This role was Elliott Gould's final hurrah in the '70s.

In a decade that seemed to have an endless supply of great thrillers, Daryl Duke’s excellent 1978 tale of brutal gamesmanship, The Silent Partner, is one of the era’s most unfairly forgotten genre pictures. Duke is probably best known for directing the soapy Thorn Birds TV miniseries, but he turned out a pair of first-rate pictures during the ’70s: Payday, his drama about a dissolute country singer, and this tense thriller, which is blessed with a taut screenplay by a young Curtis Hanson, who would, of course, go on to co-write and direct L.A. Confidential.

Meek Toronto bank teller Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould) loves tropical fish and chess, but the world doesn’t love (or respect) him. The co-worker he adores (Susannah York) thinks he’s a wet rag and is sleeping with their married boss. But the mild-mannered teller has an epiphany when he accidentally discovers that a mall Santa Claus (Christopher Plummer) is going to rob his branch. Knowing what’s heading his way, Cullen hatches a plan to divert most of the funds to his waiting briefcase, hand over a small sum to the robber and use the loot to start his life all over again somewhere else. The scheme goes off without a hitch, save one–the thief is a sadistic maniac who figures out what’s happened and will stop at nothing to get the money back from the mousey banker. But Cullen is the mouse that roared, and he engages in a high-stakes game of wits with his murderous rival.

This movie is bursting with talent, featuring everything from Gould in the sweet spot of his career to a small supporting turn from John Candy to a score composed by jazz great Oscar Peterson. But perhaps most memorable of all is Plummer. Incredibly wicked and wearing heavy eye make-up, he looks like a mannequin come to life with homicidal rage. Even the tropical fish should be very afraid.