Movie Review: ***^The Frisco Kid (1979)

In the Frisco Kid Gene Wilder portrays a Jewish Rabbi from Poland, who is being sent to become the Rabbi in San Francisco.  Of course San Francisco is next to New York.  It is 1850, and the journey presents quite a challenge.  First he is robbed, then he travels by train after earning some money working on the railroad.  However he has to get off to not travel on the Sabbath.  In the mean time, he meets u with a train/bank robber played by Harrison Ford.  Ford is always saving him, but in the end they become friends.  A couple things don't work in this movie.  One is having a white guy play the chief.  The other is the interaction between Wilder and a raccoon.  They should have made more of this, or cut it entirely.  The way it was it was lame.  Ford is his grouchy, angry self which marks some of his later characters.  (The first Star Wars predates this film.)  Add a gang of three men who are after them and this show has the makings of a good western.