There was a time when Arthur Hiller was one of the more widely feted names in Hollywood, thanks to a string of popular comedies that he directed through the latter half of the 20th century. Nowadays he seems largely forgotten; popular hits including The Americanization of Amy (1964), The Out-of-Towners (1970), and The In-Laws (1979) were acclaimed by critics and popular with audiences at the time. They now feel consigned to obscurity. Even Love Story (1970), which was a massive commercial hit and received seven Oscar nominations, seems largely forgotten. It all seems rather a shame. Hiller had a genuine gift for directing comedy, and at his best delivered some of Hollywood’s most enjoyable films. Silver Streak, a comedic thriller released in 1976, feels particularly obscure.

Book editor George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) takes a train from Los Angeles to Chicago, expecting a quiet two days of reading books and gazing at the scenery. Instead he finds a sudden love affair with secretary Hilly Burns (Jill Clayburgh), witnesses a murder, becomes the target of a criminal mastermind (Patrick McGoohan), is trapped inside an FBI investigation, and goes on the run with a car thief (Richard Pryor).

If history remembers Silver Streak for anything, it is as the first film to team up Gene Wilder with Richard Pryor. The pair appeared together another three times in what was a creatively fruitful partnership. For this first occasion it takes a surprisingly long time for Pryor to appear, but when it does it is via one of the film’s finest comedic moments.

They work together with tremendous chemistry right from the beginning, even during what is easily Silver Streak’s most contentious moment: Pryor making Wilder up in blackface to sneak past the police. I have no doubt it was dubious at the time, and history has not been any kinder to the sequence. The offence feels somewhat mitigated by Pryor’s character effectively controlling the scene, but it is a relief when the scene passes and the film can return to less awkward territory.

Before Pryor makes his entrance Silver Streak is an unexpected blend of genres, in which Wilder’s idiosyncratic editor unwittingly wanders into a Hitchcock-style thriller. There is a murder and a McGuffin – what Hitchcock called any object that exists for characters to fight over – and unexpected narrative twists and turns. The confined train setting ups the tension, but it also gets regularly punctured by a clever running joke. Truth be told things are never tense enough for Silver Streak to succeed as a thriller, nor are they funny enough to solely succeed as comedy. The value comes in combining the two, and developing something that is as entertaining as it is distinctive.

Jill Clayburgh makes for an excellent female lead, while Patrick McGoohan is wonderfully odd as the chief antagonist; he has the strangest way of delivering his lines, that fans of his television work will find charmingly familiar. There is a range of other good supporting performances from the likes of Ray Walston, Ned Beatty, and even comic performer Fred Willard in an early role.

Silver Streak feels like a minor gem waiting to be rediscovered, however I suspect independent distributors – as well as some audiences – will be repelled by the bluntly inappropriate blackface sequence. It is a shame because there is so much here to enjoy, particularly for fans of Wilder and Pryor.