The Frisco Kid
1979 marketing for the film heavily emphasizes Gene Wilder's role in the film, with little marketing of Harrison Ford's supporting role, despite Ford having been in the blockbuster Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) two years earlier. When The Frisco Kid was released on DVD, the cover was a blow up of Ford's face, with Wilder relegated to a small corner of the cover.,In a conversation between Avram and Tommy there is a reference to the country of Czechoslovakia. The film is set in 1850 but Czechoslovakia was established in 1918 as a result of WW1. The territory was then called Bohemia.,Avram: [Trying to catch a wild 'chicken'] Chicken, chicken, chicken! Chickie-chickie-chickie-chicken! Come here,
[sing-songs]
Avram: I don't want to hurt you, I just want to eat you.
[repeats in Yiddish, 'chicken' flies away]
Avram: Come here, wait! I don't want to hurt you! I just want to make you kosher!,Featured in Sneak Previews: Just You and Me, Kid/The Frisco Kid/Goldengirl/The Villain/Breaking Away (1979),Beautiful Dreamer
Composed by Stephen Foster (as Stephen Collins Foster),This is one of my all-time favorite comedies. A lot of it is gritty, but the movie never loses sight of the humor it's trying to get across.

Gene Wilder is the center of it. Anyone could have played Ford's role, but he does a competent job. He's not really believable, but the ROLE isn't believable. It's hard to be a good guy when you're threatening peoples' lives in order to rob them.

Wilder is the whole movie, except for Val Bisoglio as Chief Gray Cloud. Wilder portrays a lost man in the wilds of frontier America, and he does it well. The movie itself deftly avoids moralizing about the 'right' religion. The Amish people helping the Rabbi on his journey is very realistic. They would not have turned down another religious man; they would have helped him, just as they do, in the film. I appreciate little touches, like this. It would have been far too easy to portray the Amish (or Mennonites; it's hard to tell, with a movie set in that time period) as ultraconservative bigots, but instead, the production crew chose to show them realistically.

This is a sweet, funny movie, with some real drama, unless you're just too cynical to care. And if you ARE too cynical to care, I truly pity you. This is a fun, exciting movie that anyone should like.

knsevy KCMO,