Notwithstanding some larger deficiencies, the quality of individual gags is reasonably high -- high-spirited, high-strung. There are several larger deficiencies to withstand, however. Gene Wilder, who seems understandably hard-pressed by the multiple chores of acting, writing, and directing, tends to chase after the closest laugh; and the plot and characters, …
Leading off with fiery credits in the color of cheddar cheese and a whip-cracking parody of Frankie Laine's Rawhide theme song, Mel Brooks bursts onto the Western plains; but the terrain gives way, unpredictably, and opens up to allow any whim: a street brawl that spills across the Warner Brothers …
Arthur Penn's Dust Bowl fairy tale, in crackling crisp color, about two romantic runaways, a would-be Robert Taylor and a would-be Jean Arthur, who build a legend around themselves with crime headlines, publicity photos, and sophomoric poems, who achieve sexual success in a wheat field after some earlier worries about …
Woody Allen's sarcastic takeoff on Dr. Reuben's slow-witted sex guide, retaining only the title and the question-answer format, is set up as a series of seven blue-joke skits, each done as a parody of a distinct film genre; the cause for laughter is not always so distinct. With Gene Wilder, …
Meryl Streep stars as the titular doormat, a simpering society hostess who fancies herself an opera singer when in reality, her coloratura style approximates the sounds of barn owls being fed through an Osterizer. As her manager/dark cully, Hugh Grant (sympathetic and syphilitic, Flo looks the other way) keeps the …
Robert Aldrich would appear to be an odd candidate to direct a Gene Wilder vehicle about a pure-in-heart Polish rabbi on a westward trek to set up a synagogue in San Francisco in the 1850s. He handles the assignment with surprising seriousness, but with something less than sensitivity. The movie …
Excruciating romantic comedy about a middle-aged man obsessed with making a baby and having no luck doing it. The pain, though pretty much constant, is at its intensest whenever comedy makes way for "sensitivity" (at which times the pain meant to be felt in your heart slips instead to the …
Pairing up Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner may make a kind of sense to a dating-service computer, but mere humans are apt to find it a strain on the eardrums, if not on credulity. Plugging this pair into a Hitchcockian thriller formula provides the credulity-strain. Richard Widmark, Robert Prosky, Kathleen …
Gene Wilder's spoof on the Old Dark House genre, a genre which seems to run to spoofs more often than not. John Morris's music is the only part of it that runs straight, and is paradoxically the most amusing part. All of the old familiar elements are here, as well …
Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder (the latter manages to steal every mutual scene from the former, who has devoted his entire career to the art of stealing scenes) portray a pair of seedy Jewish theatrical entrepreneurs whose scheme for financial gain depends upon the guaranteed flop of their next show. …
This loving tribute to Gene Wilder celebrates his life and legacy as the comic genius behind an extraordinary string of film roles, from his first collaboration with Mel Brooks, to his inspired on-screen partnership with Richard Pryor. It is illustrated by a bevy of touching and hilarious clips and outtakes, …
Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald had a lot in common with black people. White America didn’t like him. This deferential doc tells his story. In his mind a fellow member of a “despised minority,” the Sears CEO and civil rights champion, among other things, joined forces with Booker T. Washington to …
Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, back together again, trying to recapture some of that old magic (some of what old magic?) in a "concept" comedy about a blind man and a deaf man (and both borderline hysterics) pursued by cops and killers alike. It's all "hook" and nary a nibble. …
Innocuous takeoff on the Lady Vanishes and Night Train railroad thrillers, executed with little sense of the style of the Hitchcock-Reed prototypes, and replacing the sophisticated fun with a more sophomoric type. The poppycock plot has a movie buff's sure feel for standard cloak-and-daggar situations (the funniest gimmick is having …
Bud Yorkin's highly inventive, highly inebriated spoof on the preposterous intrigues of Dumas-esque historical fiction, with Gene Wilder, often a scream, and Donald Sutherland each portraying mismatched twins — dimwit peasants on one side and cruel nobles on the other — who are all brought together by Destiny's design on …