Stir Crazy

Were it not for the concerns of Warner Bros. brass, the partnership between Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder would’ve begun with 1974’s Blazing Saddles. The world would have to wait until the railroad-mystery farce Silver Streak to witness the explosive (and manic) chemistry between the two comic giants—though Sidney Poitier’s Stir Crazy more than makes up for the lost laughs. As an aspiring actor and a writer wrongly accused of robbing a bank, Pryor and Wilder are put through the maximum-security wringer in Stir Crazy, where they discover the benefits of solitary confinement and find the human being inside the hulking brute Grossberger.  

Updated 06/13/2011