The Frisco Kid is a 1979 American Western comedy film directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Gene Wilder as Avram Belinski, a Polish rabbi who is traveling to San Francisco, and Harrison Ford as a bank robber who befriends him.
Plot
Rabbi Avram Belinski, newly graduated at the bottom of his class from a Polish yeshiva, arrives in Philadelphia en route to San Francisco where he will be a congregation's new rabbi. He has with him a Torah scroll for the San Francisco synagogue. Belinski, an innocent, trusting, and inexperienced traveler, falls in with three con men, the brothers Matt and Darryl Diggs and their partner Mr. Jones, who trick him into helping pay for a wagon and supplies to go west, then brutally rob him and leave him and most of his belongings scattered along a deserted road in Pennsylvania.
Still determined to make it to San Francisco, Belinski, on foot and exhausted, comes upon a colony of Amish people. From their simple black clothing he jumps to the conclusion that they are "Landsmen", fellow Chasidic Jews, until he notices the Bible carried in the pocket of one of the men, at which point he faints dead away. The local people are not fazed. They take care of Belinski and collect enough money from their congregation to provide him a ticket on the westbound train. When he reaches the end of the line in Ohio, the rabbi manages to find work on the railroad until he saves up enough money to buy a horse and some supplies.
On his way west again, he is befriended and looked after by a stranger named Tommy Lillard, a bank robber with a soft heart who is moved by Belinski's helplessness and frank personality, despite the trouble it occasionally gives him. For instance, when Lillard robs a bank on a Thursday, he finds that Belinski (an Orthodox Jew) will not ride on the Shabbat even with a hanging posse on his trail. They still manage to get away, because the horses are rested from having been walked for a full day. They are fresh and able to ride all night, outdistancing their pursuers. The two also experience American Indian customs and hospitality, disrupt a Trappist monastery's vow of silence with an innocent gesture of gratitude, and learn a little about each other's culture.
While stopping in a small town not too far from San Francisco, Belinski encounters the Diggs brothers and Jones again. He gets into a fight with the three of them and, after taking a beating, is rescued by Lillard, who takes back what they had stolen from Belinski and more besides. Seeking revenge, the three bandits follow the pair and ambush them on a California beach where they have stopped to bathe. A firefight ensues; Tommy shoots Jones dead and grazes Matt Diggs, who flees the scene. Belinski experiences a crisis of faith when he is forced to kill Darryl Diggs in self-defense after Darryl wounded Tommy. Lillard restores his faith by an eloquent argument with simple language, reminding him that he still is what he is inside, despite what he had to do on the beach.
When Matt Diggs, sole survivor of the ambushing trio, prepares to avenge his brother by killing Belinski, Lillard springs to his friend's defense. Belinski, regaining his composure, shows his wisdom and courage in front of the entire community by disarming and exiling Diggs from San Francisco. The film ends with Belinski marrying Rosalie Bender, the younger daughter of the president of the temple with whom he had fallen in love at first sight, not the elder daughter to whom he had been betrothed sight unseen by her father, with Lillard participating in the ceremony as his best man.
Cast
Gene Wilder as Avram Belinski
Harrison Ford as Tommy Lillard
Ramon Bieri as Mr. Jones
Val Bisoglio as Chief Gray Cloud
George Ralph DiCenzo as Darryl Diggs
Leo Fuchs as Chief Rabbi
Penny Peyser as Rosalie Bender
William Smith as Matt Diggs
Jack Somack as Samuel Bender
Beege Barkette as Sarah Mindl Bender
Shay Duffin as O'Leary
Walter Janowitz as Old Amish Man
Frank De Vol as The Red Dog Piano Player
Joe Kapp as Paco Monterano
Clyde Kusatsu as Mr. Ping
Cliff Pellow as Mr. Daniels
Eda Reiss Merin as Mrs. Bender
Vincent Schiavelli as Brother Bruno
Ian Wolfe as Father Joseph
Martin Garner as The Rabbi
David Bradley as Julius Rosensheine
Production
Development
The film was in development for seven years. It was known as No Knife for a long time, then briefly as Greenhorn before someone suggested The Frisco Kid.