As many people hit the road for Thanksgiving, the madcap movie that presaged many modern travelers’ woes is being re-released with more than an hour of never-before-seen footage.
The Steve Martin and John Candy holiday comedy classic, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” is now on 4K Ultra HD and includes a bonus “lost luggage” Blu-ray disc with recently found deleted and extended scenes from director John Hughes’ archives.
The movie stars Martin as Neal Page — an advertising executive who is trying to get to Chicago for Thanksgiving but is instead rerouted to Wichita, Kansas. That’s where he hooks up with the Candy character Del Griffith for an inadvertently multimodal journey that lands them in a series of compromising situations involving rental cars, hitched rides and roadside motels, as well as planes and trains.
In addition to newly found footage, the bonus Blu-Ray disc also features Dylan Baker’s audition for the character of Owen, a tobacco-chewing redneck who gives the Martin and Candy characters a ride in the bed of his beat-up orange pickup truck, as well as a tribute to the late John Candy and a two-part documentary about director John Hughes.
BIG NEWS: The new 4K release of PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES contains the legendary 75 minutes of deleted scenes that have been whispered about for decades. Finally, witness John Candy smoke and eat a hot dog at the same time. pic.twitter.com/cW3mv33pJZ
— Justin Decloux (@DeclouxJ) November 22, 2022
A 1980s icon, Hughes wrote and directed “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” which was originally released on Nov. 25, 1987, and was re-released by Paramount Home Entertainment for its 35th anniversary on Tuesday. Hughes also directed the 1990 holiday classic, “Home Alone,” starring Macaulay Culkin.