Sidney Poitier Critical Essay | Critical Essay by David Ansen

Critical Essay by David Ansen

If [Arthur Hiller's] "Silver Streak" was a brazen knockoff of [Alfred] Hitchcock, ["Hanky Panky"] is a knockoff of a knockoff, with [Gene] Wilder playing a "wrong man" who stumbles into a nasty struggle over a top-secret government tape. As [Richard] Widmark's thugs pursue him from one end and the frazzled Feds close in from the other, Wilder gets plenty of opportunity to exhibit the hapless hysteria that is his all-too-familiar trademark. Wilder needs a new shtik; [Gilda] Radner needs any shtik at all. As the sidekick/love interest, she is saddled with a mirthless role that requires of her the one thing not in her repertoire—sex appeal. Sidney Poitier directs this endless chase with a certain impersonal slickness that substitutes for high spirits. He has gotten little help from writers Henry Rosenbaum and David Taylor, who have raided the screenwriter's manual of tight squeezes but forgotten to embellish the handbook with...
(read more)