The Woman in Red (1984)

At the end of the film, Theodore (Gene Wilder), wearing Charlotte's (Kelly LeBrock) husband's bathrobe, jumps off the ledge of her apartment.

On the way down, he has an epiphany. Why was he chasing after the Woman in Red? He has a perfectly good wife and family at home. At that moment, he decides he will never act so impulsively and crazy again.

Then he sees the blonde photographer down below. She's taking his picture, and he decides he likes the look of her legs. Maybe, just maybe... but then the frame freezes in midfall. Has Teddy learned his lesson? Apparently not.

The blonde photographer is Sandra Wilder. For a second, I was hoping she was his real-life wife, but when I Googled her, I quickly learned they were no relation. Gene Wilder is a stage name, after all, and Sandra's last name, just a coincidence (and Wilder was married to co-star Gilda Radner at the time).

I did find out that Sandra Wilder was the girl in the Scorpions' "No One Like You" (1982) and Huey Lewis and the News's "If This Is It" (1984) music videos. This was more or less the sum total of her acting career.

As far as the film goes, I'm not sure why it gets so much hate. The Woman in Red may be written off as a stupid 80s comedy, a middle-aged male fantasy, but if you watch it closely, it's just a tale of bad people acting badly. And for me, if you watch it in that spirit, it works.

It's funny that Teddy isn't the only person to act badly. All of his friends do. His coworker Mr. Milner (Gilda Radner) does. Even Teddy's loving wife Didi (Judith Ivy) is apparently having an affair with their teenage daughter's boyfriend. So, it's that kind of movie.

Which is to say it's a "Rom Com" farce. If you're not watching it as such, you're probably going to quickly judge it as "sexist" or say, "Gee that didn't age well." I would counter; it aged just fine. Appreciate it for the comedy. Don't expect it to be a morality play.

The film is written and directed by Wilder, and he is simply put, a comic genius. Not everyone will agree that this film "works," of course. Even my hero, Roger Ebert, gave it a 1-star review. It's one of the few movies he apparently didn't even write a full review for, but Siskel and Ebert did review it for their television show (they both absolutely hated it). On that episode, they reviewed this movie as well as Tightrope (with Clint Eastwood -- 2 Thumbs up), Red Dawn (Siskel - Thumbs up, Ebert, Thumbs down), and The Revenge of the Nerds ("Some nerds saw me naked." -- 2 Thumbs up) - what a movie week in 1984.

By the way, go to YouTube sometime and watch the old "At the Movies" episodes. I enjoyed watching Siskel and Ebert explain why they loved Revenge of the Nerds, and Tightrope, while at the same time, they hated The Woman in Red, and Red Dawn. It was cool to get their "real-time" 1984 perspectives.

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I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history. She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process.

The Writer's Poke

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