According to the TSA, two of the busiest travel days of the year are the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I wonder if John Hughes knew that when he wrote and directed “Planes, Trains & Automobiles,” one of the few holiday movies specifically about Thanksgiving. A screening of this hilarious film would be appropriate as you settle in for your Turkey Day shenanigans.
The 1987 film stars Steve Martin and the late John Candy as two men who become inextricably bound together during a hectic trip from New York City to Chicago. They will use the titular vehicles on this comic, hazard-filled journey that begins two days before Thanksgiving and ends smack dab in the middle of the holiday. Adding to the fun, Hughes also throws in a bus, a tractor trailer full of frozen goods, and a pickup truck that contains a vicious dog.
Since this is a road movie, the rules are that the travelers will get into a lot of misadventures while simultaneously getting on each other’s nerves. And, as befitting 1980s movies, “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” belongs to the “slobs vs. snobs” comedy sub-genre. Martin plays Neal Page, a standoffish ad man in a suit and tie; Candy plays Del Griffith, a shower-curtain-ring salesman wearing the attire of a working man used to the cold.
Back in ′87, Martin was not too far removed from his old stand-up persona, so Hughes uses him as a consistently agitated comic foil. Physical comedy gold results from Martin throwing his body around with barely contained rage like a chaos Muppet. Slapstick and pratfalls abound, including two scenes where Neal is almost squashed by the tires of a speeding car.
By contrast, Candy plays a big, jovial oaf who tells stories that go nowhere and seems to be liked by almost everyone. He’d repeat this type of role to far lesser effect in Hughes’s abysmal 1989 film, “Uncle Buck.” Del is the Hardy to Neal’s Laurel, so there’s always another fine mess for him to get his travel partner into. Hughes was a notable holiday movie sadist — he wrote “Home Alone” and “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” for Pete’s sake — but here, the absurd situations are a bit less mean-spirited.
Del and Neal’s first encounter isn’t a meet-cute, it’s a meet-cab. Running late after his client spends an eternity staring at the latest ads he put together, Neal hurries down Park Avenue trying to catch a taxi. He needs to make his 6 o’clock flight so he can be home for his daughter’s Thanksgiving pageant.
“You’ll never make it,” his colleague warns. That prediction almost comes true when Neal trips over Del’s enormous trunk suitcase while trying to outrun another guy for the rare available cab during rush hour in Manhattan. The lucky guy who gets that taxi is played by Kevin Bacon, who starred in Hughes’s 1988 dramedy, “She’s Having a Baby.”
Next, Del inadvertently steals a cab Neal has just paid a greedy lawyer 75 bucks to give up. But this won’t be the last time the two men cross paths. They wind up sitting next to each other on the plane to O’Hare.
Del is a walking catalog of every bad habit your plane seat mate could possibly have. He is overly talkative and ignores Neal’s prickly pleas to be left alone. And not only does Del take off his shoes (“My dogs are barkin’,” he proclaims), he also takes off his socks!
Meanwhile, at O’Hare, a snowstorm is brewing that diverts Neal’s plane. He wakes up as it lands in Wichita, Kan. Ben Stein, previously employed by Hughes the year before in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” informs our heroes that their plane is grounded. (Notice the destination on the sign behind him — it reads, “NOWHERE.”)
It’s an 11-hour drive from Wichita to Chicago, and all hotels are booked. Plus, neither man has a car. To keep them together, the screenplay gods put them in a raggedy hotel room that has only one bed.
What follows is one of the two scenes from “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” that everyone remembers. All I’ll say is that it involves an innocent kiss on the ear, two mistaken pillows, and the score for a Bears game. I didn’t find this scene funny back then, and it certainly hasn’t aged well. However, it is preceded by a great argument scene that highlights Candy’s dramatic chops.
The second scene everyone remembers is still laugh-out-loud hilarious. It involves Edie McClurg (another Hughes regular) as a rental-car agent and a rightly furious Neal. After hiking 3 miles from the spot where his rental car was supposed to be, Neal unleashes a tirade that drops 18 F-bombs in under a minute. The punch line, delivered by McClurg, includes a perfectly placed F-bomb as well. It all sent the MPAA into a puritanical tizzy, and they rated this movie an undeserved R.
As it winds its way to a bittersweet conclusion, “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” creates several uproarious set pieces involving fires, stolen credit cards, and creative uses for shower curtain rings. As he did in “Vacation,” Hughes finds new ways to disrespect a station wagon.
He also stresses the importance of getting home to one’s family during the holidays. Neal can’t wait to get home to his wife, Susan (Laila Robins), whom we watch interacting with their kids, while Del makes reference to a spouse we only see in a photo.
About that bittersweet ending: I have a friend who says it’s a bit of a cheat. She’s incorrect. It’s a major cheat in my opinion — a blatant, unearned grab at the heartstrings. And yet, my eyes always fill with tears at that closing shot of Candy’s face. Somehow, he makes those final moments work.
It’s a beautiful performance, perhaps his best alongside his work with Maureen O’Hara in 1991′s Chris Columbus movie, “Only the Lonely.” You should throw that Chicago-based, Hughes-produced cinematic love story on your holiday viewing list, too.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.
This post was originally published on here
