See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Dave, a deaf man who runs a newsstand in New York, meets Wally, a blind man who comes in looking for work. They soon witness a murder: one does not hear what he sees, the other does not see what he hears. Both become suspects. Arthur Hiller directed. Gene Wilder plays the deaf Dave and Richard Pryor plays the blind Wally. It was their third film together, after Silver Streak in 1976 and Stir Crazy in 1980. Behind the killing is a valuable superconductor hidden inside a gold coin. It opened on 12 May 1989. The reviews were mostly negative: Roger Ebert called it a real dud and others found the script stupid. Vincent Canby, by contrast, called it by far the most successful co-starring vehicle for the pair. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 29 percent. The box office was strong anyway: it topped the chart for two weeks and took 46.9 million dollars against an 18 million budget. It was the last commercially successful pairing for the two; Another You in 1991 failed with critics and audiences alike. Who it is for: viewers who like eighties double-act comedy and the chemistry between Wilder and Pryor. Who it is not for: anyone uncomfortable with humour built on disability. The entire structure rests on these two conditions and it plays much harder now.