The Best Christmas Movie You’ve Never Heard Of: ‘The Silent Partner’

We’re all familiar with the Christmas cinematic classics, but if you’re not quite ready for yet another run of Elf (2003), Home Alone (1990), The Holdovers (2023) or even Die Hard (1988) you might want to take a look at a movie that takes Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa’s (2003) somewhat dark counter-programming take on “the season to be jolly” to another level. That movie is Daryl Duke and Curtis Hanson’s Hitchcockian gem The Silent Partner (1978).

The Silent Partner ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Daryl Duke & Curtis Hanson
Written by: Anders Bodelsen, Curtis Hanson
Starring: Elliot Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York
Running time: 1hr 46mins

Made in the heyday of the Canadian movie production tax shelter era (1975-1982) that allowed for a gobsmacking 100% tax write off for investors in Canadian films, The Silent Partner was filmed in late 1970s Toronto. The epically woeful It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975) starring Anthony Newley and Isaac Hayes typified the often shambolic nature of these tax shelters masquerading as movies. Duke and Hanson’s effort, though, significantly transcended the typical quality of what rapidly became known as “canuxploitation” products or even more dismissively “dentist films.” Ouch!

Not so The Silent Partner. It won Best Feature Film and Best Direction at the 1978 Canadian Film Awards and was nominated for several others. The film had a good pedigree including a jazz score from the legendary Canadian pianist and composer Oscar Peterson. The film’s screenplay was based on the crime thriller Think of a Number by award wining Danish neo-realist author Anders Bodelsen who delighted in placing ordinary middle class characters in situations that tested their morals and tempted them with crime.

The film stars Elliott Gould as Miles Cullen, a rumpled bank teller working in a shiny new Toronto mall. Gould was forty years old when he made this film and nicely portrays the resignation of a seemingly milquetoast character worn out and a little too old for his job. One day during the Christmas season, Cullen inadvertently learns of plans to rob his bank. The previously phlegmatic teller comes to life, deciding that this might be the time to get a nice seasonal bonus. No spoilers, but it involves a department store Santa Claus with some problematic penmanship and Mullen’s delightful ingenuity.

One of the joys of this film is that Duke and Hanson do not hand anything to the viewer. You really need to be paying attention. At the time Gould reportedly said it was one of the best scripts he’d ever read. He was right. Canadian actor Christopher Plummer is a revelation as Harry Reikle, an eerily intelligent violent career criminal. The scene where Reikle sits in a bar watching the local news report on his robbery and realises he has a silent partner is riveting.

Susannah York, who plays the multi-layered Julie Carver, a bank employee senior to Cullen, fills out the trio of intriguing main characters. None of them are what they seem. None of them are particularly, if the right opportunity arises, averse to engaging in crime. Being a Canadian film of that era John Candy shows up in a serious supporting role and handles it with aplomb.

The film is full of great minor characters, interesting moods, small satisfying moments, and sometimes startling scenes. In particular, after one notorious sequence that takes place in Cullen’s apartment you will never look at large home aquariums the same way. Rumor has it the scene which rivals the shocker found midway through Altman’s The Long Goodbye was the reason Duke left the project and Hanson came in.

Regardless of how they two-handed it, these two men created a Christmas classic. And all while saving some Canadian investors a whack of money on their taxes.