History Film / ThrowMommaFromTheTrain

[[caption-width-right:310:Owen asked his friend Larry for a small favor.]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/throwmomma_1613.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Owen asked his friend Larry for a small favor.]]

''Throw Momma from the Train'' is a 1987 BlackComedy directed by Creator/DannyDeVito (his directorial debut), who stars along with Creator/BillyCrystal.

After being instructed by Larry [[StrangersOnATrainPlotMurder to see some Hitchcock films]] to help him learn how to write murder mysteries, Owen comes to believe Larry was secretly sending him a message to exchange murders after watching ''Film/StrangersOnATrain'': Owen is to kill Margaret, and Larry is to kill Owen's monstrous mother. Larry becomes entwined with the idiot "couch potato" when he goes on the lam from being a major suspect in Margaret's murder, since Owen failed to tell him of his intent and didn't allow Larry to create an alibi.

** [[spoiler:Larry's ex-wife gets away with stealing his book, and all the accolades with it, and at the end is set to make more money with the story of how she survived falling off the ship. Larry's victory is simply that he learns to stop obsessing over her, which lets him write another great book.]] (Then again, [[spoiler:her success may not last; she seems intent on milking the book for all it's worth, ie. benefiting from the film rights, but it's tough to follow an act that wasn't yours in the first place, and now that Larry's found success he would have an easier time proving she stole his work.]] Adding to that, even if [[spoiler:Larry weren't successful in writing a new book, Margaret's plan still has 2 fatal flaws in it. 1: She's blowing through the money faster than you could say "bankruptcy", without a plan to make more once the hype of "her" book dies down. And 2: She keeps constantly saying in interviews that she not only has an ex-husband who was also a writer, but one in the same genre who has been published before, meaning sooner or later people are going to read Larry's work and find out they're a little too similar. It's not even wishful thinking to conclude that Margaret's only a KarmaHoudini because of where the movie ended -- though it's likely she'll simply be a OneBookAuthor.]])

* PoorCommunicationKills: All what Larry told Owen to do was to watch a movie made by Alfred Hitchcock in order to help his understand how to make a decent story for murder mystery. Instead, Owen got the bright idea that Larry actually wants him to reenact the plot from said movie by murdering his ex-wife.

* AdaptationDecay: An in-universe example of Owen's new book. [[spoiler: A children's pop-up book version of the events of the movie.]]

* BaitAndSwitch: Owen approaches slowly behind Larry in a laundromat with what looks like a garrote, looking like he's going to strangle him for giving him a hard time in writing class. He startles Larry, and apologizes, holding up a tie, saying Larry dropped it and he was worried it was going to get "rooned" in the rain.

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Margret was never pushed off the boat by Owen. She slipped off by herself trying to reach some fallen jewelry. Even more, she was rescued and never died in the first place.]]

* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Who else?, Momma.

* SenpaiKohai: Yes, Larry is Owen's creative writing teacher, but if Owen were a dog, he'd be emphatically wagging his tail around Larry.

** A straighter example is Larry's literary agent, who ''knew'' Maragret stole his book and signed ''her'' as a new client -- [[spoiler:then after the InUniverse book ''Throw Momma From the Train'', he's once again Larry's agent.]]

* RhetoricalRequestBlunder: Owen overhears Larry saying he wished his wife were dead. Guess what happens. To be fair, Owen doesn't get the idea to kill Margeret until Larry tells him to go to the Hitchcock films being screened at a local theater (to understand how a mystery novel works), and goes on about how his characters have no motivation to commit murder. Unfortunately, for Larry, one of the films being screened is ''Strangers on a Train'', which is ''all'' about murder motives, and Owen thinks Larry intentionally wanted him to see ''that'' particular film which is very close to their current situation.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: InUniverse, the hidden writing {{Aesop}} of the film. While Larry criticizes Mrs. Hazeltine for not knowing the names of the instruments on a submarine, and praises another student for using his experiences in the Naugahyde industry to write a compelling exposé, he doesn't conquer his writer's block [[spoiler:til he writes of his experiences with Owen]].

* CasualDangerDialog: This exchange, while Larry and Owen are in a car with no brakes hurtling through a wooded area:

* IdiotBall: Larry really shouldn't have run around asking friends about having an alibi for Margaret's murder.

* WhatAnIdiot: InUniverse, Larry's literary agent blames Larry for not telling anyone about the book he was writing, making it easy for Margaret to steal it.

* SempaiKohai: Yes, Larry is Owen's creative writing teacher, but if Owen were a dog, he'd be emphatically wagging his tail around Larry.

* FemmeFatale: Margaret.

* FryingPanOfDoom: The SignatureScene of the film. Owen lies and says Larry is his cousin Paddy. When Momma retorts he doesn't have a cousin Paddy, Owen looks at Larry and whacks him over the head with a frying pan, exclaiming, "You ''lied'' to me!" [[invoked]]

* PlayingGertrude: Ramsey played [=DeVito=]'s mother despite being only 15 years older than him, though if the characters are the same ages as their actors, having Owen at 15 might explain some of Momma's latent resentfulness towards him.

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** Owen is a very childish man whose pastimes consist of playing with his childhood coin collection and train set. He has very poor boundary issues, doing things like watching Larry and Beth making love or sneaking up behind Larry to give him his scarf back without announcing his presence. The story he writes for class is an extremely simple murder mystery that's only three pages long and only has two characters. Not to mention him assuming Larry wants him to murder his wife in exchange for killing his mother. It's possible that losing his father at a young age and having to take care of his increasingly unstable mother left him somewhat emotionally stunted.
** Momma herself seems to have some sort of dementia, displaying signs of bipolar disorder and/or Alzheimer's.

-->'''Beth:''' What did you say? "Please don't kill my wife, wink wink?"

* CatapultNightmare: When Larry is in the hospital after falling off the train, he dreams of strangling Margaret, and her face becoming ''his'' face while he's doing it. He cries out as he wakes up and rockets to a sitting position and, in a cold sweat, figures out what he's supposed to do to get rid of all the poison he's been carrying: Write a book about it.

* CatapultNightmare: When Larry is in the hospital after falling off the train, he dreams of strangling Margaret, and her face becoming ''his'' face while he's doing. He cries out as he wakes up and rockets to a sitting position and, in a cold sweat, figures out what he's supposed to do to get rid of all the poison he's been carrying: Write a book about it.

* CatapultNightmare: When Larry is in the hospital after falling off the train, he dreams of her face becoming ''his'' face while he's strangling her. He cries out as he wakes up and, in a cold sweat, figures out what he's supposed to do to get rid of all the poison he's been carrying: Write a book about it.

'''Owen:''' We had a man on our block once was from the East, Mr. Brockman. He was in the button business.\

--> "Larry, Larry! Larry, you're originally from the East, aren't you, Larry?"
--> "Owen!"
--> "We had a man on our block once was from the East, Mr. Brockman. He was in the button business."
--> "Is that right?"
--> "Yeah." ''[Points to the tree branches striking the windshield]'' "This is good! It's like the [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Flintstones']] car wash!"