The Woman in Red

There are moments of real humor and real emotion in this otherwise frivolous sex comedy about a married man smitten with a glamorous model. Read full review

The film is fairly tolerable as these things go: Wilder takes time off from the steamrolling plot for improvised bits with some actor buddies (including Charles Grodin and Joseph Bologna), and the project as a whole is a lot less mawkish than we've come to expect from Wilder's directorial efforts. Still, it ain't exactly state of the art. Read full review

A picture as secondhand and conventional as The Woman in Red can't generate much enthusiasm, but it displays more buoyancy and incidental comic appeal than one anticipates. Wilder's judgment hasn't proved especially sound, so perhaps it's commercially prudent to pin him down to an apparently reliable pretext or scenario. Still, the results would probably have been more satisfying if his nervous keepers had permitted this sometimes misguided but endearing mutt of a funnyman a slightly longer leash in a slightly roomier kennel. [16 Aug 1984, p.B2]

Much less painful than a walk in the summer heat, but not quite as pleasant as a swim in a cool pool. [15 Aug 1984]

Menopausal male Wilder gets the frustrated hots for comely Ms Le Brock in this broad, unfunny Hollywood remake of the broad, only vaguely funny French original Pardon Mon Affaire (which at least had long-faced Jean Rochefort in its favour). Read full review