This is the first meeting of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in a movie. This is a combination that works. to Wilder portrays George, a book editor who is trying to have a relaxing time by taking the train. He decides to make an advance to the woman, Hilly (portrayed by Jill Clayburgh) who is in the room next to his, and while they are starting to make advances, he sees Hilly's boss, fall off the roof of the train, murdered. He tries to allay his doubts, maybe he was seeing things, and ends up getting thrown of the train himself. George getting thrown off the train is a humorous bit of the movie. The first time, a rural resident gives him a flight in her plane to Albuquerque where he catches the train again. He tells his girlfriend what has happened. However, her boss shows up. He is now very confused. The bad guy, Devereau says it was a misunderstanding that he was thrown off the train. He meets the salesman, Sweet (Ned Beatty) he had befriended, but turns out he is FBI. He discovers the issue is evidence that Hilly's boss has discovered exposing Devereau as a fraudulent art dealer. Sweet finds evidence of the murder, and the discover the papers implicating Devereau. (Why is that name always a villain?) This time when he falls off the train, he killed one of the bad guys. When he gets to the sheriff's office, he tells his story, and ends up a wanted man. He escapes with Grover (Richard Pryor) who admits he is a thief. They take off together. They make it back to the train station, where there is a police stakeout. One of the funny things of the movie is George pretending to be black, as they cover his face with black shoe polish.
The FBI gets involved, and they get their man, but he has set the train on automatic, with no way of stopping it. I saw this on AMC, which blotted out some of the language. I cannot tell if the language would have been palatable to me, but the version I saw was acceptable and entertaining.
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