Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Difference between revisions

Uptight advertising executive Neal Page just wants to get home to Chicago for [[Useful Notes/Thanksgiving Day|Thanksgiving Day]]. Unfortunately, every mode of transportation somehow fails him and he is stuck with Del Griffith, a traveling shower curtain ring salesman who won't shut up. Through delayed planes, broken down trains and burned out automobiles Neal and Del go from at each other's throats to friends.

 

{{quote| "''The other great comic set piece in the movie is responsible for its R rating; nothing else in the movie would qualify for other than PG-13. This is Neal's verbal symphony for the f-word, performed by the desperate man after a rental-car bus strands him three miles from the terminal without a car. He has to walk back through the snow and mud, crossing runways, falling down embankments, until he finally faces a chirpy rental agent (Edie McClurg) who is chatting on the phone about the need for tiny marshmallows in the ambrosia. When she sweetly asks Neal if he is disturbed, he unleashes a speech in which the adjectival form of the f-word supplies the prelude to every noun, including itself, and is additionally used as punctuation. When he finishes, the clerk has a two-word answer that supplies one of the great moments in movie dialogue.''"}}

 

This film featured John Candy and Steve Martin in one of the best comedy performances of the 1980s. The film was directed by [[John Hughes]], best known for teen angst films until that time.

 

* [[Actor Allusion]]: In the airport terminal, Del is reading a book called "Canadian Mounted". John Candy is Canadian.

* [[Amoral Attorney]]: The lawyer at the start.

* [[Brick Joke]]: Three of them -- two with short air times, and one that had been hanging for about an hour -- come together to great effect: {{spoiler|A hotel clerk swaps their credit cards, Neal puts his wallet in a rental car's glove compartment asking Del to remind him to remove it, and Del flicks a cigarette out the window only for it to bounce back in unnoticed. Del reveals he had the credit card and returned it to Neal's wallet -- just as the car catches fire incinerating the wallet.}}

* [[California Doubling]]: Averted. The film was shot on location in New York, Wichita, St. Louis and Chicago.

* [[Car Meets House|Car Meets Hotel]]: They back their burned out car into the motel room wall, then quickly flee.

* [[Celebrity Paradox]]: Averted, sort of: At the beginning of the film, Kevin Bacon has a [[Cameo]] as another commuter who races Neal for a NYC taxicab. Later, there's a scene where Neal's wife is watching television; while you can't see the screen, the audio is of Kevin Bacon in a scene from another John Hughes film, ''She's Having a Baby''.

* [[Follow the Leader]]: ''[[Due Date]]'', depressingly.

** Same with ''Dutch,'' another movie about a pair of dissimilar people from different class backgrounds struggling to get home to Chicago for [[Thanskgiving Episode|Thanksgiving]]... And ''also'' written by John Hughes.

* [[If I Wanted XI Would Y]]

* [[It Got Worse]]: After Neal misses his cab at the start everything goes downhill.

* [[Karma Houdini]]: The thief who steals Neal and Del's cash never appears again.

* [[Nice Hat]]: Neil, until he goes ballistic over his rental car not being there. Del has one, too.

* [[Psycho Strings]]: "Hey, Neal, take my socks out of the sink if you're going to brush your teeth."

* [[Odd Couple]]

** And Kevin Bacon.

** And Michael McKean.

*** In fact almost the entire cast could count as this as only [[Steve Martin]] and [[John Candy]] are in more than at most three scenes.

* [[Road Movie]]

* [[A Simple Plan]]: For God's sake, Neal just wants to get home for Thanksgiving.