Planes, Trains and Autos: A Truly Great American Film

[Ghost of]

I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about why this film is fantastic, why it stands the test of time, how Steve Martin and John Candy were meant to make this film and how it is only cruel fate that kept them from making another masterpiece or why the end of the film is one of the most heart-breaking and then heart-warming in cinematic history.

But I thought it was important that this holiday classic was commemorated with a thread on ES on this day, March 26, 2010.

John Candy was taken way too young (mostly by his own behavior, I suppose) but this scene is an example of how this film goes from hilarious to poignant in a moment, and naturally! (BTW, he was also wonderful on SCTV, which still remains the finest and most intelligent sketch comedy show ever aired on TV.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q05p-5TWcj8

And the legendary ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIMN16BdMGk&feature=PlayList&p=506AC69C1CE3E9DC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=38

[greenspandan]

Those aren't pillows!

[Ghost of]

Ebert's review in 2000 of the film:

"Planes, Trains and Automobiles" is founded on the essential natures of its actors. It is perfectly cast and soundly constructed, and all else flows naturally. Steve Martin and John Candy don't play characters; they embody themselves. That's why the comedy, which begins securely planted in the twin genres of the road movie and the buddy picture, is able to reveal so much heart and truth.

Some movies are obviously great. Others gradually thrust their greatness upon us. When "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" was released in 1987, I enjoyed it immensely, gave it a favorable review and moved on. But the movie continued to live in my memory. Like certain other popular entertainments ("It's a Wonderful Life," "E.T.," "Casablanca") it not only contained a universal theme, but also matched it with the right actors and story, so that it shrugged off the other movies of its kind and stood above them in a kind of perfection. This is the only movie our family watches as a custom, most every Thanksgiving.

The story is familiar. Steve Martin plays Neal, a Chicago advertising man, sleek in impeccable blues and grays, smooth-shaven, recently barbered, reeking of self-confidence, prosperity and anal-retentiveness. John Candy plays Del, a traveling salesman from Chicago who sells shower curtain rings ("the best in the world"). He is very tall, very large, and covered in layers of mismatched shirts, sweaters, vests, sport coats and parkas. His bristly little mustache looks like it was stuck on crooked just before his entrance; his bow tie is also askew.

Both of these men are in Manhattan two days before Thanksgiving, and both want to get home for the holidays. Fate joins their destinies. Together they will endure every indignity that modern travel can inflict on its victims. What will torture them even more is being trapped in each other's company. Del wants only to please. Neal wants only to be left alone.

John Hughes, who wrote, directed and produced the film, is one of the most prolific filmmakers of the last 25 years. He is not often cited for greatness, although some of his titles, like "The Breakfast Club," "Weird Science," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Home Alone," have fervent admirers. What can be said for him is that he usually produces a real story about people he has clear ideas about; his many teenage comedies, for example, are miles more inventive than the recent sex-and-prom sagas. The buried story engine of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" is not slowly growing friendship or odd-couple hostility (devices a lesser film might have employed), but empathy. It is about understanding how the other guy feels.

A moment of togetherness.

(Enlarge Image)Del, we feel, was born with empathy. He instinctively identifies with Neal's problems. He is genuinely sorry to learn he stole his cab. He is quick to offer help when their flight is diverted to Wichita, Kan., and there are no hotel rooms available. Neal, on the other hand, depends on his credit cards and self-reliance. He wants to make his own plans, book his own room, rent his own car. He spends the movie trying to peel off from Del, and failing; Del spends the movie having his feelings hurt and then coming through for Neal anyway.

The movie could have been a shouting match like the unfortunate "Odd Couple 2" (1998). Hughes is more subtle. The key early scene takes place in the Wichita motel room they have to share, when Neal explodes, telling Del his jokes stink, his stories are not interesting and he would rather sit through an insurance seminar than listen to any more of the fat man's pointless anecdotes. Look at Candy's face fall. He shows Del as a man hurt and saddened--and not for the first time. Later he remembers how the most important person in his life once told him he was too eager to please, and shouldn't always try so hard.

At this point, Del wins our hearts, and the movie is set up as more than a comedy. But a comedy it is. Not one movie a year contributes a catchphrase to the language. We remember Jack Nicholson ordering the toast. "If you build it, they will come." "E.T., phone home." "I'm walkin' here!" "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." "Are you talking to me?"

And we remember the scene where Del and Neal wake up cuddled together in the cramped motel bed, and Neal asks Del where his hand is, and Del said it's between some pillows, and Neal says, "Those aren't pillows," and the two men bolt out of bed in terror, and Neal shouts, "You see that Bears game last week?" and Del cries, "What a game! What a game! Bears gonna go all the way!" This is not homophobia but the natural reaction of two men raised to be shy and distant around other men--to fear misunderstood intimacy.

The other great comic set piece in the movie is responsible for its R rating; nothing else in the movie would qualify for other than PG-13. This is Neal's verbal symphony for the f-word, performed by the desperate man after a rental-car bus strands him three miles from the terminal without a car. He has to walk back through the snow and mud, crossing runways, falling down embankments, until he finally faces a chirpy rental agent (Edie McClurg) who is chatting on the phone about the need for tiny marshmallows in the ambrosia. When she sweetly asks Neal if he is disturbed, he unleashes a speech in which the adjectival form of the f-word supplies the prelude to every noun, including itself, and is additionally used as punctuation. When he finishes, the clerk has a two-word answer that supplies one of the great moments in movie dialogue.

Neal is uneasy around ordinary people and in unstructured situations. His mind is organized like a Day-Timer. He's lived in a cocoon of affluence and lacks a common touch. Consider the scene on the bus where Del suggests a sing-along, and Neal, awkwardly trying to be a good sport, begins "Three Coins in a Fountain" (and doesn't know the words). His fellow passengers look at him like he's crazy. Del saves the moment with a boisterous rendition of a song everybody except Neal knows: "Meet the Flintstones!"

The last scenes of the movie carry the emotional payoff we have been half-awaiting all along. For Neal, they reflect a kind of moral rebirth such as Scrooge experiences in another great holiday tale: He has learned his lesson, and will no longer judge people by their appearances, or by his own selfish standards. There is true poignancy in the scene where Neal finds Del waiting alone on the L platform.

One night a few years after "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" was released, I came upon John Candy (1950-1994) sitting all by himself in a hotel bar in New York, smoking and drinking, and we talked for a while. We were going to be on the same TV show the next day. He was depressed. People loved him, but he didn't seem to know that, or it wasn't enough. He was a sweet guy and nobody had a word to say against him, but he was down on himself. All he wanted to do was make people laugh, but sometimes he tried too hard, and he hated himself for doing that in some of his movies. I thought of Del. There is so much truth in the role that it transforms the whole movie. Hughes knew it, and captured it again in "Only the Lonely" (1991). And Steve Martin knew it, and played straight to it.

The movies that last, the ones we return to, don't always have lofty themes or Byzantine complexities. Sometimes they last because they are arrows straight to the heart. When Neal unleashes that tirade in the motel room and Del's face saddens, he says, "Oh. I see." It is a moment that not only defines Del's life, but is a turning point in Neal's, because he also is a lonely soul, and too well organized to know it. Strange, how much poignancy creeps into this comedy, and only becomes stronger while we're laughing.

[Kosher Ham]

^^^ Only techboy and a few others will read that entire post.

I think it is a funny movie, but not great.

[mjah]

It's one of my favorite movies (probably the only 80s flick on that list) and a Thanksgiving tradition. I love the fact that the movie is about fully understanding and accepting the imperfections in yourself, which seems more and more like an endangered skill.

I think it's the kind of movie that guys can relate to in a "hey, I'm both of these guys from time to time" way, instead of the more typical "hey, I'd love to be that guy someday" way. It's oddly genuine and guy-emotional without ever getting guy-weird -- even during the pillows scene. Somehow it's a girl-empathy movie for guys ...not entirely unlike the way WWE manages to be a soap opera/Kabuki theatre for guys. But of course, WWE goes back to the "hey, I'd love to be that guy someday" model.

John Hughes knew what he was doing. Ebert's writeup is fantastic.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Never liked that movie, didn't like John Candy, and Steve Martin rarely makes me laugh.

[Spartacus87]

Never liked that movie, didn't like John Candy, and Steve Martin rarely makes me laugh.

[Ghost of]

Never liked that movie, didn't like John Candy, and Steve Martin rarely makes me laugh.

For all of your religious pretensions, if you didn't like Del Griffith in this movie, it demonstrates you are a spiritual fraud.

Harsh? Tough.

[mardi gras skin]

Steve Martin has never been funny.

[Chump Bailey]

One of my all time favorites. Great movie.

[Gracelander]

That is my favorite movie of all time. The chemistry between Martin & Candy was awesome.

Del: You play with your balls a lot.

Neal: I do NOT play with my balls.

Del: Larry Bird doesn't do as much ball-handling in one night as you do in an hour!

Neal: Are you trying to start a fight?

Del: No. I'm simply stating a fact. That's all. You fidget with your nuts a lot.

Neal: You know what'd make me happy?

Del: Another couple of balls, and an extra set of fingers?

[Capt Rich Fla]

I watched Riding in Cars with Boys yesterday for the first time. I wanted to jump off a bridge. What a horrible movie.

[Rocky21]

Ghost, I liked this movie too but you really liked it. Almost freakishly so.

[zoony]

this movie is deserving of its praise. an all time great film. loved that write up from Ebert!

I cant think of a comedy with better character development. Hughes brilliance was on full display

"oh yah, thaey can buff that out no problem"

"he's just proud of his town. thats a real rare thing these days"

"her first baby came out sideways"

-"you're a real trooper"

none outwardly funny lines... but I howled at each. the context the movie provided... you just dont see that in comedies today.

now, its more about trying to cram as many yucks as possible into 90 minutes so every adhd teen in America can repeat it like a parrot.

[China]

Never liked that movie, didn't like John Candy, and Steve Martin rarely makes me laugh.

Same here.

[sideshow24]

Never liked that movie, didn't like John Candy, and Steve Martin rarely makes me laugh.

I don't like Steve Martin and don't really have an opinion on John Candy but this movie is one of my favorite comedies. So many good lines and laughs. Martin's uptight frustration is great and Candy was perfect to play his role.

[Ghost of]

this movie is deserving of its praise. an all time great film. loved that write up from Ebert!

now, its more about trying to cram as many yucks as possible into 90 minutes so every adhd teen in America can repeat it like a parrot.

Gus Mooney's son (the hick who picks them up to go to Stubbville) is the fairly well-employed character actor who also plays Spider-Man's professor in SM 2 and 3, among a ton of other things he's done.

And yes, comedies now are about getting people to say "McLovin!" or some other line repeatedly but not as strong (though they have moments) on growth and learned lessons. Interestingly, PTA is a great movie that has only occasional need for profanity (the great car rental counter moment, especially) but films ostensibly oriented to younger folks are more profane and base than great comedies like PTA.

And yes, Rocky21 indeed it is a "freakish" love for the movie, if by freakish you mean having a strong opinion of how good it is and the value beyond the laughter it provokes.

[artmonkforHOF]

John Candy was taken way too young (mostly by his own behavior, I suppose) but this scene is an example of how this film goes from hilarious to poignant in a moment, and naturally! (BTW, he was also wonderful on SCTV, which still remains the finest and most intelligent sketch comedy show ever aired on TV.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q05p-5TWcj8

And the legendary ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIMN16BdMGk&feature=PlayList&p=506AC69C1CE3E9DC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=38

wow, love for John Candy and you have seen SCTV. If you play hockey and spell color with a "u", you might be a closet Canadian.

While John was good in this movie, his best IMO is Uncle Buck. I defy anyone to watch that movie and not laugh. If the McCauley Culkin(sic) & John Candy interrogation scene did not make you laugh, then the meeting with the school principal will (which Canadian Mike Meyer's ripped off for Austin Powers "mole" scene.)

"Here's a quarter. How about you go downtown and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face"

[Dan T.]

wow, love for John Candy and you have seen SCTV. If you play hockey and spell color with a "u", you might be a closet Canadian.

While John was good in this movie, his best IMO is Uncle Buck. I defy anyone to watch that movie and not laugh. If the McCauley Culkin(sic) & John Candy interrogation scene did not make you laugh, then the meeting with the school principal will (which Canadian Mike Meyer's ripped off for Austin Powers "mole" scene.)

"Here's a quarter. How about you go downtown and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face"

PTA was really good, and I do agree with you on Uncle Buck. You mentioned two of the funniest scenes in moviedom.

As to SCTV I still laugh thinking about the Schmenge Brothers, the Sammy Maudlin Show with guests Bobby Bitman and Lola Heatherton, Edith Prickley, Count Floyd, Mel's Rock Pile, etc. etc. etc.

[Pedro De Pacas]

wow, love for John Candy and you have seen SCTV. If you play hockey and spell color with a "u", you might be a closet Canadian.

While John was good in this movie, his best IMO is Uncle Buck. I defy anyone to watch that movie and not laugh. If the McCauley Culkin(sic) & John Candy interrogation scene did not make you laugh, then the meeting with the school principal will (which Canadian Mike Meyer's ripped off for Austin Powers "mole" scene.)

"Here's a quarter. How about you go downtown and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face"

PTA is a classic buddy comedy but IMO Candy's best is and will always be The Great Outdoors. Some of the gags may be cheap but every time I watch it I can't stop laughing. He also has really great chemistry with Dan Akroyd.

[mjah]

I feel bad admitting this, but I didn't really like much else that John Candy ever did. Other movies had their moments, but often it seemed that he was playing someone who wasn't himself.

Never could get into SCTV. Maybe I was too young.

[Ghost of]

I feel bad admitting this, but I didn't really like much else that John Candy ever did. Other movies had their moments, but often it seemed that he was playing someone who wasn't himself.

Never could get into SCTV. Maybe I was too young.

I liked a few things John did. Some of his films were, let's be honest, silly and stupid. I guess he wanted to work consistently and you never know when one bad film will still showcase your considerable talents. I think he died before he had a chance to branch out into more dramatic work.

SCTV is something I was into, so you're not too young.

But excellent post earlier about the movie, big ups to you for that.

[Dan T.]

Uncle Buck Meets His Niece's Principal

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Uncle Buck Undergoes Interrogation from McCauley Culkin

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[Cdowwe]

Absolutely love this movie.. every Wed before Thanksgiving I watch it. Favorite scene is when the hillbilly and his wife come and pick them up in the truck.

[MikeSellers45]

This movie is great. I watch it every year before thanksgiving.