Wilder should have avoided this damn poor american remake of a classic french movie "un éléphant ça trompe énormément", made with legendary actors. wilder's movie is a total steal, yet, he succeeded at making it unfunny, boring, it's a total disrespect to the original movie and the actors aren't good. What ? Americans can't read subtitles ? they're so closed to the exterior of America ? how many movies did they steal and make lame in the end ..... countless. the only thing good in it is the sexy Kelly le brock.

Back in 1984, when I was 35, I saw this movie and liked it very much. Watching it this time around, on cable, I almost turned it off after the first 20 minutes. And I began thinking...what was it that I liked about Gene Wilder? What is it about Gene Wilder that makes him seem so much more dated than actors from the 1940s? Ah well. But I didn't turn off the movie, and I was glad I didn't...with a few reservations. First, the reservations. Today we call Gene Wilder's actions in this film "stalking". We call some of the comments and actions by other male characters in the film "sexual harassment". And, Gilda Radner all but disappears halfway through the film. But worst of all, this film has to have one of the lousiest endings in cinema history. Does his marriage live or die? Very unsatisfactory.However, the movie also has its redeeming facets. A dignified gay character at a time when that was rare in American cinema. Some sentimental snippets about what friendship really is (along with some about what friendship isn't).The actors here are interesting, if not good. Gene Wilder was Gene Wilder; nothing new there; pleasant on screen. Kelly LeBrock as the super model; well, a rather short film career with little real depth. Gilda Radner was fun. Charles Grodin, whom I never saw as a "real" actor, comes off nicely here as the gay character that manages to hang onto straight friendships; Grodin was always a pleasant man to see on screen. Joseph Bologna...well, difficult to like the role, but he played it well. Judith Ivey as Wilder's wife...perhaps the best acting in the film.Dated, very imperfect, disappointing...but still worth a watch...one more time.

While this is an American film version of a foreign film, it seems more to be a rip-off of "10". Married Gene Wilder spots a beautiful woman (Kelly Lee Brock) and becomes obsessed with her. He basically spends 90 minutes humiliating himself, leading on a needy secretary (Gilda Radner, totally wasted), and making excuses to his devoted wife (Judith Ivey). Radner tries to be funny with her "Fatal Attraction" like revenge, but the material betrays her. Some good shots of mid 80's San Francisco and a series of pleasant songs by Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick (including the Academy Award Winning "I Just Called to Say I Love You") help make this a slight bit more tolerable, but the humor is juvenile, the set-up beyond believable, and the script (by Wilder) dull. A scene with one of Wilder's workers pretending to be blind in a restaurant and destroying it is a pale imitation of the similar scene in the W.C. Fields classic "It's a Gift" and totally out of place.As for LeBrock, she is certainly eye catching in the garage scene wearing the titular red dress, but is a beautiful block of ice otherwise. Wilder is a talented comic, but he seems to be holding back (strange considering he was directing himself speaking his own dialog!) and is definitely missing the partnership that shown on screen for him with Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor in previous ventures. Radner, one of the funniest women since Lucy, deserved much better in the few films she made, and her presence is a total missed opportunity. Ivey would fare better on stage and in later character roles where she was truly able to let herself go. Joseph Bologna and Charles Grodin are even more wasted as Wilder's cronies. With talent like this, you expect so much more.

"Pardon mon Affaire" is the French film which gets the re-make treatment in director/star Gene Wilder's "The Woman in Red". One is hard pressed to recall a memorable effort at this now common practice ("Three Fugitives" was perhaps the most enjoyable), and this 1984 movie is no exception.Wilder plays a happily married man who suddenly finds himself in mid-life crisis when he falls for a stunning young model whom he attempts to have an affair with. His naive pursuit of the woman (Kelly LeBrock) sees his once cosy family life and his safe existence soon rapidly unravelling.As a comedy the film is reasonably enjoyable, though most of the best moments are totally unrelated to the plot, which of course is rather weak. "The Woman in Red" doesn't work at all as either a romance nor as a serious drama about infidelity.Of course director Gene Wilder probably never meant for his movie to be taken very seriously at all, however the comedy alone is not enough to carry it, and none of the acting helps any either (Charles Grodin - with his uncanny ability to turn nothing into something - is the only exception). Not much to laugh at in this impotent show.Friday, June 10, 1994 - T.V.