Stir Crazy (film)
| Stir Crazy | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Sir Sidney Poitier |
| Produced by | Hannah Weinstein |
| Written by | Bruce Jay Friedman |
| Starring |
Gene Wilder Richard Pryor |
| Music by | Tom Scott |
| Cinematography | Fred Schuler |
| Edited by | Harry Keller |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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111 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million |
| Box office | $101,300,000 (Domestic) |
Stir Crazy is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Poitier and starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as down-on-their-luck friends who are given 125-year prison sentences after being framed for a bank robbery. While in prison they befriend other inmates. The film reunited Wilder and Pryor who had appeared previously in Silver Streak (1976).
Writer Skip Donahue and actor Harry Monroe are fired from their jobs in New York City and leave for Hollywood. Along the way, they take odd jobs to make money. During one such job in Arizona, Skip and Harry perform a song and dance routine dressed as woodpeckers as part of a promotion for a bank. While the duo are on break, two men steal the costumes and rob the bank. Harry and Skip are arrested, whisked through a speedy trial and handed 125-year jail sentences. Their court-appointed lawyer, Len Garber, advises them to wait until he can appeal their case.
Life in a maximum-security prison proves difficult for Skip and Harry. After a failed attempt at faking insanity, they make friends with Jesus Ramirez, a bank robber, and Rory Schultebrand, a gay man who killed his stepfather, and meet inmates such as contrabandist Jack Graham, ax murderer Blade and feared mass murderer Grossberger.
Strangely, while Harry is understandably scared of the aggression of the guards and inmates, Skip seems to be optimistic and content about the situation. At one point, the guards put Skip in a small, dark box for a few days of solitary confinement expecting to find him a crazy mess when they bring him out. Instead he asks them for one more day as he "was just beginning to get into [himself]".
Three months later, Skip and Harry are brought to see Warden Walter Beatty and Deputy Warden Wilson, the head guard. They wish to run a "test" with Harry and Skip on a mechanical bull in the warden's office. To everyone's surprise, Skip rides the bull at full power, so Beatty selects him to compete in the prison's annual rodeo competition.
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Wikipedia