The Silent Partner (1978)

Directed by Daryl Duke; produced by Joel B Michaels and Stephen Young

A nondescript bank teller (Elliott Gould) accidentally learns that his bank is going to be robbed and, later, by whom. Anticipating the crime, he steals $50,000 from the bank himself and, when the robber (Christopher Plummer) makes his move, surrenders only a pittance. Though he thinks he has gotten away with his action, the banker is soon faced with the murderous robber, a sadist who will stop at nothing to retrieve what he thinks he should have had in the first place.

In the 1970s, the Canadian film industry was still very small. It had great potential, but any actor who wanted to expand their career, actors such as Plummer, and Donald Sutherland, had to work in Britain or the United States (or France, if they were from Quebec) to do so – though they often continued to remain professionally true to their homeland, as well. To someone such as myself, though a youngster at the time, Canadian movies seemed made for art rather than for entertainment. While laudable, this thinking guaranteed a very limited audience and a thin future.

The Silent Partner was very different. On a par with some of the best bank-robbery films, its story is original, its characters three dimensional and its direction sharp. Gould gives an excellent performance as a likeable man who sees his one chance “to start over”, and takes it, finding then that the consequences are far different than what he had expected. Unusually, his character develops noticeably and realistically during the story. While this may, in less capable scripts, have been ascribed simply to having sudden wealth ($50,000 was a lot more in 1978 than it is now), Gould’s personality realises its potential seemingly through the ordeal of having to outwit, if he can, the not unintelligent – and limitlessly ruthless – Plummer. He finds his strength as he goes along.

Plummer, for his part, is not just a generic crazy criminal. He brings true menace to his character. He doesn’t kill whenever he feels like it; he knows he cannot get away with everything. His temper is explosive, but he is cunning, and has patience; he even admires what he sees as similar qualities in Gould. His is a believable creation, and thus frightening.

The supporting characters, Susannah York and Céline Lomez as women who become a part of the drama, are strong, too, though with less opportunity to show it. They grow as well, thanks to Gould’s predicament, though their growth is not always beneficial to them.

The script is smart and the direction produces true tension, notably in a confrontation conducted by telephone, a brutal fight in Gould’s apartment, and the climax, the end of which most viewers likely will not expect.

While nudity and expletives give The Silent Partner a 1970s gloss, the movie could have come straight from the golden age of film noir, and, in black and white, had perhaps Dana Andrews in the lead, and a villain a la Richard Widmark, in Kiss of Death. The Silent Partner deserves to be ranked with some of the best of the genre.