Charles Weldon | 80's Movie Guide

Taglines: Only these two pigeons could dress up as woodpeckers... Stir Crazy movie storyline. After the excellent audience response to their teaming in Silver Streak, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor reunited for this zany comedy. Wilder and Pryor play a couple of out-of-work numbskulls who take a promotional job that requires them to dress up like gigantic woodpeckers. Unfortunately, a pair of thieves, likewise decked out in woodpecker suits, pull off a bank job not long after Wilder and Pryor make their first public appearance. The boys are arrested and sentenced to 120 years each (at this point, we know we're not dealing with real life). After a concerted (and hilarious) effort to make the best of things "in stir," Wilder and Pryor break out of jail, hoping to track down the genuine thieves. The mess never really works itself out, suggesting that perhaps the stars had a Stir Crazy II lurking in the recesses of their minds. Written by Bruce Jay Friedman and directed by Sidney Poitier, it never did spawn a sequel, though a TV series spin-off, starring Larry Riley and Joseph Guzaldo, briefly surfaced in 1986. 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). Stir Crazy (1980) Directed by: Sidney Poitier Starring: Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Georg Stanford Brown, JoBeth Williams, Miguel Ángel Suárez, Craig T. Nelson, Charles Weldon Screenplay by: Bruce Jay Friedman Production Design by: Alfred Sweeney Cinematography by: Fred Schuler Film Editing by: Harry Keller Costume Design by: Patricia Edwards Set Decoration by: Arthur Jeph Parker Music by: Tom Scott Distributed by: Columbia Pictures Release Date: December 12, 1980