Silver Streak

Silver Streak. 1976 20th Century Fox.
Starring: Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor, Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty
Director: Arthur Hiller
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No, that's not a Canadian Pacific train. Not at all. Wherever did you get that idea?

A book editor named George Caldwell (Wilder) who is terrified to fly, instead travels from Los Angeles to Chicago on AMRoad's "Silver Streak" train, claiming that he's using the time to "get a lot of reading done", and that he "just wants to be bored". He meets and becomes romantically involved with Hilly Burns (Clayburgh) enroute.

Hilly's boss Professor Schreiner (Stefan Gierasch), an art historian, is murdered onboard. George is thrown off the train, and to top that off, he's also accused of the murder of undercover FBI agent Bob Sweet (Beatty), who earlier tried to flirt with Hilly, but failed. Sweet was following an art dealer named Roger Devereaux (McGoohan), who had killed Schreiner to get his hands on paperwork proving that some of the artwork sold by Devereaux were forgeries. He also planned to replace the deceased professor with a double, discrediting a book written by him that would've destroyed Devereaux's reputation.

The plan involved killing George and Hilly, the only witnesses. George enlists Grover Muldoon (Pryor) to help out.

Funny film. Recommended.