The World's Greatest Lover (1977)

Wonderful character development!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

A neurotic baker goes with his wife to 1920s Hollywood for a screen test. However, his wife is obsessed with star Rudolph Valentino, and decides to chase after him, and well, nutty mishaps ensue.While I do like this film as a guilty pleasure, I have to be critical and come clean: World's Greatest Lover is an uneven comedy that sums up the excesses of these wacky 70s comedies. But first, the good: The production values and score by underrated master John Morris (a Brooks regular, as well as Lycnh's Elephant Man) deliver, recreating the 'Old Hollywood' feel of the 1920s, and the actors are never awful, with the great Dom Deluise in fine form as the cartoonish studio boss.But it's the humour is what makes the film hard to recommend: it follows an basic formula of slapstick, awkward situations and plenty of shouting and eye-bogging from Gene Wilder. Rise and repeat for an hour an a half, and that's the film. Dear old Gene has no control (he wrote, starred, directed and produced this) and without the steady hand of someone like Mel Brooks, he goes way past over-the-top, and almost creates something more like someone parodying Wilder, screaming like a banshee every couple of seconds. He himself is not necessarily terrible, but less generous viewers will be grated. However, his opening dream dance number is quite fun, and probably the film's highlight.It's worth owning if you're a hardcore fan of Wilder, and it's taken a LONG time to finally receive a DVD, but, aside from aficionados, you're better off with Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles.

This production was built around the search for the next Rudolph Valentino. While this work has become dated, it was filmed as a pseudo-retrospective at the time, so it was already "dated" the day it was filmed. This is a total Gene Wilder vehicle. He wrote the screenplay, directed the movie, and was the movie's sole credited producer. He is also THE star of the movie. He does share the limelight with Carol Kane (a pure delight, as usual), but this was one of Wilder's brightest moments. By this time, the world realized they had a comedic genius on their hands and after this work Wilder pretty much had the Midas Touch for a while.Kane plays Annie Hickman, the world's greatest Valentino fan. Wilder portrays a Milwaukean baker who is at the end of his rope. His idiosyncrasies are so severe, he finds it impossible to maintain employment. Upon learning of a contest held by Rainbow Studios (NOT the #1 studio) to find the next Rudolph Valentino, Rudy Hickman just "knows" this is his ticket to a better life. His wife leaves him to go find Mr. Valentino. But once Hickman is in the middle of it all, he realizes his wife is what is most important to him and he sets the works in motion to woo her away from Rudolph Valentino. The formula makes for some of the best heart-warming entertainment that's hit the big screen. It's endearing and funny in its bittersweet malaise.It also goes a long way towards showing what CAN be done with no effects and no locations beyond the Studio Backlot and a few, cheap but decent sets.While it is frayed about the edges, this classic favorite is one ripe for a DVD restoration...perhaps even a 2-disk director's cut for those of us fans who have BEEN fans since the beginning.It rates an 8.8/10 from...the Fiend :.

This movie is a perfect example of a film that divides people into 2 groups.. Those who get the joke and those who don't. People usually attack what they don't understand. This film has a comic style and charm that has been unparalleled since. It's a GREAT comedy.. and a GREAT romance. It's a perfect date movie. A perfect movie for someone who wants a good lighthearted laugh. And if your perspective is too tense, maybe this movie isn't for you, and you may need counseling. It is an injustice that Fox has kept this film, along with Wilder's 1975 classic "The Adventure Of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" on the shelf since the early 80's, having never seen the light of day on DVD. Yet they feel "Big Momma's House" was worthy of a special edition. I find it odd that my two all time favorite romantic comedies have never been released on DVD. The other being Carl Reiner's "The One And Only", which Paramount has sat on since the early 80's as well... Yet, "From Justin To Kelly" is in nearly every video store in the country. There is no Justice in the world. Maybe those who took the time to bash this will enjoy "From Justin To Kelly", I'm sure that one is watered enough for them to "get".

Fox execs and shareholders in 1977 must have thrown their collective hands in the air when presented with this infantile vanity project from a clearly unrestrained Gene Wilder: he wrote directed and starred in this excruciating and labored so called comedy and it is a blueprint for NOT allowing temporarily popular 'comedians' free reign to be auteurs. Just because he was funny in the clever Brooks/Kahn comedies does not automatically make him funny on his own...and this proves it beyond doubt. The Fox Studios art direction and set design of the 20s is lovingly crafted and expensively produced..... ...and then Wilder runs around like a neurotic infant, screaming and spluttering stomping all over the cast and extras like a male Lina Lamont at a jazz baby Bar Mitzvah.After Fox's expensive disasters AT LONG LAST LOVE and LUCKY LADY of the previous two years the studio management must have been chewing the palm trees on the lot down to the roots after previewing this. Thank God STAR WARS was on the horizon to bail Fox out of that money pit. In Australia Fox was SO embarrassed by this fiasco it was not released and sat on the shelf waiting for some sympathetic cinema owner to volunteer showing it...and here the other Wilder/Mel Brooks were huge successes. If ever a film needed Madeline Kahn and Mel brooks it is this. Instead we get more of the Huntz Hall level mugging from Dom Deluise that sent the planet mad in other painful misfires like SEXTETTE or THE END. This film should in Jewish comedy parlance be called THE WORLD'S GREATEST LIVER and chopped up accordingly. It is the same sort of ghastly and expensive mindset that also gave us HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK. Kids today, or even 30 year olds would just spit at the TV if you showed this to them, so rightly disgusted at the lame babyish drivel Wilder seems to think is his genius. I love fun / bad films and this is NOT one.