{"id":3972,"date":"2024-09-13T02:07:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T02:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3972"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:56:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:56:47","slug":"the-silent-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/13\/the-silent-partner\/","title":{"rendered":"The Silent Partner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Silent Partner <\/strong>(1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 EMC Film Corporation\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, nudity, some sexuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Daryl Duke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Curtis Hanson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Oscar Peterson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Billy Williams \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Release date: March 16, 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Celine Lomez, Michael Kirby, Sean Sullivan, Ken Pogue, John Candy, Gail Dahms, Micheal Donaghue, Jack Duffy, Nancy Simmonds.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s face it, a majority of the Canadian tax shelter movies of the late 70s\/early 80s were crap. While I enjoyed many of them (e.g. City on Fire, The Kidnapping of the President), they don\u2019t exactly represent cinema at its finest. Moreover, the makers didn\u2019t care. For them, they were just a tax write-off. It didn\u2019t even matter if they got released or not, they made money on the deal regardless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not all of these movies were critical and\/or box office duds. A few good ones managed to make their way into theaters only to be ignored by audiences who heard nothing about them prior to their one-week runs in a limited number of theaters (1979\u2019s Meatballs is an exception). One such picture is The Silent Partner<\/strong>, a nifty little bank heist thriller in the tradition of Hitchcock. It stars Elliott Gould (M*A*S*H) as Miles Cullen, a bored bank teller who has no life outside his job other than his hobby (collecting tropical fish). One day, he finds a hold-up note hidden among the withdrawal slips. He figures out the mall Santa Claus (yes, it\u2019s Christmastime) has been casing the bank planning to rob it. Miles comes up with a plan to steal the bank\u2019s money himself and frame the robber for it. Once the thief, a psychopath named Harry Reikle (Plummer, The Amateur), realizes he\u2019s been had, he comes after Miles. So begins a game of cat and mouse over the stolen $50,000.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Daryl Duke (Tai-Pan), The Silent Partner<\/strong> is a suspenseful, intelligently written, well-crafted thriller that rightfully deserves to be called \u201ca sleeper\u201d. At the time of its release, it got lost in the shuffle and overlooked by audiences despite positive reviews from critics. I didn\u2019t see it until \u201991 when I decided to rent it from one of the video stores I frequented at the time. I was impressed by how good it was. It recently came out on Blu-Ray; I decided this would be a great time to revisit it. After 28 years, it was like seeing it for the first time again. Not only does it look great, it still holds up as a genuinely thrilling crime caper.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The screenplay by Curtis Hanson (pre-L.A. Confidential) is one of those tricky deals filled with twists and double\/triple-crosses. At one point, a mysterious woman named Elaine (Lomez, Gina) becomes involved. She claims to have worked at the nursing home where Miles\u2019 recently deceased father resided. Of course, we all know that will turn out to be a lie. Also, Miles becomes attracted to co-worker Julie (York, A Man for All Seasons) who\u2019s having an affair with their boss (Kirby, Rolling Vengeance). Naturally, she begins to suspect Miles is up to something with his new \u201cgirlfriend\u201d Elaine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Gould is terrific as Miles, a quiet man who wants more out of life than his dull bank teller job. He finds it, but at a great price. Harry, a nice piece of acting by Plummer, is the last person you want to play games with. To him, it is NOT a game. He wants his money and to kill Miles. What\u2019s interesting about Plummer\u2019s performance here is that he doesn\u2019t overplay it. He doesn\u2019t go over the top with Harry; he plays him as a cool type capable of great violence as evidenced in an early scene where he brutally assaults an underage prostitute. Lomez is good as the femme fatale (or is she?) character who seemingly falls for Miles (or does she?). John Candy (SCTV) shows up as a fellow bank teller. It\u2019s one of the late funny man\u2019s first movie roles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are certain terms I don\u2019t like to throw around casually. One of them is \u201cingenious\u201d. I can\u2019t think of a better word to describe The Silent Partner<\/strong>. It\u2019s a clever little movie that doesn\u2019t rely on big action scenes and car chases to get its point across. Of course, that wasn\u2019t a big concern in the 70s, a decade when filmmaking was still an art. There\u2019s definitely an art to thrillers like The Silent Partner<\/strong>. The makers have to find new ways to surprise audiences. They have to know how to catch viewers off-guard. While I can\u2019t say that I didn\u2019t see a few of the twists coming, I still found plenty to enjoy in The Silent Partner<\/strong>. It\u2019s a movie for people who love movies. It\u2019s so good, I\u2019m shocked that more people still haven\u2019t heard of it four decades later. I strongly urge you to seek it out; it\u2019s totally worth the effort.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Silent Partner (1978)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 EMC Film Corporation\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, nudity, some sexuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Daryl Duke\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Curtis Hanson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Oscar Peterson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Billy Williams \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Release date: March 16, 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Celine Lomez, Michael Kirby, Sean Sullivan, Ken Pogue, John Candy, Gail Dahms, Micheal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hidden-treasures","category-suspense-thrillers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/The-Silent-Partner-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3972"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5560,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3972\/revisions\/5560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}