best movie i've ever seen.

A Masterpiece!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A truly lightweight 1970s comedy that just happened to be released in 1980. Stir Crazy raises numerous smiles and provokes not a few cringes but laughs are few and far between in this meh prison caper. Many characters appeared and disappeared and reappeared just to service the paper-thin plot with no attempt to show how or why anything was really happening or indeed how the lawyer's female friend knew things she couldn't possibly have known having not been privy to those conversations. The love story is totally phoned-in and completely unbelievable whilst being pretty much unnecessary to the actual plot. Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are given nothing to work with here and Wilder in particular resorts to manic at every opportunity with Pryor seemingly forced to follow suit. Again things just happen with no build-up seemingly just to get us to the end of the film! Stir Crazy is an unremarkable "comedy" that plays it safe from start to finish but forgets to actually provide a competent plot. 3/10 - Not worth watching except if you're bored and feel like an inane "comedy" with lots of smiles but few actual laughs.

A few weeks ago someone said "Shawshank Redemption" reminded them of "Stir Crazy", so I had to look it up. I watched it at home on DVD from my public library.It is a buddy movie, Gene Wilder as Skip Donahue and Richard Pryor as Harry Monroe. Skip is a writer that didn't earn anything the past year, Harry is an actor that earned $35 the past year. So thinking they had nothing to lose they headed off to the west coast in their jalopy. They had a breakdown in Arizona that consumed most of their money so they decided to stay a while and earn enough to continue west.They never got a chance, they were hired by a bank to wear woodpecker costumes to drum up business. During a lunch break two outlaws stole the costumes and robbed the bank. Of course the two NY buddies were arrested and convicted. Sentence - 125 years in prison.This isn't Shawshank by a long shot but there are some similarities. Barry Corbin who was just still early in his career plays Warden Walter Beatty. Almost 20 years later I met Corbin when I was an extra in a movie he was in, I remain a fan. Of course he went on to create the memorable Maurice Minnifield, ex astronaut, in the TV series "Northern Exposure."This movie runs a bit long for me, some of the physical humor went on too long. But Wilder and Pryor are both in good form and overall this is an entertaining movie.SPOILERS: For my own recollection, Skip is a natural at bull-riding, he and others are in the prison rodeo, $50,000 is on the line for the two wardens, some inmates help plan the escape, they slip into the stands, get changed, drive out in a van. As they are about to take a car and hit the road they are intercepted and told that the real crooks were caught and they were free men. They get the girl and the three of them head west.

Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor starred in several movies together, and in "Stir Crazy" their comedic chemistry shines strong. A very good supporting cast (including Jo Beth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, and Barry Corbin) add to the strength of this entertaining film. And let us not forget that the one and only Sidney Poitier showed his ability as a comedy director for this.The scenes which slow this picture down are the rodeo-escape scenes toward the end of the film, and display very little life and are somewhat boring. The plot of "Stir Crazy", though, where Wilder and Pryor are framed for armed robbery and sent to prison, is quite amusing and hilarious, with the right amount of flavor and texture to grab my attention! Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Not having seen this in about 30 years, I didn't know if I'd still think Sidney Poitier's Stir Crazy was as funny as I originally thought it was. I just watched it again on Netflix Streaming and the answer is yes! I mean, from the set up beginning sequences with Richard Pryor as a waiter and Gene Wilder as a store detective, there's plenty of funny stuff here. By the time they get to prison, Pryor and Wilder try lots of crazy stuff that still got me in stitches especially when Richard's character has to deal with a gay inmate named Rory Schultebrand (Georg Standford Brown) who has a fancy for him. Fellow inmates Gene and Richard befriend include Jusus Ramirez (Miguel Angel Suavez) and Grossberger (Erland Van Lidth De Jeude). The latter doesn't talk but he does provide a nice singing voice that compliments Gene's in a later duet. Others they meet in the cell include Blade (Charles Weldon), Big Mean (Cedrick Hardman), his sidekick-Slowpoke (Grand L. Bush), and a guy who punches the former (Tony Burton). Outside of the jail are many now-familiar faces like Joel Brooks as lawyer Len Garber, JoBeth Williams as cousin Meredith, her future Poltergeist co-star Craig T. Nelson as deputy Ward Wilson, and Barry Corbin as warden Walter Beatty who has the distinction of appearing in two 1980 movies featuring the mechanical bull, the other being Urban Cowboy. Since this is Black History Month, I'd like to complete this review by citing three more African-American players other than Pryor, Brown, Weldon, Hardman, Bush, and Burton: Franklyn Ajaye-who previously appeared with Pryor in Car Wash-as a young man in hospital ward that accidentally got a nut cut off, Esther Sutherland as the cook Sissie in the beginning sequence, and Pamela Poitier-Sidney's daughter-as the cook's helper. So on that note, I highly recommend Stir Crazy. Oh, and I also noticed Luis Avalos-the guy named Chico who uses pliers for sinister purposes-from my childhood TV show, "The Electric Company" from the '70s.