GENE WILDER

(I was half under the impression that after Radner's death he just wanted to take it easier all around. He has contributed to a variety of recent DVDs of older movies -- Willy Wonka, Young Frankenstein, The Producers, all owned and loved by yours truly -- but that's been it in terms of what I saw of public profile.)

I recently saw Gene in Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex which was better than I remembered!

SO

MUCH

"Cast (in alphabetical order)"

A fine combination (though myself, I would go for The Great Muppet Caper).

Um, it would have been rubbish by comparison. C.Little did do a fantastic job. Pryor would have mugged wayyy too much. Don't get me wrong, he's great also. But would have been less good.

He was brilliant in his day, of course. As a child, I was desperately afraid of him for some reason (I'm guessing it had something to do with Willy Wonka), but got over it somehow. The last film I remember him in was The Lady in Red. Did he work again on film after that?

The last major film I can remember seeing any sort of ads/posters for he did was end of the eighties -- See No Evil, Hear No Evil, which was his reunion picture with Richard Pryor. Something like how Wilder was deaf and Pryor was blind and a bunch of allegedly wacky japes set against the typical movie background of Other American People that feature in all buddy movies, adjusted for vaguely current fashions and slang.

BTW he's 72 this year, 72!! I think since he's done so little in the past 20 years, I imagine him as as a (relatively) youthful man, so when I do see him in new film it will probably be quite sad to watch.

Branch Davidian compound and Bradley tanks to thread!

Good lord you're insane. Blazing Saddles is brilliant.

Er, surely the fact you'll find yourself laughing will tell you if it's good or not?

Blazing Saddles is comedy gold. Of course it's scattershot, but the vast majority of gags hit. It's sublimely silly, but nevertheless is one of the best films about racism ever made, thanks, in part to Pryor's briliant gags, such as Cleavon Little taunting the Klansmen, "Where the white women at?". Lily Von Stup is great too. The schnitzengruber! Hedley Lamarr and his linguistic flights!

Gene Wilder is great in Saddles. He's supposed to be a bit spaced out after all. He did spook me in Wonka though...

He had short-lived sitcom on NBC in the early '90s.

Was just reminded of his small role in Bonnie & Clyde--like a short film unto itself with a perfect punchline.

I register my disappointment and displeasure of this news, here.

so brilliant. and he had the loveliest speaking voice, i will miss him greatly

i feel like in a world of straining-to-be-loved (and also straining to be taken seriously as serious clowns) danny kaye/billy crystal/robin williams types, he could be truly sad and poignant and understated AND also just so over-the-top amazingly loud and funny and it seemed so natural to him and there is hardly anyone i can think of who did that and did it so well.

otm

Sam Kinison said he based his stand-up delivery on Gene's YF dynamics

Today I am wearing a black cardboard belt in memory of Gene ;_;

http://watchmeetmake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1371440730_5-1010x568.jpg

wow Kinison yeah you can totally see it.. that's great.

Indeed

I have messy curly ginger hair today, as a tribute.

norman blake tweeted this clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgVS1OhucbI&feature=youtu.be

http://www.vulture.com/2016/08/rip-gene-wilder-simmering-hysteria-genius.html

Nice writeup, but I always feel sad when critics underrate Cleavon Little

I think the "You know... morons" line would land better if Bart didn't laugh at it, but that would be Pryor style and not Little.

I mean, Little does well with the 'taking himself hostage' scene but imagine RP doing it.

Little is good in the relaxed moments but too ..... ?clean? for the lunatic bits

btw David Edelstein's Vulture piece otm on what Brooks and Wilder gave each other. Mel's three best films are the ones with GW, and it's not close.

I had forgotten how much Young Frankenstein was Wilder's baby until I heard some of an archival Fresh Air interview today. Brooks hesitated at directing it when it was offered to him.

I haven't seen any of the 4 films Wilder directed, although there is a high-school yearbook photo of me that references Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother.

anyone read his fiction?

My parents took us to see See No Evil Hear No Evil when my sister and I were like 10 and 11. That's weird, right?

anyone read his fiction?

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

I think it's Little's "cleaness" that makes him great! That and good looks and comic timing and fucking charm to spare. I love Pryor, obviously, but I feel like the movie would be lopsidedly abrasive with him in it.

(Speaking as someone who watched Silver Streak once a month for several years of his life. That is a *terrible* movie but I love it.)

Cleavon Little is perfect in the role.

i think abrasiveness is what's best about BS, but that's down to taste. Wilder would have still injected it with sweetness; it's maybe his only major role where he doesn't enter the hysteria/strangled scream mode (or am I forgetting?).

Did Wilder direct Haunted Honeymoon? That is a terrible movie that I will absolutely watch again.

^ i am almost certain i had that thought yesterday, word for word

usual comprehensive obit/interview roundup

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-gene-wilder-1933-2016

yeah no way would Pryor have been better in BS sorry. i was baffled growing up as to why Little wasn't in a ton more stuff.

And only lasted one season in, what was the hospital situation dramedy with James Whitmore, Temperature's Rising?

The most surprising thing about Blazing Saddles, for me, when I finally watched it about 10 or so years ago was how honestly moving Wilder's performance is.

Totally. Just watched the Waco kid monologue on YouTube, and it's so effortless, just the perfect combination of stupid, funny, cool and sad.

on Fresh Air, Wilder said when he went to read for The Producers with Mostel (who had casting approval), Zero greeted him wth a big sloppy kiss.

also the Silver Streak blackface-scene rewrite (also in the recent Pryor bio) is a great story.

I think the "You know... morons" line would land better if Bart didn't laugh at it, but that would be Pryor style and not Little.

― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 30 August 2016 20:12 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This, and the "I shoot with this hand" is The Waco Kid telling jokes. Last time I looked, imdb had it in 'Goofs' as ".. But he shoots perfectly" well, its a joke in it?

when people say funny things in comedies, depending on the context, the other characters don't have to laugh.

(Bart is supposed to be freshly traumatized from that old lady saying "Up yours, ******", which calls into question his experiences as a black man in the West of the 1870s, if you wanna get naturalistic about it)

btw tom'w night Mel Brooks is appearing at Radio City Music Hall following a screening of Saddles.

cheapest tix: $70

Sold out I heard!

sure, the Death Bump! just like Scharpling's pricing at the old FMU record fairs

And only lasted one season in, what was the hospital situation dramedy with James Whitmore, Temperature's Rising?

That was a weird show, that replaced Whitmore with... Paul Lynde.

C'mon, the scene of Bart breaking at Wilder's "morons" adlib is adorable.

this is fabulous if you haven't seen it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geluLZ-S21Q

The blu's of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and Haunted Honeymoon have had their release bumped up to next week in light of Wilder's passing, and I'm guessing my library will get them. I'm pretty sure I saw bits of HH as a kid, and didn't even think it was funny then, but how is Sherlock?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHmsRBeiSTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekmo8EacU70

I remember the reviews of 'smarter' being lousy, then seeing the movie and thought it 'great' and 'nothing wrong with it', that'd be 40 years ago or thereabouts

fwiw I loved The Frisco Kid as a kid, kind of want to re-watch it and see if it holds up.

TCM showing Young Frankenstein, Start the Revolution Without Me, The Frisco Kid, Bonnie and Clyde and a 2008 convo between Wilder and Alec Baldwin tonight.

Did Wilder direct Haunted Honeymoon? That is a terrible movie that I will absolutely watch again.

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, August 30, 2016 5:48 PM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i rewatched Woody's Everything About Sex last night. I still believe Wilder loved that sheep.

Looked at Silver Streak again today, and man it stinks, with the exception of the shoe-polish scene Pryor rewrote, and the one where RP poses as a steward and turns the tables on Patrick McGoohan right after PM blurts out the N-word at him. Otherwise it's a superlame North by Northwest ripoff. Not even Wilder's charm gets employed much, and Jill Clayburgh is just The Girl.

Yeah silver streak sucks
So does stir crazy
There's no gainsaying it.

yeah i got suckered into Silver Streak on Netflix, man was that a mess. Wilder and Pryor are very likeable, I'll give it that, but it's really without structure, like they just kept filming and figured "I'm sure we'll start having ideas for scenes soon!" Not too many worthwhile jokes either, and very little of what happens really depends on the characters. I will say most of the effects at the end are pretty good, except one really obvious composite shot, but why this comedy winds up with a giant setpiece like that is beyond me.

I have an irrational, sentimental love for Silver Streak - it got repeated on British TV all the time when I was very young, and was my first "favourite movie" (along with Superman II, probably). I rewatched it a few months ago and really enjoyed it. I mean, obviously it's not a classic, and Wilder's seduction of Clayburgh is a hilariously awful - but there's lots of good stuff outside of the Pryor scenes: Ned Beatty being a jerk, and then a hero, and then dead; Wilder getting thrown off the train for the second time; the fight with Jaws (!); the train crash; McGoohan's grisly death. It's "adult" but totally simple - a great movie for kids, basically.

Also (retrospectively) the farewell scene between Wilder and Pryror at the police station is quite moving. ("If you ever need anything, don't call me.")

Start the Revolution Without Me predates the genre spoofs of Mel Brooks by a few years, and feels like something of a dry run for those as a result; TV vet Bud Yorkin doesn't have Brooks' precision, and quite a few of the gags here feel a little too... obviously carefully crafted, I guess, to have the exhilaration of great comic filmmaking. But Wilder is never funnier than whenever he's trying to work his way through an awkward/tense situation, and there are plenty of those here, and I appreciated the takedown of the laboured metaphorical dialogue typical of historical epics ("To pull the tail of a lion is to open the mouth of trouble and reveal the teeth of revenge biting the tongue of deceit"). Also, Hugh Griffith's performance as King Louis is an unexpected marvel: he's genuinely endearing, and far more poignant than the film requires.