With the passing of John Hughes earlier this year, the era of American comedy that he started truly came to an end. The man who inspired a generation of youngsters with Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club amongst others, and their parents with a handful of other comedies, had gone away gracefully but his impact on American comedy was significant. With his death, one of America’s great comedic filmmakers was lost. But his legacy remains, including one of the handful of comedies that could rightfully be considered representative of the American contribution to cinematic comedy: Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Del (John Candy) and Neal (Steve Martin) are taking a flight home to Chicago that should take a couple hours. Stuck next to each other, their lives go from one misadventure to the next as the two men form an unlikely friendship based on their mutual misery that gets tested early and often. And creatively, it might’ve been the peak for all three principles involved.
The main revelation back then, and has since been verified, is that both Steve Martin and John Candy are credible dramatic actors and not just comedians. While Candy never got a chance to really show off what he could do, as he passed away in his prime, Martin has since had a bevy of dramatic performances to bolster the sort of acting bonafides he shows here. It takes a lot of skill to take a screwball comedy and give it a significant amount of dramatic heft and the two do so wonderfully.
Don’t kid yourself, as this is a comedy, but both don’t just bring their comedy skills to the occasion. This is a film about a friendship that develops under duress and requires a significant amount of chemistry, which the two have in spades. Martin and Candy are two names one mentions amongst the best comic actors of their generation and the give and take between the two is something to see; both are going for performance and not to upstage one another, making the film better.
It doesn’t hurt that they have John Hughes, who wrote and directed the film, behind the camera. Hughes, who passed away earlier in 2009, may have been known for the weight of his teen comedies but it was always in the adults where he brought the most to the table. In his teen comedies there were always large sledgehammer motifs about friendship and angst, but it is in his adult comedies where he found the easier bounds that bind people. In Planes, Trains and Automobiles he ruminates on the nature of friendship and finds that it’s the commonality of experience that binds us in the end.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles holds up all these years later because of the story being so good that the comedy is a nice throw in. It’s a definite must own.
Presented in a Dolby digital surround with a widescreen presentation, the film has been cleaned up from its initial release onto DVD. The sound is a little crisper and the video a bit sharper, but it isn’t a noticeable step up from the initial release on DVD (back in 2000).
Getting there is half the fun: The story of Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a retrospective piece that combines archival footage from the film’s original release period and current footage as well. Running around 17 minutes, this is a generic EPK piece.
John Hughes for Adults is an EPK piece looking back at Hughes and his “adult” films.
A Tribute to John Candy is a look back at Candy and his career, as Planes, Trains and Automobiles marked the highlight of his career in terms of performance.
There’s a Deleted Scene entitled “Airplane Food” originally excised from the film. It’s Candy relaying a rather disgusting anecdote about airplane food to Martin.
Previews for various Paramount properties are included.
There isn’t much to the DVD in terms of extras, but if you haven’t picked this up yet then it’s a recommended purchase.
Paramount Pictures presents Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Those Aren’t Pillows Edition. Directed by John Hughes. Starring Steve Martin, John Candy. Written by John Hughes. Running time: 84 minutes. Rated R. Released on DVD: October 20, 2009. Available at Amazon.
