In March 1979 a small scale but offbeat and ingenious little crime drama entitled The Silent Partner slipped into U.S. theaters without any advance word. A Canadian tax shelter write-off, the movie might have passed unnoticed if it hadn’t been for a handful of U.S. film critics who championed the release such as Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times, who called it “a thriller that was not only intelligently and well acted and very scary, but also had the most audaciously clockwork plot I’ve seen in a long time…it’s worthy of Hitchcock.” And Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it “a dense, quirky, uncommonly interesting movie, this time with a high quotient of suspense.” 

Over the years The Silent Partner has built up a considerable fan base and has become a welcome Yuletide viewing alternative (it is set during the Christmas season) to the umpteenth airings of It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol. What most American viewers don’t realize is that The Silent Partner is a remake of the 1969 Danish thriller Think of a Number (Taenk pa et tal), directed by Palle Kjaerulff-Schmidt.

Based on a novel by Anders Bodelsen, who wrote a number of crime dramas about ordinary people caught up in amoral situations, Think of a Number was a popular success in Denmark and even inspired a 1972 West German TV remake under the title Der Amateur. What is particularly striking about Kjaerulff-Schmidt’s Think of a Number and The Silent Partner is how different they are from each other in tone, execution and certain plot details yet still manage to surprise and delight the viewer with the many twists and turns of the narrative. It is a rare case of a remake being as good as the original and together they would make a killer double feature.

Think of a Number is set in a small regional bank during the Christmas season and focuses on Flemming Borck (Henning Moritzen), a buttoned-up and impersonal bank teller who doesn’t fraternize much with his co-workers. One day he is cleaning up some paper trash from the counter and notices a duplicate copy of a withdrawal slip that reads, “It’s a revolver in my pocket. Give me everything without alarming the staff.” After this Borck regards every bank customer with suspicion, especially a man in a Santa Claus outfit who approaches Borck in a menacing manner and then quickly leaves when a small boy asks him what he has in his pockets.

Borck follows the Santa Claus figure as he disappears in a rest room and re-emerges without the costume. The tense looking younger man then jumps on a motorcycle and rides off into the snow covered countryside. Borck later follows the same route and notices a shack with the exact motorcycle parked outside. This is just the beginning of a cat and mouse game that will transpire between Borck and Sorgenfrei (Paul Huttel), who will indeed rob Borck’s bank. The bank teller, of course, has been expecting this so he transfers the money in the teller’s till (around 188,000 Danish Krone) into a private strong box. When Sorgenfrei stages his surprise heist, Borck gives him what is in the drawer (a small amount) but the robber realizes immediately he’s been tricked. He flees as the bank alarm goes off but Borck hasn’t seen the last of him. Meanwhile, the bank teller hides the money he took in his safety deposit box and prepares for the subsequent police investigation.

Borck is an intriguing character because he doesn’t seem dishonest until the opportunity presents itself and then he becomes almost maniacal in his plotting. The money offers Borck an escape from his drab, lonely life, which is occasionally interrupted by visits to see his ailing father in a nursing home. It is only when Jane (Bibi Andersson), a nurse at his father’s facility, enters his life that Borck begins to imagine and plan for a new life.

[The rest of this article contains spoilers] Jane turns out to be a complete fraud. Her real name is Alice, she isn’t a nurse or knows Borck’s father and is in cohoots with Sorgenfrei. But she betrays her lover for Borck and the duo escape to a Spanish resort as a detective follows their trail and the vengeful Sorgenfrei does likewise.

The finale of Think of a Number is completely unexpected with the true criminal of the piece – Sorgenfrei – emerging as the hero in a sense. Borck’s evolution from a nondescript white collar worker to an embezzler and murderer is also a surprising twist. But this is not how The Silent Partner plays out.

For one thing, Miles (Elliott Gould), the main protagonist, is much more eccentric and amiable than Borck. He doesn’t seem capable of deceiving a psychopathic robber like Reike (Christopher Plummer) but he is a lot slyer than he looks. He also initiates a stop-start romantic relationship with fellow employee Julie (Susannah York), which is constantly interrupted every time they attempt to make love (one of the running jokes in The Silent Partner).

In the Danish version, Borck makes romantic overtures to coworker Miriam (Kirsten Peuliche) but he has an ulterior motive – he needs her discreet assistance in acquiring a new key to his safety deposit box. When Miriam ends up marrying Jorgen, a fellow employee, she becomes a background character unlike Julie, who figures prominently in the happy but amoral ending of The Silent Partner.

Another crucial difference between the Danish and Canadian versions of the movie is the portrayal of Sorgenfrei/Reikle. Paul Huttel’s would-be robber seems more like an inexperienced street hustler than a career criminal and he is more threatening as a blackmailer than a violent assailant. Christopher Plummer’s Reikle, however, is a truly frightening creation who often explodes in a violent rage (he tortures a prostitute in one scene and later decapitates his partner in crime on the jagged glass of a broken fish tank, an unusually graphic scene). Reikle also enjoys the art of disguise as witnessed by his Santa Claus costume and later, in drag, as a rather prim, matronly female bank customer.

Last but most importantly the finales of both versions are markedly different in tone. Think of a Number has a poetic justice fadeout that finds Borck a victim of his own design. By contrast, The Silent Partner sees Miles and Julie en route to a holiday together in what is an obvious happy ending. Regardless, Miles is guilty of embezzlement and Julie is an accessory to the crime but they have no moral guilt over what they have done and get off scot free.

Of the two movies, The Silent Partner has a much quirkier mix of humor and suspense with a first rate script and dialogue by Curtis Hanson, who would become a much in-demand director in the 1990s with films like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), The River Wild (1994) and L.A. Confidential (1997). The director, Daryl Duke, had previously directed the overlooked character study Payday (1973) with Rip Torn, which received a special award from the National Society of Film Critics “for a person working in cinema whose contribution to film art has not yet received due public recognition.”

The Silent Partner is also noteworthy as jazz pianist Oscar Peterson’s first film score. Among the other cast members that deserve a mention are John Candy in a small, humorous role as a bank employee and the sexy Celine Lomez as the ill-fated femme fatale who seduces Elliott Gould.

Think of a Number has a more bleak, wintry setting in comparison to The Silent Partner and Kjaerulff-Schmidt’s terse directorial style makes Borck’s escalating sociopathic behavior of greater interest than the initial bank robbery, which merely ignites his amorality. Henning Moritzen is excellent in the starring role and is considered one of Denmark’s most acclaimed actors, appearing in art house favorites like Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (1972) and Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration (1998). Bibi Andersson, another Bergman favorite, is equally good in an uncharacteristic villainess role as the deceptive Jane/Alice. In addition, the moody but occasionally playful music score by Bent Fabricius-Bjerre is quite memorable.

Both Think of a Number and The Silent Partner are highly recommended for fans of offbeat crime thrillers and deserve to be better known. KL Studio Classics released a special edition Blu-ray of The Silent Partner in June 2019 which includes a new interview with Elliott Gould and other extras. Think of a Number is not currently available on any format in the U.S. but you might be able to find a streaming option for it on the internet with English subtitles.

Other links of interest:

Daryl Duke

An Interview with Elliott Gould

Obituary: Palle Kjærulff-Schmidt

https://www.dfi.dk/en/english/danish-film-history/danish-film-history-1896-1910

https://nordics.info/show/artikel/anders-bodelsen