BEFORE: I finally caught my wife's cold, but it hasn't hit me too badly yet - I might be able to combat it with a combination of Cold-Eeze, some spicy Indian food, and a couple of strong beers. If it reaches Phase 2, that's when I pull out the Sudafed, DayQuil and Mountain Dew. Otherwise, I feel energized since my team won bi-weekly trivia tonight, I took the final round by answering questions about Spider-Man - take that!
This film slipped under the radar, I left it out of my chain about actors and entertainers (twice!) so I'll include it here in the "mistaken identity" chain. Linking from last night's film - Steve Zahn was in "Sahara" with Matthew McConaughey, who was in "A Time to Kill" with Patrick McGoohan, who was in "Silver Streak" with Gene Wilder.
THE PLOT: A neurotic baker travels to Hollywood to attend a talent search for an actor to rival the great Valentino. Although not an actor, through blind luck he succeeds - to a certain degree!
AFTER: This was a mostly-silly homage to the classic silent film era - and the success of Rudolph Valentino, famous for the film "The Shiek". It seems like women in the 1920's had these grand romantic fantasies about Arab men who would whisk them away to their desert palaces, and presumably add them to their harems. Nowadays, not so much.
For those of you too young to know who Rudolph Valentino was, he's mentioned in the 80's song "Manic Monday", performed by The Bangles, and written by Prince. (Yes, Prince wrote a song whose lyrics mention dreaming about kissing a male Hollywood icon - androgyny was very "in" back in the 80's) For those of you too young to know who The Bangles were, please don't talk to me, you'll make me feel old.
Gene Wilder plays a normal guy, Rudy Hickman, who heads to Hollywood with his wife in tow, to be part of an enormous talent search by a small studio to find an actor to compete with Valentino. Hickman even goes by the name "Rudy Valentine" to heighten his chances. But there are only a few minor problems - like his lack of acting ability, his clumsiness, and his habit of sticking his tongue out when he's nervous.
Gene Wilder has one volume here - loud. Comedically, he's best when he occasionally freaks out ("The Producers", "Young Frankenstein"), but here he's freaking out all the time - not so funny. And isn't the film-within-a-film supposed to be a SILENT movie? There are a few visual jokes that land, but even more that go nowhere - mostly it's cheap slapstick.
And his wife sort of runs hot and cold - she claims to love him, but drops him for Valentino in a heartbeat. They reconcile with the help of Valentino himself, and then just after professing her love, she leaves AGAIN. Can't this woman make up her mind? Why waste time reconciling with a woman who's so flighty?
Also starring Carol Kane (last seen in "Four Christmases"), Dom Deluise, and a ton of 1970's character actors - Fritz Feld, Carl Ballantine, Jack Riley (last seen in "Chairman of the Board"), and Elya Baskin (last seen in "Being There"), and a brief cameo from Danny DeVito (last seen in "The War of the Roses").
RATING: 3 out of 10 burqas
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