of this movie. This rating is out of ten meows.
¹⁰ /₁₀

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