On Screen

...Straight, yet his darting eyes and tight little grin convey a sense of ironic mischief...

...Despite this rather too rosy ending, The Silent Partner is a superbly crafted thriller...

...the bank clerks' frustrations are amusingly focused on one of their co-workers, a busty blonde named Louise (Gail Dahms), who wears T-shirts reading "Bankers Do It With Interest" and "Penalty For Early Withdrawal...

...After the robbery at the beginning of the film, the characters are continually asking one another, "What would you do with it...

...More than anything, Gould's Miles comes off as a secret—though likeable—snob, convinced of his superiority to his work and colleagues...

...Also responsible for a great deal of the film's credibility is Canadian director Daryl Dukes (Silent Partner, set in Toronto, was filmed in Canada...

...Having regarded him as a man whose "total is somewhat less than the sum of the parts," Miles' associates now begin to think they somehow "underestimated" him...

...When the robbery is reported on a television news show, Harry finds out that the bank has lost $50,000 more than he stole, realizes what happened, and tries to coerce Miles into giving him a cut...

...With his buttoned-down look and his chin tucked stiffly into his chest, Miles seems to be Mr...

...Although I enjoyed the film very much, it disappeared before I could write a review and seemed destined for oblivion...

...So 1 wasn't exactly taken unawares by the intelligence of The Silent Partner...

...After all, we're partners," Harry tells him...

...On Screen CRIMINAL PLEASURES BY ROBERT ASAHINA Last summer, without any advance publicity or press screenings, The Silent Partner opened for an extremely brief engagement in the Times Square area...

...Miles soon learns, though, that crime doesn't pay—or, rather, that crime has its price...

...Similarly, Harry's brutal murder of Elaine makes clear how far Miles has pushed him and how serious their battle of wits has become...

...The Christmas party scene, for example, which a lesser director might have turned into an orgy out of La Dolce Vita, briskly reveals all we need to know about the social and sexual habits of the bank clerks without diverting our attention from Miles' concerns or the plot line...

...After Harry is released, he begins a siege of terror that results first in Elaine's murder and next in Miles' agreeing to hand over the money...

...and the office banter cleverly hints at the complex relationships that are thrown out of kilter by the robbery and Miles' sudden emergence as the "heroic" defender of the bank's assets...

...One day, Miles discovers that the bank where he works is about to be hit by a professional holdup man, Harry Reikle (Christopher Plummer...

...Miles then outsmarts Harry, who winds up in prison for a different crime, but iron bars do not interrupt their battle of wits...

...Thus The Silent Partner succeeds as a thriller and as a comment on human behavior by making us as well "silent partners" in Miles' crime...

...But Gould shrewdly prepares us for the transformation...

...In just a minute or two, Dukes shows us one of Miles' few relationships outside of the bank and establishes that the old man is nearly catatonic—a fact everyone remembers when Elaine, who tries to pass herself off as a nurse, tells Miles she has heard of him from his father...

...The final confrontation between the two takes place at the bank, where Miles once more outwits Harry and at last gets the cash for himself—along with Julie, who has stumbled onto the whole affair but agrees to stand by Miles for her own second chance at life...

...The basic melodrama is peppered with unexpected social and psychological insights: White-collar ennui is briefly and wittily sketched during a suburban Christmas party held by Miles' boss...

...One problem with thrillers involving an "amateur" is that the resourcefulness he requires to take on a professional criminal often appears to emerge from nowhere...

...Once again he outmaneuvers Harry and even recruits Elaine's help in retrieving the cash (which, through a complicated plot twist, is ironically locked up in the bank...

...Managing only partially to thwart the robbery, Miles ends up stealing $50,000 himself and covering his theft by leading everyone to believe the holdup man was the sole culprit...

...It is perhaps perverse to take great pleasure from a movie that is at times excruciatingly violent and, ultimately, amoral—we are, after all, expected to be not only relieved but happy when Miles gets away with the loot and the lady...

...Dukes' handling of the film's considerable violence is impressive because it is so pointed...

...His first feature a few years ago was Payday, a little-appreciated but excellent film about a country music singer (played by Rip Torn...

...There is a very good, very brief sequence at another Christmas party in the nursing home where Miles' father lives, complete with an off-key children's choir...

...Gould plays Miles Cullen, a mild-mannered clerk who keeps tropical fish, solves chess problems, suffers frustrated romantic yearnings for his co-worker, Julie (Susannah York), and longs for a "second chance" at life...

...Curtis Hanson's screenplay, based on Anders Bodelson's novel, Think of a Number, is literate and engaging...

...Other short scenes of the hero and his hobbies not only help to flesh out the character but introduce objects—the aquarium and the chess set—that will reappear in tragically different circumstances...

...In reality, the question is being asked of us, the audience...

...When Harry learns of Miles' theft, he takes out his frustrations on a young "masseuse" (Nancy Simmonds), and the quick, savage beating lets us know—before Miles does—what kind of man he is dealing with...

...Like The Long Goodbye, the last movie I can remember to take such a round-about route to critical success, The Silent Partner stars Elliott Gould, who is every bit as good here as he was in the earlier film...

...Much to my surprise, however, The Silent Partner has now returned to Manhattan—to the Upper East Side, no less—on the wave of favorable notices it has attracted in spot showings across the country...

...It comes as no surprise, therefore, that he is audacious enough to think he can get away with a bank job—or that he has the wherewithal to do battle with Harry...

...Harry sends his girlfriend, Elaine (Celine Lomez), to try gentler means of persuasion on Miles...

...Hanson and Dukes do not let us off the hook quite so easily, though...