See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

My Review

The third pairing of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder was in the comedy-thriller “See No Evil, Hear No Evil.” It tells the story of a blind man (Pryor) and a deaf man (Wilder) teaming up to foil the activities of a group of murderous thieves. Director Arthur Hiller (“Outrageous Fortune” 1987) and the group of five screenwriters (Earl Barrett, Arne Sultan, Eliot Wald, Andrew Kurtzman, Gene Wilder) failed to provide the comedy duo with good material to work with. So the film failed to live up to its potential as fun entertainment and comes across as stupid nonsense.

The supporting cast includes Kevin Spacey, Anthony Zerbe, Joan Severance, Alan North, Louis Giambalvo, Kirsten Childs, John Capodice, and George Bartenieff. Apparently “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” was a crowd pleaser anyway, as it earned about $70 million dollars at the box office (against a budget of $18 million) for TriStar Pictures.

One redeeming feature of “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” was the excellent musical score by Stewart Copeland. It was filmed in New York City and across the river in New Jersey. Other Pryor-Wilder collaborations include “Silver Streak” (1976), “Stir Crazy” (1981), and “Another You” (1991).