| See No Evil, Hear No Evil | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Arthur Hiller |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by |
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| Produced by | Marvin Worth |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Victor J. Kemper |
| Edited by | Robert C. Jones |
| Music by | Stewart Copeland |
| Distributed by | Tri-Star Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18 million |
| Box office | $46.9 million |
See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a 1989 Americancrimecomedy film directed byArthur Hiller. The film starsGene Wilder as a deaf man andRichard Pryor as a blind 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 filmSilver Streak and the 1980 filmStir Crazy. The film was released in the United States on May 12, 1989.
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'sAnother You, was a box office failure as well as a critical one, and it proved to be the last collaboration of Wilder and Pryor.
David "Dave" Lyons, adeaf man, and Wallace "Wally" Karew, ablind man, meet when Wally applies for a job in Dave'sNYC 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 bookmaker who Wally owes money to walks into Dave's shop with a suitcase. When the man is approached by a woman named Eve, he quickly hides a gold coin from his suitcase in a coin dish. Eve takes the suitcase and shoots the man as Dave – whose back is turned – reads the information on a box ofantacid 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.
Dave and Wally escape from the police station but the criminals soon find them. Eve takes the coin from Wally and calls her boss Mr. Sutherland for instructions, while 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 call Wally's sister Adele for help. The police follow her and search her motel room, but the three avoid detection and get away. The trio then head for a resort mentioned in Eve's call to her boss.
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. Dave makes Eve believe he is armed, allowing him 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.
Arriving at the Sutherland estate, Dave and Wally put their rescue plan into action. They succeed in freeing Adele, but end up captured themselves. 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 asuperconductor. 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 reaffirm their friendship at a local park.
Joseph Bologna andRenée Taylor wrote the first screenplay of the film and sold it toColumbia Pictures for $200,000 in 1984. They later sued the studio in theLos 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. OriginallyJim Belushi was to be cast as the deaf man before Wilder was hired. Principal photography began on August 29, 1988, inNew York andNew Jersey, withNew York City,Pound Ridge, and theHackensack River marshlands serving as locations.[2]
TriStar Pictures was looking to produce another film starring Wilder and Pryor, but Wilder would only agree to doSee No Evil, Hear No Evil if he was allowed to re-write the script. The studio agreed andSee No Evil, Hear No Evil premiered in May 1989 to mostly negative reviews. Many critics praised Wilder's, Pryor's, andKevin Spacey's performances, but they mostly agreed that the script was absolutely terrible.Roger Ebert called it "a real dud",[3] theDeseret Morning News described the film as "stupid", with an "idiotic" script that had a "contrived" story and "too many juvenile gags".[4] 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."[5]
The film holds a 29% rating onRotten Tomatoes from 31 critics with the consensus: "A film whose title offers words to live by as well as a warning,See No Evil, Hear No Evil proves that even a brilliant comedy duo can team up for an unfunny dud." Despite the negative reviews, the film was a box office success, able to stay at number one for two weeks.[6]
