Back in the 80’s, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor emerged as a perfect comedy duo. They worked on four films over a decade but my personal favourite is Stir Crazy, released in 1981 and directed by Sidney Poitier.

Here I will share some of my favourite scenes from Stir Crazy and you can appreciate the amazing chemistry between these two legends.

At the start of the movie, Harry and Skip both get fired from their jobs in hilarious circumstances. Skip accuses a customer of stealing a dress and Harry’s marijuana supply gets mixed up with oregano and all the dinner guests get completely stoned.

In this scene, Skip tries to be a mediator between a taxi driver, Chico and his customer Alex. Little does Skip know, that Chico has the upper hand.

The Wilder/Pryor Relationship

Gene Wilder’s character is often the same in the Wilder/Pryor duo movies. Gene is often this wildly optimistic and naive character that always thinks the best of people and this is often what leads to comical situations. Richard Pryor’s character is also consistent when paired with Wilder. He is street smart, at least compared to Wilder and Pryor’s reactions to Wilder, often mirror how the audience is feeling. This is quite a satisfying set-up as the audience becomes more connected to the characters as Pryor confirms to the audience the emotional reality of what is happening.

After being fired, Harry and Skip excitedly decide to leave town and move to the warmer climate of southern California. When they arrive, they start working in a bank as a pair singing birds as part of a promotional campaign. But during their lunch break a pair of criminals steal their costumes and rob the bank. When the pair come back from lunch they get arrested and thrown into jail. Seeing Harry and Skip, a pair of average guys, lacking in street smarts struggle in a prison environment is comedy gold. In this scene they pretend to be ‘bad’ as a way of protecting themselves, but instead, it gets them into an even worse predicament.

There are some really amazing performances in this scene, especially from the guy who gets slapped on the head, played by Tony Burton. The look of rage that emanates from him makes this super funny. And then after hitting The big guy, played by Cedric Hardman, he puts another cigarette in his mouth whilst trembling.

Harry and Skip are just terrified at this point. Then Harry strikes a match on the big guys chest… Priceless.

After this first encounter, they are then transferred to the state prison where they will spend their 125-year sentence. Their situation finally hits them and they both have overly dramatic mental breakdowns.

It’s their first day of manual labour in the prison but they are determined not to show that its breaking them down, so Skip starts doing some Chinese Tai Chi? Not sure but its pretty funny to watch.

All of the inmates are interviewed by the warden Barry Corbin. The warden who has had a feud with another local prison warden, is looking for new talent to help beat him in the next annual Rodeo competition. Then Skip enters. They make him ‘ride the bull’, and he kills it! By that, I mean he manages to stay on the mechanical bull at the highest speed without falling off!

The warden tries to make Skip agree to participate in the rodeo but Skip is playing hard to get. The warden tries to break Skip down by making life as uncomfortable as possible. The warden sends a new inmate in to share the cell called Grossberger played by Erland Van Lidth, a hugely overweight mass murderer. Let’s see if this will break them!

I’ve watched this movie over and over as a kid, and it still makes me laugh. If you haven’t watched this movie, I strongly recommend you check it out.

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