Details

Release year: 1976

Storyline

On a long-distance train trip, a man finds romance--but also finds himself in danger of being killed, or at least pushed off the train.

Top credits

Directors

Arthur Hiller

Writers

Colin Higgins

Cast

Gene Wilder — George
Richard Pryor — Grover
Jill Clayburgh — Hilly
Patrick McGoohan — Devereau

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Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• The climatic train crash at the end of the film was shot in an airplane hangar with a replica locomotive and a replica train station, both replicas were built especially for the movie. The engine crashing into the station was filmed in two adjoining hangars at the Lockeed Aircraft Plant in Burbank, California using a full-sized mock-up of the FP-7A locomotive. The replica of the Chicago train station spanned several acres. The train crash was filmed using nine cameras and amounted to just fourteen seconds of screen-time. The cost of the set, its filming and equipment totaled five hundred thousand dollars (about $2.9M in 2025) according to Box Office magazine, which averaged to about thirty-six thousand dollars for each second of the sequence.

• Originally meant to be filmed in the United States. However, the National Rail Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) was fearful of adverse publicity, and refused to cooperate. As a result, the producers were forced to work with the Canadian Pacific Railway, using thinly disguised CPRail equipment and shooting exteriors along the CP Rail right-of-way.

• When meeting Gene Wilder after having seen Silver Streak (1976), Cary Grant asked him if the script had been in any way inspired by North by Northwest (1959). As Wilder admitted it was correct, Grant then added, "I knew it! Have you noticed that each time you take ordinary people, say, like you and me, then take them in a situation way above their heads, it makes a great thriller?"