The Woman in Red (1984)

I love this movie so much

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Light comedies look like the easiest things to make when they work, but when they don't, it's more like quantum physics on acid. Take this 1984 sex farce.Teddy Pierce (Gene Wilder) is a happily married ad man in San Francisco who goes gaga when he catches a glimpse of a beautiful model (Kelly LeBrock) in racy undies. With the help of some friends, Teddy works around the suspicions of his wife (Judith Ivey) and the anger of a spurned co-worker (Gilda Radner) to arrange a furtive rendezvous with the object of his desire.Best remembered today for the film debut of the bodacious LeBrock and a soundtrack that featured Stevie Wonder's hit song "I Just Called To Say I Love You," this is a movie that aims low and still misses. Wilder, who wrote and directed, presents a comedy that is not only not funny, but so tonally off as to become uncomfortable to watch.Take the scenes with Radner. One of the great comedic talents of her time, Radner's wasted here as the butt of humor as mean as it is nonsensical. We see her as a love-starved crone being duped by bad luck into thinking Teddy wants to get romantic with her, only to find he doesn't. This drives her to inflict vengeance on him and his helpless car. Why does Teddy put up with this, rather than take it up with her or with HR?You might answer that it's because this is a farce, but elsewhere "The Woman In Red" is played much more dramatically, too much so. Two of Teddy's male friends undergo crises involving romantic partners that are played very seriously, and developed in a heavy- handed way by Wilder that threatens his largely jokeless comedy. Or was I supposed to be laughing when Joseph Bologna has a nervous breakdown after discovering his wife and kids left him?Wilder is only a little more successful working on Teddy's home life, as when Teddy discovers his wife keeps a revolver around the house and admits to being easily jealous."You realize you might have shot me?" he tells her after her gun accidentally goes off."I would never do that," she answers. "Not without a reason."There are also little side bits that never make any sense, like a daughter's boyfriend who sports an aggressive Mohawk hairdo and makes clumsy passes at Teddy's wife, or a destructive and pointless gag Teddy's friends play at a fancy restaurant. These don't connect to the main story, and they aren't funny on their own.At one point, we discover Teddy's wife hosts a diet clinic in their home for reasons that are never explained. The entire purpose of this seems to be to provide Wilder with an excuse for some physical humor, walking through a thick crowd of people in his character's living room while an instructor drones on about something called "the Alphabet diet:" "You have to watch yourself carefully because by the time you get to 'P,' you might put on all the weight you lost on 'K,'" she tells them.And what of LeBrock's character, Charlotte? As male fantasy object, she certainly works for me. Yet except for one scene in an elevator with Charles Grodin (playing one of Teddy's friends), she never breaks out of that to develop any comic identity or dramatic interest.Wilder's performance alternates between goofy and wan; he was in an odd period in his career after some fantastic comedic performances over the prior 15 years apparently left him with no more mountains to climb. He seems tired and disengaged here, adding to the weight of a very labored film.

This movie came to mind out of a somewhat unrelated office conversation. I recall this movie as being lighthearted and funny. Wow, one of the reviews here was REALLY rough....As funny as cancer?? Wow. I'm not going to bash someone else's review, but I think everyone's had an infatuation at one time or another. And his attempt to "cheat" ....(was he daydreaming? I forget)....totally backfires in a comedy of errors. To say that this movie was blueprint for how to cheat on your wife is like saying Stripes was a blueprint for how to screw up in the army or Tootsie was a blueprint for how to cross-dress your way onto a soap opera. Kelly LeBrock was the it girl of the moment and the Stevie Wonder soundtrack kept the movie fun and upbeat.

Some movies are good, most not. Of the ones that are not, they still can be fun. This project made money when it was new, but is now not only unengaging but repulsive. Why is actually engaging, because it just cannot be explained by fading fashions.There is plenty of that: smoking, TWA, pretty airline "stewardesses," gay jokes, the implication that an "airline pilot" is both a status job and that they are tough. A gun joke. Below that is a notion of sexuality, manhood and marriage that is at least unfashionable, and noticeably as bankrupt as the currently marketed ones. It had all the attention that a success needs: two then popular movie comics, production values, songs by two of the then biggest pop stars... a script that was already proved as a success in France and (brief) full frontal nudity. So why did this age so poorly? I think it is because it was not good in the first place and viewers did not notice. Contrast this with "The Hangover," which banks on equally inept but currently fashionable notions in those areas. It is, however, completely novel, well constructed and essentially cinematic. This has none of those things to fall back on.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Gene Wilder tries to pull off the triple threat of writing, acting and directing in this remake of a French film but he doesn't succeed, much like Jerry Lewis failed in his similar attempts. The film is supposed to be a comedy but it's just not funny at all and there's probably nothing that makes people cringe more than an unfunny comedy. No one is any good in this film. Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna and Gilda Radner are wasted. Yet another model trying to be an actress, Kelly LeBrock, as the woman in red, stinks. Don't waste your time on this. Instead, see Wilder in his only good role as the hysterical Leo Bllom in Mel Brook's classic The Producers.