Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.
A months ago, I reviewed National Lampoon’s Vacation, which the film that not only its a helluva a family road trip for summer vacation to a theme park, but its also both fun and one of my favorite movie in the name from National Lampoon’s, even if I wish I have a magazine when they’re no longer with us anymore. Despite this, its no secret that we gave an appreciation to John Hughes for this masterpiece back in the early 80s. But what about when we’re still in the 80s, but instead of going to California, how about going back Chicago for Holiday celebration? Well, that’s exactly what we have in today’s review and another favorite of mine.
“Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is a 1987 Road Trip Comedy-Drama that was written, produced and directed by John Hughes. Wow, talk about a hard worker for his experience, eh?
The idea of this movie didn’t came from National Lampoon’s (otherwise, it’ll be a long story), but rather came from John Hughes experience. Back then, he used to work on New York that he took a plane to going back to his home at Chicago, right up until due to some reason, his flight was cut short to landing on Wichita, Kansas, and poor Hughes had to spending five days to going back to Chicago. As a result, he took his experience as his idea for his next movie, which took him three to five days to write the script before eventually putting into production with Paramount, despite the movie had been cut short to 1 in a half hour length due to either changing the script or even some scenes were cut due to lengthy reasons.
When the road trip to Chicago came out on November 25th 1987, it was yet another successful Hughes’s film, critics and audience love this movie Hughes’s writing, fascinating lines, fun performances and a good mix of comedy and drama, even if the movie was unexpected to be R-Rated. Of course, the same can be said with the box-office with earning $49.5M over the budget of $15M. And to this day, its considered the best Thanksgiving film, since many people love to watching this movie during the America’s Thanksgiving.
As for my experience, as always, my parents had a fun experience of this movie, I never seen it, until I gave it a shot to watching it back in 2023 via DVD, and I enjoyed this movie.
So, with all that said, will the road trip to Chicago will be an easy ride, or is this film is a living nightmare with obstacles like the Griswolds had before?
Well, lets find out.
The Story
For a movie about going back to Chicago to celebrating Thanksgiving, its actually pretty good, fun and struggling.
The movie begins in New York where we introduce our main hero name Neal Page, an advertising executive who’s anticipating to going back to Chicago to celebrating Thanksgiving with his family for less than two days. However, once he left the building, its gonna be a difficulty start when he’s trying to get a taxi cab in order to reaching at the airport. After ranging from missing a cab and probably damaging his business briefcase, he’s reaching to the airport, along with unlikely meeting the one man who took the cab before, Del Griffith, who’s the shower curtain rings salesman. But due to landing on Wichita, Kansas from airplane due to severe snowstorm in Chicago, its up to Neal and Del to going on a struggling road trip together to reaching Chicago for less than 2 days to celebrating Thanksgiving.
The best way to describing the story, its the opposite version of National Lampoon’s Vacation, since both of them trying to reaching at the destination for couple of days, and even dealing with obstacles from losing money, path gone wrong and of course, the main heroes arguing each other whenever something isn’t going on their way. Its easy to notice those elements if you’ve watched both Vacation and PTA (short term of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”), but then again, they’re both written by John Hughes. But much like Vacation, this movie is surprisingly pretty good for the writing that we can relate on various moments from money struggling, uneasy to connect with unusual partner or losing various stuff, its always a pain in our asses that we had some before. While the writing is pretty good for how can relate, but the movie is also focus on both comedy and drama, but of course, Hughes’s comedy are enjoyable and fun from either insulting dialogues, an unusual build up of surprise and even on-screen humor, one of my favorite is when both Neal and Del sleep together in embarrassment when its not a pillows, their empty wallets without realizing they’re robbed, Del’s humorous lines, Neal gets grabbed from… Down bellow to schnutz, and of course, in the most shocking, Neal Page’s rant for demanding a car that was missing when he’s all like;
“You can start by wiping that FUCKING Dumbass smile of your rosy FUCKING cheeks…! You can give a FUCKING automobile. A FUCKING Datsun, a FUCKING Toyota, a FUCKING Mustang, a FUCKING Buick, four FUCKING wheels and a seat!”
“And I really don’t care for the way your company left me in a middle of FUCKING nowhere with FUCKING keys to a FUCKING car that isn’t FUCKING there, and I really didn’t care to FUCKING walk down a FUCKING highway, and across a FUCKING runaway to get back here to have a smile in my FUCKING face. I want a FUCKING car, right, FUCKING, now…!”
Its like “Jesus, that a lot of Fucking when you lost your car while arriving at car rental in St. Louis for your harshest complaint that’ll easily kick you out for hitchhiking”. In fact, when you first watching this movie, we thought this is a PG-13 film at the start, but when we’re at car rental scene, this scene is probably the reason why this movie is Rated-R when the movie dropped 19 F-bombs, its like completely out of nowhere, but again, its pretty surprised for this one since Clark Griswold’s ranting in Pheonix. But of course, the movie also adds a drama from Neal wants to call his wife in a second hotel, along with Del being stuck outside with burnt care while snowing (though in the original script he’s gonna be freeze to death, but dropped out for good reason), the argument in the first hotel that feels a bit too personal from Neal Page’s frustration from the start to Del admits what he is, but stood by his what he likes to do, and of course, the ending, il explain that later, that ending is actually satisfying with heart warming.
While it feels similar from other John Hughes’s film and can be a bit over the top, but at least the movie is pretty good from the writing that we can relate, we can laugh and sometimes, some parts could get personal.
The Presentation
The movie’s budget costed surprisingly $15M, that’s like the same budget as NL’s Vacation (though estimated), but say the least, the movie’s presentation is pretty good.
For starter, they started filming in New York from the City itself, as well as small locations like Batavia and South Dayton in order to imitates some locations like Wichita, Kansas, which im guessing they wanna stay in New York for saving their budgets. Sure they did filmed other than New York like St. Louis with the airport, and the same can be said with Illinois like Chicago (for the final destination at the ending) and two different hotels like Sun Motel and old courthouse. Although the house of Page’s family are in for Thanksgiving celebration is actually made from scratch, it costed $100K and took 5 days to build, which that caused a frustration from Paramount’s executives for costing budget. That sucks, but what can you do if you wanna make a house for filming purpose, eh?
While there’s not much details to explaining, but they do have some fascinating feats. While John Hughes had plenty of plans based on the writing he took that, according to the editor Paul Hirsch, the movie’s original cut was going to be 3 Hours and 40 Minutes long. Damn, that was long before Avengers Endgame…! But because long filming plans and the rewrites on the script about the subplots or new characters, the film was cut further down to 1 in a half hour long film that what we have in this movie.
It wasn’t just the rewrites, there’s also some scenes that were filmed, but had to be removed to cut the time the movie length, leaving some scenes what we found in Deleted Scenes, these includes;
The airplane lunch time in the middle of flight from New York to Wichita, along with further character developments that we like to hear and some jokes.
Del’s messing the bathroom onscreen while Neal is on a shower
A poor timing when a pizza deliveryman arrived when our heroes are busy in a bathroom with ordering pizza and beer (the latter of which causing a hilarious mess on a bed and the mentioned messing bed during the argument in the first hotel)
A first argument in the first hotel that it takes like an hour long from testing Neal’s patience from Del’s smoking to clearing pipes to prevent snoring from extended speech from both Neal’s rant to Del’s justification who he is. Along with eventually apologized. That is until they got robbed while sleeping, and oh yeah, that I mentioned the pizza deliveryman is also a robber at the same time? Yeesh, talk about not trusting a fraud to pretending to have a job, much like Harry who pretends to be a policeman before we found out he’s part of Wet Bandits in Home Alone (another film that was written by John Hughes)
While its not in a deleted scene, there was a subplot planned involving Neal’s relationship into question where his wife, at first, doesn’t believing him and suspecting he sleeps with other stranger that happens to be a woman. Yeah, that deleted subplot is for the best, cause I find the whole allegedly cheating part is rather unnecessary.
With a long list like that (minus the deleted subplot), its not hard to see why its been re-filmed and rewrite to cut movie in half as, again, a 1 in a half hour long film than a 3 hours and 40 minutes long to cute some unnecessary scenes and such, even if it could’ve been interesting to show us more interesting. And not to mention, those deleted scenes were planned in the first act. Pretty shocking to know why the first act is almost shorter than we think.
Despite that, there are worth to mention, such as when Del got a car from rental, the car is nearly identical as Wagon Queen Family Truckster from NL’s Vacation. Though I have a theory that the car Del brought must’ve been subsidiary group from Wagon Queen, based on a similar car design with metallic pea and the wooden walls on the side, but that’s just my own theory. Which despite the near resemblance, the car is actually the 2nd generation of Chrysler LeBaron, but had to put a different name, if I call correctly.
However, while they cut the airplane scene with the aforementioned lunch scene, they probably also recycled the outdoor plane scene from “Airplane!”, one of the biggest parody film back in 1980.
While the deleted scenes are incredibly huge to understand why the film was cut short, at least the filming sets, the filmography and others are actually pretty good to watch.
The Characters
While the chemistry writing are fascinating, but the characters are only focusing on two main ones, while the rest are just there help and won’t come back for the rest of the movie, well okay, there’s some that we constantly shown in brief moments.
Lets starting out with the main hero, Neal Page (played by Steve Martin), an advertising executive who’s on his hurry to going back to his hometown Chicago for celebrating Thanksgiving with his family and his loved one. However, even for being a comedic actor that we all know, Neal Page is nowhere in funny mood from the start, he’s been struggling, annoyed and tempered when something isn’t going on the way to live himself in peace due to be in a journey with Del. Talk about an opposite between of two (more on Del later), he’s much more serious and patience that he wants to going back to The Windy City. Its easy we can relate the frustration we’ve been through from troublesome weather, being annoyed with a stranger or even losing important things what he needs like money, car or others. Despite of playing a frustration person, he does have some funny moments, especially Steve Martin did a great job of his performance, I guess its not hard to say that from what I’ve heard, he had a blast for his performance and even came up his ideas to Hughes, top-notch for him.
And finally, we have Del Griffith (played by the late John Candy, aka Russ Lasky from NL’s Vacation and Gus Polinski from Home Alone), unlike Page, he’s much more friendly and comedic role in the movie, he’s a shower curtain ring salesman to raising his money for his journey for various reasons (more on that later). I find him also enjoyable, even though being a salesman of shower curtain ring is an odd job to selling those rings to make a quick money. While he’s also fun, but sometimes he can be annoying, for Neal, not us, which again, its easy to understand when Neal first met him, it was difficult to start to get along for their journey, even if when Neal made a rant on him to get a point, Del does understand his personality, but again, he stood by who he is, especially for his wife and customers, in other words, he described himself as “Im the real article, what you see is what you get”. Despite his justification of his life and his business, but he also add some emotional moments ranging from he likes to do his own business for his wife and he said he haven’t in home for years, which made us, the views and Neal, questioned if he has home or not. But of course, il give an appreciation of his fun and emotional performance to John Candy, he did a great job of his role back then, especially that he feels almost like a dramatized version of himself, which, according to Steve Martin (in interview), he said the late John Candy and his role Del are similar as “He was a very sweet guy and complicated and so” and “He had kind of a little broken heart inside him”. Which I can sadly understand that he had a great performance, but like any celebs, his personal demons made him very struggling, especially he was gone too early on March 4th 1994 with the age of 43. Rest in Peace, John, you’re always be a great and fun actor.
As for the rest of the casts, they’re not much else as out heroes meet some.
There’s Susan Page (played by Laila Robins) who’s Neal’s wife who’s concerned that she likes to know where he is, Owen Mooney (played by Dylan Baker, aka Dr. Curt Connors from Raimi’s Spider-Man movies) who’s creepy and not-so threatening pickup driver for a lift. Gus Mooney (played by the late Charles Tyner) who’s Owen’s father and the owner of the first motel where our heroes stopped. Doobby (played by Larry Hankin) is the unique and decorative taxi driver from Wichita who gives our heroes a lift to the first motel, an agent of car rental (played by Edie McClurg) who’s sweet and fun agent in St. Louis, because reaching her disapproval with a punchline with one more F-Bomb (That will probably lead you to suspension for taking insult at customer, but what are you gonna do when some customer has no reason to be pissed off), the representative of Wichita’s airport (played by uniquely deadpan actor Ben Stein, im sure you’ve seen Ferris Bueller’s Day off, eh?) who gave us the announcement of Chicago’s closure from severe weather and lastly the first person (played by none other than Kevin Bacon, aka Jack from Friday the 13th) who’s racing against Page to get in the taxi cab (talk about racing away if he thinks Neal Page is Jason, eh?).
While its a damn shame that we only get to focus on two main characters, but at least some characters are fascinating to see, in a brief moments. But of course, we give an appreciation to have an unlikely chemistry between Steve Martin and John Candy.
SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen the movie, or if you don’t mind.
The final act is quite of chaotic (kinda) to getting closer to Chicago.
After the infamous ranting with F-Bombs, and getting sucker punched and balls grabbed by a dispatcher (played by John Randolph Jones), he’s eventually get in a car that Del got his trusty car from rental, leaving them driving down the highway from dawn to night. But it ended up feeling like a highway to hell ranging from Del’s cigarette blown to the backseat from Fire Hazard to scratching the car on both sides from incoming trucks, when they’re in opposite direction, and the aforementioned cigarette cause the backseat burst into a fire, cause the car damaged in half, and also ruining Page’s cards when Del borrowed the card for refueling without telling him what happened, leaving Neal pissed again from argument to punching him in a gut (otherwise, as Del said, he could’ve kill him for slugging his gut like what happened to Houdini, I guess…).
After a worst night with damaged car and burnt wallet and cards, they reached to the final motel, but not be able to pay from expensive price with Neal had no choice to take out his physical money and his wallet, even if Del does the same with pulling out his money and his Casio watch, but the result is only Neal gets in a room and Del left outside to putting his life in freezing. Neal, feeling pity for Del, gives him a chance to invite him to stay fresh from the cold to hanging out together with snacks and miniature drinks, which is like they’re reconciling together after all the trouble they have.
By next day, its Thanksgiving day, once they’re leaving motel (after accidentally crashing into it in reverse for being stuck in snow), they continued driving on the road for continuing their trip to Chicago, but only they got interfered by a police state trooper for not only speeding, but the damaged car from the fire is deemed “unroadworthy” that Del’s car is going to be impounded. Thankfully, Del comes back with a trucker with trailer to giving them a lift, only they gotta together on a refrigerated trailer (That’ll be also cold since riding on a pickup from behind). After been in a truck’s trailer, they finally reached to Chicago, when going to “L” Station, Neal bids a farewell to Del for helping together after been a long and chaotic journey, however, as Neal is on train to reaching his neighborhood, he had a daydream to looking back with his best pal Del, but one thing that he’s concerned is he haven’t been in home for years, he decides to going back where he left off to checking Del, only to sharing his unfortunate truth that he kept in secret… Del is homeless and his wife Marie died eight years ago, feeling sympathy for his losing home and being widower, Neal decides to give Del a second chance to come together to his home to meeting his family for celebrating Thanksgiving, and of course, finally see his wife Susan again. Which im sure Del will be appreciated to hanging out together in Thanksgiving to have a heart for him.
The 3rd act of this movie with the car is pretty fun to see, along with chaotic with various degrees of dangers what they’ve been, but of course, the drama is no stranger to add in for what happened to Del, along with Neal starting to feel pity and sympathy on Del to give him a chance to shine rather than constantly arguing and fighting, even with a surprise ending that hit us hard, it eventually gives a heart warming and even tearful ending. I mean with a mix of giving emotional and satisfying ending to arriving to Page’s home and giving Del another chance after the truth revealing, I actually cried with drop of tears from my eyes, a tears of satisfaction and emotional for sympathy to Del (or even John Candy himself) and even surprisingly a pretty nice and heart warming cover song called “Everytime you go away” by an unheard group called “Blue Room”.
Here’s a fact about the latter, John Hughes was originally going to play Paul Young version of “Everytime you go away” (though it was originally written by Daryl Hall & John Oates), which it would be a nice to play it, but the record company rejected his request, although Paul Young does accept it secretly, but gotta find the other musicians to make their own cover, which is why we have the Blue Room version in the final cut. But sadly, if you wanna listening to this version in soundtrack, this covered song isn’t in the album nor even released digitally, since Blue Room is pretty much faded into obscurity.
The movie’s ending is quite of a ride from problematic with a car to eventually an emotional and satisfying happy ending after a tragic truth, which like I said, Im both enjoyed and tearful at the ending for the first time.
And now for my final opinion of this film.
Overall, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a one heck of a ride of struggling to get back to Chicago, but I enjoy this movie so much of re-watching both physically and digitally.
While the first act aren’t as perfect due to scenes that were planned were cut down due time length to make shorter as a one in a half hour long than longer more than three hours (which it really sucks that we want to see what’s happening), but the movie is still great, fun, emotional and relatable.
The Story is nicely done (again, aside the first act due cuts that left out), the writing is very good (along with surprising drop of F-Bombs), the presentation looks nice and surprisingly some beautiful shots and the characters, despite some are minimal, but the two main ones are enjoyable for their delivery and their writing.
Even if its slightly flawed, I love watching this movie to re-watching it all the times with fun moments, good jokes and fun chemistry between Steve Martin and John Candy. While I love NL’s Vacation, this one is also my favorite film done by John Hughes. So if you like to watching movie in Thanksgiving (in America), bring your friends and/or family together with Thanksgiving dinner together, cause this one is definitely a “Must-Watch” film to celebrating this holiday.
For my rating, im gonna give this one a 9/10, along with earning the Trophy of Success.
So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out and Happy American Thanksgiving.
