Director: Gene Wilder
Cast: Gene Wilder, Carol Kane, Dom DeLuise

I don't really follow the star system coming out of Hollywood that is hyped by countless media outlets. I admit that I know even less about the star systems in other countries, especially in my home country. (Canada doesn't really have any stars in English Canada, at least when it comes to those who stay put and don't go to Hollywood.) Still, there is one aspect of the Hollywood star system that I do have some interest in, and that comes with questions like what on earth makes someone a star in the first place. The answer to that particular question I have found not to be simple. It depends on what kind of star you are thinking of. If you are thinking of a star who is admired for his or her acting ability, the answer as to how they became a star is probably best summed up by a quote from late film critic Roger Ebert, who said (as I think I mentioned before in another review), "Great actors are made by great films." But as you probably know, nowadays most of the movies coming out of Hollywood are not great movies, and are mainly attempts to milk as much money possible out of a hopefully receptive audience. But it's true that stars come out of these non-great movies. How does this happen? I think it's both a combination of the skill of the particular actor or actress, and the material he or she is working with. For example, take the field of comedy. The fact that the right material is essential even for top comedians can be shown with the sound movies Buster Keaton made for Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the early 1930s. The scripts and the direction of these movies was so poor and confining, Keaton could do hardly a thing to generate any laughs. Though if the material was better, that wouldn't mean Keaton wouldn't have to work hard. Just take a look at any of Keaton's classic silent movies to see that Keaton worked very hard in all of them to get laughs - and got positive results.

But what I really want to talk about, as you probably guessed by the title of this movie I am reviewing, are movie stars who are primarily famous because they are sex symbols. This kind of movie star is not as recent as you might think. For example, in the 1920s, when movies were still made without sound, women were transfixed by actors like Rudolph Valentino, who played romantic roles such as the one he played in his most famous movie, The Sheik. And actress Clara Bow, labelled the "it" girl, showed off in her films what back then could not be properly labelled, pleasing a lot of male viewers, especially the USC football team one night. (Actually, that rumor has all but been debunked.) But whatever time in film history you look at, you will find sex symbols, and the question that comes up is: What makes a sex symbol? Well, that's kind of a hard question to answer. The closest I think I've come to an answer was a quote by Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro Goldwyn Mayer. He said that when it came to romantic couples in movies, "You have to think if you would like to watch these two people actually making love." Changing the wording for that for one single actor or actress in a movie, the answer to that question I posed several sentences ago has to be that the audience would like to make love to the actor or actress in the movie. It was true back then as it is true today, even though the kind of onscreen lovers has changed. But that doesn't mean that onscreen lovers from decades past can't attract modern day viewers. I once read a true story from writer Isaac Asimov telling about the time he and his wife went to see a revival screening of the Rudolph Valentino silent movie The Sheik. Before watching the movie, Asimov's wife went on and on about how she couldn't believe that millions of women would go ga-ga over Valentino, and thought the movie would be silly stuff. But as the couple watched the movie, Asimov looked at his wife and clearly saw she had become transfixed by Valentino the star.

As for me, I kind of find the idea of the sex symbol star kind of silly. Being male, I certainly don't understand why women have melted seeing stars like Valentino over the years. When it comes to female sex symbols, I can appreciate their beauty and onscreen seductiveness when watching their movies. But it usually never goes beyond that, maybe because I have read so many stories about spoiled movie actresses, I strongly suspect what they must be like in real life. My disinterest in silver screen sex symbols may why I was very interested when I came across a copy of The World's Greatest Lover, because it was advertised as a spoof of people like Valentino. And it had Gene Wilder not only starring as the title figure, but also writing and directing the movie. Though I did wonder why with those credentials the movie had drifted into obscurity. Anyway, the plot: The events of the movie are set in Hollywood during the silent film era. Actor Rudolph Valentino has become a hot star overnight at the studio he works for, and the rival Rainbow Studios is desperate to find its own sex symbol star that the ladies will go ga-ga over. Studio chief Adolph Zitz (Dom DeLuise, A Troll In Central Park) decides to run a contest that will invite men from the general public to audition, with the winner awarded an acting contract from the studio. News of this quickly gets to failed baker Rudy Hickman (Gene Wilder, Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx), who has been dreaming of being a big Hollywood star, and he drags his wife Annie (Carol Kane, Pandemonium) with him to Hollywood and try his luck. Rudy enters the contest, and against all odds, eventually finds himself close to eventually being picked the winner. But before this happens, Annie starts to feel greatly isolated and starts to pursue the real Rudolph Valentino, which brings up the question as to what ultimate choice Rudy will make - fame, or Annie.

As I said in the previous paragraph, Gene Wilder took on several duties with The World's Greatest Lover- actor, writer, director, but also as one of the producers. So I thought the best way to approach my critique of the movie would be to look at how successfully Wilder managed to do the first three duties. I will start with looking at Wilder's performance in the movie. If you have seen Wilder in other comedies, no doubt you have some idea of how he'll perform on occasion here, namely his trademark of occasionally getting greatly hysterical for short bursts of time. While that has been funny in some of his other movies, here instead it pretty much just falls flat. Thinking about it, the main reason why it doesn't seem to work here is that it feels forced and unnatural for this particular character he's playing. Thinking about it some more, his entire performance seems to be going all over the map, acting whatever Wilder thinks is most convenient for the particular scene instead of his character reacting to what is going on around him. Sometimes he's very subdued to the point of almost disappearing completely from the screen. Sometimes he acts very stupidly. And sometimes he makes a labored effort to pull on the heartstrings of the audience. It feels as if Wilder was combining the features of several completely different characters into this particular character. As a result of this, it was extremely hard for me to feel Wilder was acting as a whole and interesting individual, and I was kind of turned off. It should come as no surprise that because of this, in the scenes where he is paired off with his co-star Kane, he can't generate any kind of chemistry with her, whether it be comic or romantic.

It's possible that with Wilder taking on a total of four roles in The World's Greatest Lover, he didn't have time to polish his acting on this project. It might also explain the weaknesses he shows in his other duties here, such as with his screenplay. In fairness, his screenplay does toy around with some interesting ideas, such as Hollywood studios trying to outdo each other with the same ideas, how ordinary people can be so blinded by a dream that they end up hurting their loved ones, and that Rudolph Valentino turns out to be a pretty decent person when he eventually shows up. However, ultimately the movie simply tries to cover too many things, and as a result some of these interesting ideas are not expanded on enough, such as how the characters of Rudy Hickman and Rudolph Valentino never really talk when they meet in a key moment. For that matter, there are additional weakness when the movie deals with the plot turns in its basic core, like when Rudy and Annie are given almost no time to talk when Rudy declares his intent to go to Hollywood and become a movie star. Motivations and feelings for characters are thrown aside in favor of wackiness and other kinds of humor, which might not have been too bad had the humor been funny, but for the most part it isn't. There are a few gags sprinkled here and there that I admit did make me laugh, such as the sight that first greets Rudy when he and Annie get off the train when it arrives at Los Angeles, or the subsequent scheme Rudy concocts with his cousin Buddy (one time actor Mark Silberman... "Silberman" being the real last name of Wilder, by the way) when he reaches the hotel he and Annie plan to stay at. As amusing as these and the (very few) other gags that work, they are pretty much throwaway gags, and they don't have the impact of humor that come out of more complex situations or characters.

As for the other attempts at humor in The World's Greatest Lover, you've probably correctly guessed that they don't work very well. There are various reasons that they fall flat. Some of the humor seems surprisingly cruel, such as one painful scene where an unseen Rudy and his wife Annie are having rough sex behind curtains. At other times, one-shot gags are seized and dragged out for such a long time that any humor at their beginnings is quickly drained out. Other attempts at humor drag up old gags that have long stopped being funny, such as the very familiar "factory conveyer belt" shenanigans, which isn't funny despite the fact that Wilder the director decides to speed up the footage so that everybody in the scene is talking and moving extremely quickly. Which is a good a place as any to start discussing Wilder's direction of the movie. On occasion, Wilder the director does throw in a detail that is cute and/or memorable, such as the first shot of the movie. But for the most part, Wilder seems out of his league in the director's chair. Technically, the movie looks pretty shabby, photographed in a manner that lacks sharpness and drains out most of the color. Other production niceties, such as sets, look highly stage bound at best, and flimsy at their worst. Worse than all this, however, is how meandering and sloppy the movie plays out. Having previously mentioned that the story tries to do too much, Wilder the director can't seem to build momentum, so we in the audience keep feeling we're being pulled around without a chance to get involved with what we are seeing. I didn't laugh much, nor did I care much about the story or characters in The World's Greatest Lover. I'm certainly far from the world's greatest lover of this movie... though I feel that most, if not all, viewers in this day and age would find themselves fitting in that same category I am in.

My basic mistake in The World's Greatest Lover was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character.

- Gene Wilder      

(Posted August 17, 2023)