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THE WOMAN IN RED
The recent passing of Joseph Bologna gave the 1984 comedy The Woman in Red a bump up on my watchlist. It's an economic little comedy that explores familiar themes and takes a little too long to provide the expected payoff, but the solid cast makes it worth a look.
The late Gene Wilder wrote and directed this comedy in which he plays Teddy Pierce, a San Francisco advertising executive who is married with two kids and puts his entire life at risk after he glimpses a beautiful woman in a red dress (Kelly Le Brock) in the parking garage of the building where he works. It turns out the woman is a model applying for a job at Teddy's agency and he becomes completely obsessed with her, forsaking everything else in his life, despite watching what's happened to his BFF Joey (Bologna), a married womanizer whose wife has just walked out on him and took every stitch of furniture in the apartment.
Throw into the mix a Plain Jane secretary at Teddy's office (the late Gilda Radner) who mistakenly thinks Teddy's obsession is with her and when he allegedly stands her up for a date she thinks he made with her, the Alex Forrest in her comes out, complicating Teddy's life even further.
Anyone who has seen the 1979 Blake Edwards comedy "10" will recognize the themes explored here...a middle-aged man with a terrific life getting ready to throw it away for a brief infatuation and if Wilder's story had adhered strictly to this theme, this might have been an incredible movie, thanks to Wilder's commanding comic presence. Unfortunately, Wilder's screenplay isn't as strong as his direction, a story that goes in several unexpected directions with scenes that have nothing to do with the story at hand and are just distracting. There's a really funny scene with Teddy's other BFF Buddy (Charles Grodin) where he's pretending to be blind and causing a ruckus in a restaurant. The scene was really funny, but I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what the scene had to do with the rest of the movie.
The other problem with this story is that it works very hard at making Teddy Pierce sympathetic when he really shouldn't be. We do snicker when he gives a doctor friend elaborate instructions on a phone call to make to his house about a fake emergency at work or when he plans a romantic evening with his wife right before he plans to spend the weekend out of town with his fantasy girl. Wilder the writer protects Wilder the star even when Teddy should be busted and seems to be letting him get away with all his wrong until a finale that really does provide the payoff we want, even if it's not in the way we expect.
Needless to say, Wilder's performance is simultaneously vibrantly funny and deliciously human and he receives terrific support from Bologna, Grodin, and Judith Ivey is lovely as his very tolerant wife, whose brain is removed for a couple of scenes. Gilda Radner is also brilliant in a performance that garners more laughs in her scenes without a word of dialogue. Mention should also be made of a terrific song score by Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwrick, including Wonder's # 1 smash "I Just Called to Say I Love You". And of course it goes without saying that Le Brock's salute to Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch is seriously sexy. Despite a script that does a little too much meandering, Wilder does provide some solid laughs here.
The recent passing of Joseph Bologna gave the 1984 comedy The Woman in Red a bump up on my watchlist. It's an economic little comedy that explores familiar themes and takes a little too long to provide the expected payoff, but the solid cast makes it worth a look.
The late Gene Wilder wrote and directed this comedy in which he plays Teddy Pierce, a San Francisco advertising executive who is married with two kids and puts his entire life at risk after he glimpses a beautiful woman in a red dress (Kelly Le Brock) in the parking garage of the building where he works. It turns out the woman is a model applying for a job at Teddy's agency and he becomes completely obsessed with her, forsaking everything else in his life, despite watching what's happened to his BFF Joey (Bologna), a married womanizer whose wife has just walked out on him and took every stitch of furniture in the apartment.
Throw into the mix a Plain Jane secretary at Teddy's office (the late Gilda Radner) who mistakenly thinks Teddy's obsession is with her and when he allegedly stands her up for a date she thinks he made with her, the Alex Forrest in her comes out, complicating Teddy's life even further.
Anyone who has seen the 1979 Blake Edwards comedy "10" will recognize the themes explored here...a middle-aged man with a terrific life getting ready to throw it away for a brief infatuation and if Wilder's story had adhered strictly to this theme, this might have been an incredible movie, thanks to Wilder's commanding comic presence. Unfortunately, Wilder's screenplay isn't as strong as his direction, a story that goes in several unexpected directions with scenes that have nothing to do with the story at hand and are just distracting. There's a really funny scene with Teddy's other BFF Buddy (Charles Grodin) where he's pretending to be blind and causing a ruckus in a restaurant. The scene was really funny, but I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what the scene had to do with the rest of the movie.
The other problem with this story is that it works very hard at making Teddy Pierce sympathetic when he really shouldn't be. We do snicker when he gives a doctor friend elaborate instructions on a phone call to make to his house about a fake emergency at work or when he plans a romantic evening with his wife right before he plans to spend the weekend out of town with his fantasy girl. Wilder the writer protects Wilder the star even when Teddy should be busted and seems to be letting him get away with all his wrong until a finale that really does provide the payoff we want, even if it's not in the way we expect.
Needless to say, Wilder's performance is simultaneously vibrantly funny and deliciously human and he receives terrific support from Bologna, Grodin, and Judith Ivey is lovely as his very tolerant wife, whose brain is removed for a couple of scenes. Gilda Radner is also brilliant in a performance that garners more laughs in her scenes without a word of dialogue. Mention should also be made of a terrific song score by Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwrick, including Wonder's # 1 smash "I Just Called to Say I Love You". And of course it goes without saying that Le Brock's salute to Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch is seriously sexy. Despite a script that does a little too much meandering, Wilder does provide some solid laughs here.