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"Thats right,thats right we baaaad.....". That line was probably the most famous that Richard Pryor ever uttered on screen. He and Gene Wilder made a great "buddy" team just like Newman and Redford...only they are a helluva lot funnier! This was one film that critics hated but audiences loved. Wilder's "nice guy" is a perfect match for Pryor's wisecracking. This film has a fine supporting cast as well, George Stanford Brown (although his portrayal of a gay inmate may not seem "politically correct" today, he is hilariously "swishy" though!) Jobeth Williams, Barry Corbin (as the corrupt warden)and Craig T. Nelson (before he became a "Coach"). Sidney Poitier does a wonderful job of directing these two comedy legends I might add. The prison escape in the end kept me on the edge of my seat. I liked Skip and Harry so much that I was just rooting for them all the way! Pryor was burned shortly after this film was completed.

Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were a great comedy duo. Not all their few collaborations were great, but 'Silver Streak' and 'Stir Crazy' very much were very good, particularly the former. One thing that 'Stir Crazy' improves on than 'Silver Streak' is that Wilder and Pryor get equal screen time and work stronger as a double act.

'Stir Crazy's' second half isn't as good as the first half, a case of the first half being great but the second half having moments but not living up to the promise seen before. The elaborate escape scene stands out well, but generally the second half does suffer from a lack of laughs, which the first half had aplenty, the momentum isn't as snappy and the more serious tone jars a little.

That's pretty much it for the flaws though. 'Stir Crazy' is one of their more visually beautiful films, the setting is great and like a character of its own and there is some truly beautiful and clever photography at the start and in the first half.

Much of the script is hilarious and clever, and avoids being noisy or immature. Pryor's chicken scene is unforgettable, and there is some clever lampooning of prison clichés. The story is slightly contrived at times in the second half but very rarely gets tedious. Sidney Poitier is a surprising choice for director but does a very capable job.

Wilder is both funny and endearing and avoids mugging too much or clowning around. Pryor with more screen time than 'Silver Streak' equal to that of Wilder, works incredibly well with Wilder and while he is the less understated of the two he's not abrasive or annoying.

Overall, uneven but very enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

"Stir Crazy" once again brings together the comedic talents of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Here, they play Skip and Harry, two hapless slackers in New York who decide to go west to find their fortunes. On the way, they stop in Arizona, and get framed for a bank robbery. This lands them behind bars. This movie is loaded with screwball comedy, and it shows Gene Wilder at his most manic. His methods at pretending to be insane and keeping his spirit from being broken will elicit the big laughs. It all climaxes with a prison rodeo, and an elaborate breakout scheme. "Stir Crazy" is a comedy classic, and reminds us all of the comedy team of Pryor and Wilder.

After their rendezvous in Silver Streak, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder team up again. I heard Richard Pryor mentioning this movie in a stand-up routine. He didn't mention it by name because they'd just finished filming. He talked about doing a movie in an Arizona prison and how there were guys in there with triple life. Meaning, if they died and came back they'd still be in prison. LOL!

Harry Monroe (Richard Pryor) and Skip Donahue (Gene Wilder) are two friends who've been fired from their respective small-time jobs in New York. Skip is a playwright and Harry is an actor. They decided that their firings were signs, so they packed up and headed west to make their big break. Their big break came in Arizona-as in their van breaking down. Then, through some criminal deceit and judicial ineptness the two of them end up in prison with 125 year sentences.

This movie, as far as comedy, was better than Silver Streak. Pryor and Wilder both were in fine form. Not only that, prison just seems to make for such funny scenarios. I thoroughly enjoyed Stir Crazy.

Skip Donahue (Gene Wilder) and Harry Monroe (Richard Pryor) are best friends living in New York City. Donahue is an amateur playwright, working a day job in department store security. Monroe is working as a catering assistant. When Donahue is canned for harassing a starlet and Monroe is fired because his marijuana ends up in the food at a society dinner on the same day, Donahue takes it as the perfect opportunity to finally leave the cold, unfriendly metropolis and head out West. Unfortunately, neither is very well adapted to life outside of New York, and they end up framed for a crime.

I hadn't seen Stir Crazy since at least the early 1980s. Recently I had a chance to rewatch Gene Wilder's The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975), which I hadn't seen since the 1970s, and I was a bit disappointed. So I was nervous that Stir Crazy might also be a let down this far removed in time. That couldn't have been more wrong. I may have even thought it was funnier and more exciting this time around than when I first watched the film as a teen.

I had forgotten that Stir Crazy isn't just a comedy. It's also fairly suspenseful and surprisingly serious at times in the last act. Director Sidney Poitier makes a smooth transition through many genres--buddy film, road movie, fish out of water story and prison film, aided of course by Wilder and Pryor. While both actors have had plenty of performances just as good as Stir Crazy, neither have had any that were better.

In a way, this is really more Wilder's film than Pryor's. That's no slight on Pryor; Wilder just ends up getting more screen time. He presents a hilariously bizarre, complex character who is full of contradictions--kind of a channeling of a less loquacious Woody Allen through a more down to earth version of his Willy Wonka (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, 1971). Wilder's Skip Donahue has an air of Mister Rogers-styled good-natured innocence, with the same kind of odd and maybe creepy homoerotic overtones, but he'll also turn on a dime into a neurotic, screaming loon. As I said, it's all very complex, but extremely funny and enjoyable to watch.

Pryor's Harry Monroe is more of a streetwise perpetual victim who doesn't adjust to the social world of the criminal justice system as well as Donahue does. He has a much more typical reaction, with no misconceptions about their dire circumstances.

The crux of the humor in the first section of the film is the naivety of Donahue's "grass is always greener on the other side" conception of the Western U.S. compared to New York City. Of course, things turn out to be not quite so simple, but it's funny and charming that Poitier and writer Bruce Jay Friedman have Donahue never quite wake up from his naïve misconception. It also turns out to have much more weight than just a comic device: Donahue survives in prison as well as he does, and it brings about the profound changes of character--Donahue becomes much more authentic, realizes his potential, gains material for his art and even gets the girl--because of his continued misprision (in the Bloom sense) about life outside of New York City, and in the end, it enables a "return to the market", as they say in Zen Buddhism.

Watching Stir Crazy at this later point in time, some of the humor might seem a bit clichéd to younger viewers. It's important to remember that this is where a lot of those "clichés" came from. In 1980, everyone was mimicking scenes from this film (such "We bad . . .") and repeating dialogue and jokes. Some of the filmic (and by extension general cultural) folklore or urban legends about prisons contained in Stir Crazy had made appearances in films prior to this one, but not in the particular irreverent way that they're satirized here.

This is an important film in the careers of a few of the greatest actors and comedians (Wilder, Pryor and Poitier), with an important place in the history of Hollywood comedy. The fact that it's also suspenseful and has philosophical things to say about human nature is a bonus that makes this a film you shouldn't miss.