See No Evil, Hear No Evil (film)

Not to be confused with Hear No Evil (1982 film).

See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a 1989 American thriller-comedy film directed by Arthur Hiller. The film stars Richard Pryor as a blind man and Gene Wilder as a deaf man who work together to thwart a trio of murderous thieves. This is the third film (in a series of four) featuring Wilder and Pryor, who had appeared previously in the 1976 film Silver Streak and the 1980 film Stir Crazy. The film was released in the United States on May 12, 1989.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Arthur Hiller
Screenplay by	Earl Barret Arne Sultan Eliot Wald Andrew Kurtzman Gene Wilder
Story by	Earl Barret Arne Sultan Marvin Worth
Produced by	Marvin Worth
Starring	Richard Pryor Gene Wilder Joan Severance Anthony Zerbe
Cinematography	Victor J. Kemper
Edited by	Robert C. Jones
Music by	Stewart Copeland
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	May 12, 1989 (1989-05-12)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$18 million
Box office	$46.9 million

Released to a mixed to negative critical reception, See No Evil... was the comic duo's last financially successful film as a screen couple. Their next film together, 1991's Another You, was a box office failure as well as a critical one, and it proved to be the last collaboration of Pryor and Wilder.

Plot

Wallace "Wally" Karew, a blind man, and David "Dave" Lyons, a deaf man, meet when Wally applies for a job in Dave's NYC concession shop. After a brief period of confusion and antagonism, Wally and Dave become close friends. Dave reads lips and guides Wally when they travel, and Wally tells Dave about invisible sources of sound and what people say behind his back. At a local bar, Wally defeats an aggressive bully in a fistfight with assistance from Dave, who uses clock-face directions to tell Wally where his opponent is. Dave gives him a job at his shop.

One morning, as Wally waits outside for the day's newspapers, a man with a suitcase walks into Dave's shop. When the man is approached by a beautiful woman named Eve (Joan Severance), he quickly hides a gold coin from his suitcase in the coin dish used for paying for newspapers. The woman takes the suitcase and shoots the man as Dave – whose back is turned – reads the information on a box of antacid pills.

Dave does not see the shooting, but notices Eve's legs as she leaves. Wally, who heard the gunshot, walks into the shop and trips over the dead body. Dave then rushes to help Wally and picks up the gun which Eve left behind. The police find them over the body, with Dave holding the gun. As they are arrested, Wally picks up the day's collections from the coin dish and stashes them in his pocket.

At the police station, Dave and Wally are interrogated by Detective Captain Emile Braddock and Lieutenant Gatlin, who make them the prime suspects as they are unconvincing as witnesses. When Eve and her accomplice Kirgo – hoping to recover the coin – pose as attorneys to bail them out, Wally recognizes Eve's perfume and Dave her legs, but Braddock ignores them when they insist that she is the killer.

Trying to avoid Eve and Kirgo, Dave and Wally escape from the police station, but the criminals soon find them. Eve takes the coin from Wally's pocket and telephones her boss Mr. Sutherland for instructions, so Dave learns their plans by reading her lips. When Kirgo tries to kill them, they use the fighting method they learned in the bar to knock him unconscious.

They then steal an unattended police car, and Eve, Kirgo and Braddock chase them. Working together to guide the patrol car, Dave and Wally evade their pursuers, but they accidentally launch the car onto a waterborne garbage barge.

After hiding the police car, they telephone Wally's sister Adele for help. The police follow her and search her motel room, but the three avoid detection and get away. Having incorrectly read Eve's lips, Dave believes they need to find a woman named "Grace George", but Adele explains there is a resort named "Great Gorge".

At the resort Wally impersonates a visiting professor. Meanwhile, Dave sneaks into Eve's room to steal the coin. While he is digging through her bag Eve comes out of the shower wearing only a towel. Dave makes Eve believe he is armed. This allows Dave to slip out of the room with the coin. Meanwhile, Adele distracts Kirgo by crashing her car into his. However, Kirgo and Eve realize the ruse and kidnap her and take her to Sutherland's estate.

After a mishap with the car, Dave and Wally put their rescue plan into action, with the result that Adele escapes but they are captured. In his study, Sutherland – who is also blind – reveals that the coin is merely an outer disguise for a sample of an extremely valuable material called a superconductor. Kirgo and Sutherland are killed during an argument over sharing the profits, after which Dave and Wally escape the study and have a fight with Eve and a helicopter pilot to prevent Eve's escape.

When the police arrive, the remaining criminals are arrested, and Wally and Dave are released and cleared of the charges. Shortly thereafter, the two men go to a local park and reprise a scene from the beginning of the film by playfully dumping ice cream cones on each other's head.

Cast

• Richard Pryor as Wallace "Wally" Karew
• Gene Wilder as David "Dave" Lyons
• Joan Severance as Eve
• Kevin Spacey as Kirgo
• Alan North as Captain Emile Braddock
• Anthony Zerbe as Sutherland
• Louis Giambalvo as Lieutenant Gatlin
• Kirsten Childs as Adele Karew
• John Capodice as Scotto
• George Bartenieff as Huddelston

Production

Joseph Bologna and Renée Taylor wrote the first screenplay of the film and sold it to Columbia Pictures for $200,000 in 1984. They later sued the studio in the Los Angeles County Superior Court for $10 million in damages after being denied the promised additional $500,000 to be paid if Pryor were cast in the film, $25,000 per revision, and five-percent profit. Originally Jim Belushi was to be cast as the deaf man before Wilder was hired. Principal photography began on August 29, 1988, in New York and New Jersey, with New York City, Pound Ridge, and the Hackensack River marshlands serving as locations.

Reception

Critical response

TriStar Pictures was looking to produce another film starring Wilder and Pryor, but Wilder would only agree to do See No Evil, Hear No Evil if he was allowed to re-write the script. The studio agreed and See No Evil, Hear No Evil premiered in May 1989 to mostly negative reviews. Many critics praised Wilder's, Pryor's, and Kevin Spacey's performances, but they mostly agreed that the script was absolutely terrible. Roger Ebert called it "a real dud", the Deseret Morning News described the film as "stupid", with an "idiotic" script that had a "contrived" story and "too many juvenile gags". On the other hand, Vincent Canby called it "by far the most successful co-starring vehicle for Mr. Pryor and Mr. Wilder", while also acknowledging that "this is not elegant movie making, and not all of the gags are equally clever."

The film holds a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 30 critics. Despite the negative reviews, the film was a box office success, able to stay at number one for two weeks.

See also

• Gene Wilder filmography
• Kevin Spacey filmography
• List of films featuring the deaf and hard of hearing
• Richard Pryor filmography

External links

• See No Evil, Hear No Evil at IMDb
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil at Rotten Tomatoes
• See No Evil, Hear No Evil at Box Office Mojo