Throw Momma from the Train

“Owen asked his friend Larry for a small favor.”

Owen Lift (Danny DeVito) sits in a writing workshop, still living with the mother who browbeats him, until a Hitchcock movie gives him an idea. The teacher, Larry Donner (Billy Crystal), is a stalled novelist stuck with an ex-wife who stole his book and his career, and Owen offers to swap murders. DeVito, in his first film as director, plays all of it at a brisk, deadpan trot.