Silver Bears. 1977. UK. Directed by Ivan Passer. Screenplay by Peter Stone. With Michael Caine, Cybill Shepherd, Louis Jordan. 35mm courtesy the UCLA Film & Television Archive. 113 min.
Jump at the chance to see Silver Bears at MoMA because you’re unlikely to see it again anytime soon. With his quirky comic timing, Ivan Passer (Intimate Lighting, Cutter’s Way)—who, incidentally, is said with fellow Czech New Waver Miloš Forman to have been the inspiration for Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd’s Wild and Crazy Guys—has great fun on this intricate farce, adapted by Peter Stone (Charade, Arabesque) from Paul Erdman’s novel about a money-laundering scheme involving a Swiss bank, an Iranian silver mine, and a commodities panic at the London stock exchange. Michael Caine plays the crass Las Vegas mob accountant who teams with Louis Jourdan, the suave, destitute Italian prince who fronts the operation, while Martin Balsam, Cybill Shepard, Stéphane Audran, Tom Smothers, Joss Ackland, and an exceedingly young and dumb Jay Leno are on hand to make an even finer mess of things.