From the moment it begins, the Canadian-produced film “The Silent Partner” is awash in anti-corporate cynicism that is veiled in the opening shot showing a surface existence of modern consumerism. The opening scene shows a swirl of activity at a Toronto Mall at Christmas time, hundreds of bundled up shoppers perusing bustling stores as a Canadian Brass Band in Salvation Army uniforms play timeless secular Christmas classics for Mall-goers and burgeoning public nostalgia. It is a vibe similar to the opening of the brilliant and vastly unknown Canadian film “Kings and Desperate Men” released around the same time. “The Silent Partner” is on the viewer’s psyche from the jump, like a combination of the jilted phoniness and Americana touted in Robert Altman films combined with the creeping tension of thrillers by directors of the era such as Alan Pakula and Arthur Penn.
The audience is introduced to the workers of a busy bank in one of Toronto’s premier shopping malls, the work of course is seeing heightened customer traffic due to the Holiday season. We meet a tall male teller, who appears business-like and perhaps neurotic, played by seemingly earnest yet calculating Elliot Gould. His co-worker, played by the lovely Susannah York. appears a bit more transparent and less cagey. We learn that while Miles Cullen, played by Gould, seems interested in asking out Julie Carver, played by York, she is already secretly dating a married Bank branch superior, Charles Packard, played by Michael Kirby. Inter-office romantic skullduggery is only one side plot here, however. Another theme on display was a modern concept for the 1970’s; the acceptance of modern adults in the Western world of complicated relationships that weren’t simple like the fantasy land of post-World War II and it’s projection of “proper” courtship.
While we learn that there are other sexual and relationship gymnastics going on at the bank, just like the fake Holiday spirit at the mall, it’s all distraction. Nobody is really living the life they want, it’s all convenience and adults living delayed lives. Take Gould as Miles. He wants a Female partner but his projected existence is too inconsequential, so he focuses on his modest Toronto apartment and his exotic Fish tank. York as Julie as well has no luck with Men so she takes on whoever asks her out, hoping for the best. One day during the holiday season, Miles discovers a bank deposit slip which seems to have been intended as a half-hearted attempt to be a robbery note of the Bank. The would-be thief wrote out a slip demanding cash at gun point but never went through with the plan, writing out the robbery note mistakenly over a carbon slip, but apparently losing the nerve to go through with it. Miles deduces that the robber may try again but he does not tell his boss or co-workers about the incident, he has a plan to defraud the would-be robber should they approach his teller window as well as embezzle from the bank in one fell swoop, seeing that it is getting close to the Holiday and the chaos of a bank robbery could probably mask his ability to hide a majority of the missing money amongst his personal belongings.
The film blends this plot of repressed clever people trapped in a corporate work environment attempting to game the system with an insidious dual atmosphere of a cat-and-mouse thriller that can turn exceedingly jaded and/or violent at the drop of a hat. Directed by Darryl Duke, “The Silent Partner” is another one of those unflinching Canadian 70’s films that I can’t get enough of, such as 1973’s “The Pyx”, the aforementioned 1977’s “Kings and Desperate Men” or 1978’s “Plague”. These films ooze paranoia in quiet spaces. “The Silent Partner” is from a screenplay by Curtis Hanson, the same Hanson that would go on in later years to achieve a huge commercial and critical success with “LA Confidential” in the 1990s. Here, Hanson pens an incredibly concise and insightful screenplay. Coupled with the prodigious camera work of Cinematographer Billy Williams, “The Silent Partner” is one of those films that goes farther than most of it’s contemporaries of the same time but most people have never heard of it. I saw it at the Barracks Road Theater in Charlottesville, Va with my Mother in 1979 when I was in Fifth or Sixth grade. Hanson manages to weave together a story that is at times as much about lonely people pursuing a fulfilling existence in the modern world as it is a tense battle of wits between a sneaky White collar criminal and an overt violently sadistic one.
The antagonistic contention here is over $50,000 in Canadian dollars (Which by today’s standards would be worth a quarter of a million). The violent criminal in this is played by Christopher Plummer, an actor who simply does not get enough credit for possessing the wide range of acting ability that he does. This is Captain Von Trapp from “The Sound of Music” for chrissakes, and he is so convincing as an evil and horrific behaving bad guy it defies description. We don’t usually get this much personality from a villain in film, there is nothing glamorous or redeeming about him, Plummer as Harry takes his character over the top whilst exercising a simmering control. The character displays an auspicious everyman in his appearance. He can be dressed as Santa Claus or a Suburban housewife, there is a insidious psychosis to his methods. Perhaps 70’s audiences weren’t ready for a film with such an effective and conniving nemesis.
If the music for “The Silent Partner” stood out for you after you viewed it, that tracks because the soundtrack music and the background incidental music was composed by none other than Jazz titan Oscar Pedersen. Yes, that one, the same. This was a remarkable idea, having a popular working Jazz musician scoring not only the foreground music that sets the mood in key scenes, but also ancillary music heard in scenes that take place at the mall and at office parties, Pedersen was a musical legend and he shows off not only his known ability to write dynamic music in a Jazz idiom, he can write tension-filled music for a thrilling film as well.
As had become fashionable in 1970’s and 80’s filmmaking, the movie’s tone intensifies as it progresses. The early bank robbing sequence is only off-putting due to the fact that Harry is dressed as Santa Claus. The scene is anxious and Miles hands Harry a less than substantial amount of cash from his register while intentionally tripping the robbery alarm at the desk of Julie. Miles, we discover, has been siphoning cash all day in anticipation of Harry’s real robbery attempt, thereby pocketing money that Harry would be blamed for stealing. Miles’ clever scheme goes unnoticed until Harry listens to the news that he has been blamed for stealing far more than he got away with . Harry is than motivated and energized to stalk, menace, deceive and bring violence to Miles’ doorstep to get the rest of the money that Miles didn’t hand them in the robbery. The film changes tone as Harry is a combination of clever, strategic and dominating ruthlessly and sadistically violent.
Aside from the big names in this film, some side names are interesting as well. In October of 2024, I reviewed on this blog a minor Horror B-movie titled “Plague”. The film featured a young Latin actress, Celine Lomez, who was quite striking as the Typhoid Mary character. In the “Silent Partner”, her character, Elaine, is used as a Mata Hari by Harry to get info on Miles. Her presence and allure here are memorable, she and Gould have believable onscreen chemistry, his character turns a blind eye to the obviousness of her sudden interest in him, he is aware that she is there out of insincere measures, but he enjoys the ride anyway. Her role as a new type of femme fatale in this modern color noir is a perfect variant; she is alluring, yet she is Latin, earthy and modern, she is a bauble Miles can show off at a wedding of his co-worker to his cohorts. The next co-star of merit is future world-famous comedian John Candy, who appears not long before his iconic appearance in “Stripes” with Bill Murray. Candy is a lovable fat guy in the bank office is marrying the best looing eye candy in the office (played by Gail Dahms), a character who is sneaking off to have trysts with other less scrupulous co-workers.
The projection of loneliness and the cultivation of lack of ethics in the workplace dating behavior provides a murky morality amongst the denizens of the workplace. When the bank employees are at a party together, a fantasy mentioned by several employees is what would they do with the money if they had stolen it, as if what Miles is doing unbeknownst is a common dream they all share. As compelling as the urgency involved in the bank robbery and descending violent plot is, the sort of jaded exploration of life in corporate office work is as much on my mind watching this as the thriller part. While the device that is used to string along a potential romance between Miles and Julie becomes somewhat awkward and stretched, the energy and verve of the script never stops moving.
One of the attributes of this picture is the reminders the film gives us of the paradox between the fake happiness that the characters (especially those that work at the bank and the mall) exude versus the actual complacency and pall of ethical compromise that the characters exist in. Miles, aside from his prized Tropical fish, leads a life of isolated distance from other people except for Women he wants to date. This leads to him formulating schemes that are risky and potentially profitable as a way of enjoying a double life, a separate existence of manipulated fortune and circumstance, as he learns Harry leads, though Harry behaves like a brigand with no conscience to achieve his winnings. Plummer plays a violent degenerate who when he isn’t pulling off armed robberies or planning to kill people, he is beating up young girls in health club locker rooms for sexual kicks.
York’s character Julie is dating married men out of boredom, her boss’s wife is taking out her marital stagnancy on her husband’s underlings, like Miles. When the boss’s wife and Miles are dancing playfully at a holiday party being thrown by the Boss and his wife, a great moment of double meanings occurs (unbeknownst to the boss’s wife), the boss’ wife asks a silly and puckish Miles (he knows that the boss is sleeping with Julie, but the wife doesn’t know), “Do you find that people underestimate you?” (I might be paraphrasing) We as viewers know that Miles’ embezzlement is in play, but of course nobody else knows except Harry. Miles turns a potentially tense and awkward moment into moment of levity and playful bullshit, as he distracts the woman from her question by doing a spin himself on the dance floor as if he is ramping up the romanticism of the moment sarcastically as a way of deflecting. Co-workers are fucking each other in the bathroom for thrills, nobody seems innocent here but their personal lives are in a kind of self-imposed delay, in part because their lives revolve around their fake corporate existence and nothing else. Because of this, Julie’s attraction to Miles reinvigorates due in part that Miles(because he believes at first that he had pulled off a lucrative scam) now is exuding a confidence due to the high that his almost perfect crime gave him. Miles is so lost in the danger and intrigue of what he is involved in with Julie, he can’t pay attention to her, which makes him doubly attractive to her….you dig?
Though the movie takes place in Toronto, we can definitely relate to everything that is happening and the vibe, it looks like any other American Northeast rust belt scene, like Buffalo or Providence, for instance. This isn’t a foreign or alien existence we are witnessing, this scenario is quite familiar. Because of this, once the romance heats up between Miles and Elaine, and then transfers to psychological and physical violence involving Miles, Harry and Elaine, the film becomes quite tense and grimly violent, in spots. While Harry is the brute, he is also clever enough to stay in the shadows, whereas Miles is more the chess player in his actions and strategy, but it’s not like that smug shit (like Guy Ritchie movies) where the characters have it all figured out, I hate that shit. Miles has to improvise as he begins to realize the depravity of Harry. When Elaine comes onto him, his sense tell him that something is off, but the depths of his lonely lifestyle welcomes the dangerous excitement.
In my opinion, from a technical, acting, execution and plot perspective, there are few 70s thrillers that are on par with “The Silent Partner” in terms of moving social commentary mixed with white-knuckle tension. 70’s films such as Alan Pakula’s “Klute”, Polanski’s “Chinatown” and Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” (also starring Gould in a similar role) come to mind as contemporaries. “The Silent Partner” is most likely forgotten because it is Canadian and did not get the kind of promotional push that American Hollywood films received. The ad campaign for the film also seemed convoluted, I remember seeing an ad in the New York Times for the film at the time of its release that made it look like a breezy caper movie, like a Pink Panther sequel, which was not this movie’s vibe at all. It’s closer to psychological thrillers like Clint Eastwood’s “Tightrope” (1983) or Curtis Hanson’s “Bad Influence” (1991) or Harold Becker’s “The Onion Field” (1979).
Aside from the top-notch direction, screenplay, tech credits and musical score, the film belongs to the two leads. While Gould is at times his wise-cracking persona from “M*A*S*H”, “The Long Goodbye” and “Little Murders”, there is more emotion from him here as well at times a calculated calmness and strategy. He’s not beating people up or engaging in chaos, Gould’s strength here is in his gamesmanship and cunning. He’s no match for Plummer’s malevolent villain in a virulent sense, but in an intellectual sense he is at times the smartest guy in the room. It’s a unique performance for a film like this, at some point we would expect our protagonist to grab a pistol and start slithering down halls in silent focus, preparing for a shoot out, but this isn’t that kind of obvious flick. Gould plays a wise old owl (for the most part) from start to finish. His measured responses, his bellowing delivery when cornered as if he’s stalling for time while strategizing internally is perfect here, only someone on his same cerebral level would notice if he was full of shit or not. If there is one hole in the writing here for me, it’s the romantic chemistry between Gould and York, it’s not as believable as the onscreen companionship and intimacy between Gould and Lomez.
The most thunderous presence here is Plummer, who is so vicious, merciless and pernicious as the relentless criminal, you lose track of who you are watching on screen. The same dashing, handsome and sympathetic leading man of time honored classics such as “Across the Everglades”, “Murder by Decree”, “The Man Who Would Be King” and the aforementioned “The Sound of Music” is a terrifying menace here, one scene in particular is as spooky and chilling without any actual physical action. Harry is onto Miles and is now stalking him outside his apartment. As Miles sits in his apartment alone, Harry tilts open the mail slot to Miles’ front door so we can only see Harry’s eyes and part of his face. He threatens MIles through the mail slot and it is as unnerving a scene as I can ever remember watching. “The Silent Partner”‘s scenes of suggestion are as staggeringly frightful psychologically as any thriller that needs splash scenes of violence to keep the audience invested. “The Silent Partner” also contains one of the most brutal scenes of savage violence in film history, it is not a scene for the faint of heart.
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