Silent Partner, The (1978)

This Canadian remake of a Danish film called Think of a Number (Tænk på et tal) has timid bachelor bank teller Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould) held up at gunpoint – but he has anticipated the robbery and stolen $50,000 of the money himself before the crook, Harry Reikle (Christopher Plummer), arrives.

When the sadistic crook realises he’s been fooled, he tracks Miles down and engages him in a cat-and-mouse battle of wits for the cash.

Miles goes through a Walter Mitty-like transformation. One moment he’s a bumbling loser trapped in a meaningless, humdrum existence, then – poof – he suddenly emerges as a man not only capable of outwitting the psychopathic bank robber but a superstud who not only seduces Reikle’s girlfriend, Elaine (young Quebec actress Céline Lomez, who walks through the movie with very few clothes on) but his boss’s mistress (Susannah York) as well.

The former falls so hard for Miles that she’d rather have her head sawed off and dumped in his fish tank than turn over the keys to the vault where the money is hidden.

Susannah York is like an orchid blooming among all the dandelions. She inexplicably falls for the bank manager, sharing him with his equally dull suburban wife. The manager callously hands her over to Miles as the official escort for office do’s to circumvent his suspicious wife. “She won’t mind,” he smugly assures Miles as he presses him into service for the office Christmas party.

Filmed entirely on location in Toronto, the main location is the Eaton Centre – a mall and office tower complex which opened a few months before the movie was shot.

Silent Partners was the unlikely winner of the best Candian film award.

Miles Cullen
Elliott Gould
Harry Reikle
Christopher Plummer
Julie
Susannah York
Elaine
Céline Lomez
Charles Packard
Michael Kirby
Bank Guard
Sean Sullivan
Detective Willard
Ken Pogue
Simonsen
John Candy
Louise
Gail Dahms
Berg
Michael Donaghue
Fogelman
Jack Duffy
Mrs Packard
Charlotte Blunt
Mrs Evanchuk
Aino Pirskanen
Bank Assistant
Candace O’Connor
Freddie
Stephen Levy

Director
Daryl Duke