PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

US, 1987, 88 minutes, Colour.
Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robbins, Michael Mc Kean, Dylan Baker, Kevin Bacon, Olivia Burnette.
Directed by John Hughes.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles might seem to be a change of pace for writer director John Hughes, after his focus on teenagers and their problems: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. However, Hughes had written the screenplay for some National Lampoon Vacation films as well as Mr. Mom. He is an expert at the comedy of mistakes.

The film is a good vehicle for Steve Martin, more restrained than in his earlier comedies. He plays the uptight advertising executive wanting, to get to Chicago. John Candy, in an excellent performance, is his fellow traveller: friendly but loudmouthed, kindly but insensitive.

The film, like Clockwise with John Cleese and Neil Simon's The Out of Towners, illustrates the comic potential for the frustrations in travelling. The film is farcical, there are visual and verbal gags ? most of which work quite well.

1. An entertaining comedy? Comedy of frustrations and travel? The work of the stars? Writer director, John Hughes?

2. The film as farce, situations, gags, visual jokes, verbal humour? More depth with relationships and characters?

3. The background of New York and its crowded streets, Chicago and its homes, airport? The airport at Wichita and the motel? The wintry roads? Jefferson City and St. Louis? Planes, trains, buses and automobiles? The American countryside? The musical score? Songs? The final credits song by the two stars?

4. The humour of the title and its moving across the screen so rapidly? The focus on travel, audiences identifying with the characters and their situations, disasters? Stress, interactions with people? Time deadlines? The range of vehicles and their styles?

5. The introduction to Neal Page: the meeting (and the joke of the Chairman still looking at the advertisements after the final credits)? Anxiety, leaving his gloves, no taxis, racing the man on the other side of the street (guest role by Kevin Bacon)? The queues at the airport, the bus trip, Del stealing his taxi, his falling over the luggage? The plane delayed? Meeting Del in the airport lounge?

6. The introduction to Del: the taxi, his looking out in puzzlement at Neal, his big trunk, airport lounge, the joke in the title of his novel? His knowing that he knew Neal? His offering compensation, Neal refusing?

7. The contrasting characters: the uptight executive, cleanliness and orderliness, rights, silences? His phoning his wife? Contrasting with the loud traveller, the shower rings, the stories of his wife, dirty clothes, smells? Del and his wanting to be friendly, his lament about his big mouth?

8. The squabble about the seating in the plane, next to Del, talking and silence, taking off his socks, sleeping, going to Wichita, the phones and the cancellation of the flight, motels, the daredevil taxi ride round Wichita, the Braidwood Inn, sharing the room, the tension and the joke about the shower, the beer on the floor, mopping up everything with the towels, Neal's shower and the towels, Del clearing his sinuses? The build-up to Neal telling Del off? Del's reaction in being hurt and saying he was an easy target? The uneasy truce? The joke about the waking up, the two in bed, their immediately leaping out and talking macho talk? The robbery during the night? Their discovering that they were robbed after the accusations? The stage of the relationship?

9. The truck, the tough Kansas man ordering his wife around, on the back of the truck, the dog and the ice? Neal and the accusations of stealing? The meal? The train and the separation? The stop, Neal's decision to help Del with his case?

10. The train breakdown, the bus, singing in the bus, Neal wanting 'Three Coins in the Fountain' and everything singing `The Flintstones? The hiring of the car, the airport trek, discovering the car was missing, walking back to the headquarters, falling in the snow and ice, his meeting the woman behind the desk with her smiles, his swearing at her? Being punched by the taxi driver? Del arriving with the car? Their driving, the seat and Del experimenting and then breaking it? Going the wrong way and the danger with the two semitrailers? The credit card being burnt? The car burning because of the cigarette? Sitting on the road, fighting, laughing?

1L. Going to the motel in the burnt-out car, the snow and ice, Del in the snow, Neal relenting, drinking together and talking? Re-assessing the journey, what it had meant to them, the friendship? Crashing the window of the motel as they left, the police picking them up, the police station? Eventually getting to Chicago, on the station, farewells? The breaking down of each other's reserve? Friendship? Neal's relenting, Del's being more sensitive?

12. The background of the family sequences, the wife waiting, the phone calls, missing out on the pageant (and Del saying those moments were not repeated)? Neal imagining himself going home and welcomed? His going back to the station? Discovering Del there? The truth about his wife being dead? Taking him home?

13. A portrait of two men and their values, fighting? changing, bonds, allowances, friendship? The resilience of human nature?

14. The film working at humorous levels and at deeper levels?