{"id":12745,"date":"2025-08-08T16:55:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T20:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12745"},"modified":"2025-08-08T16:55:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T20:55:16","slug":"the-woman-in-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/08\/08\/the-woman-in-red\/","title":{"rendered":"The Woman in Red"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Woman in Red <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, brief nudity, sexual humor\/references, mature themes, adult situations)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gene Wilder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gene Wilder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Morris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fred Schuler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 15, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Gene Wilder, Kelly LeBrock, Gilda Radner, Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, Judith Ivey, Michael Huddleston, Michael Zorek, Kyle T. Heffner, Kyra Stempel, Robin Ignico.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $25.3M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Once again, I bemoan the state of film comedy in the 21st<\/sup> century and ask why they can\u2019t make them funny like they used to. This summer has been especially disheartening with one comedy clinker after another. I\u2019ve been raiding the DVD archives for movies that make me laugh and came across The Woman in Red<\/strong>. A remake of the 1976 French comedy Pardon mon affaire<\/em>, I had forgotten how funny it is. I had also forgotten how very much like a Blake Edwards comedy it is. Its plot concerning adultery and other sexual matters is aimed at the same adult crowd as 10 (1979).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Gene Wilder stands in for Dudley Moore as a happily married middle-aged man who considers cheating on his wife after spotting a gorgeous woman in a red dress. I know, how dated is that premise? The Woman in Red<\/strong> came out shortly before the AIDS virus put a damper on people\u2019s casual attitudes towards sex.\u00a0 By the end of the decade, such movies would no longer get made. I found myself laughing loud and often at this silly little slapstick movie in which Wilder makes a complete fool of himself as he attempts to get with the object of his desire. The woman is played by Kelly LeBrock, a full year before a whole generation of teenage boys stood up and took notice of her in Weird Science. She\u2019s equally as sexy and alluring in The Woman in Red<\/strong>. It\u2019s easy to see why somebody would put their marriage in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie opens with San Francisco ad man Teddy Pierce (Wilder) sitting on the ledge of a building wearing a bathrobe. What could possibly have led the mild-mannered man to this point? We soon learn that it all began when he spotted an attractive woman in a red dress in the parking garage of his workplace. She steps on a grate and a gust of wind blows her dress up, an obvious allusion to Marilyn Monroe in The Seven-Year Itch (1955).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Teddy is hooked and can\u2019t get this woman out of his mind which leads to a pursuit fraught with all sorts of wacky misadventures starting with a misdirected interoffice phone call. He thinks he\u2019s making a date with the mystery woman when he\u2019s actually speaking to a plain-looking colleague (real life spouse Radner) who\u2019s flattered by the attention and accepts his invitation to meet later that night at a restaurant. Hell hath no fury like a woman stood up and Ms. Milner proceeds to make Teddy\u2019s life miserable after he fails to show up for their date. Of course, he has no idea why his co-worker is acting like this. All he knows is that he wants to hook with the mystery woman whose name is Charlotte.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s not like he\u2019s trapped in an unhappy marriage. He loves his wife Didi (Ivey, Compromising Positions) and their two teenage daughters. His rowdy friends encourage Teddy to go for it. They behave like teenagers with their pranks and sexual activities. Joe\u2019s (Bologna, Blame It on Rio) wife has just left him because of his constant fooling around with other women. Buddy (Grodin, Seems Like Old Times) has a wandering eye which affects the relationship he\u2019s currently in. Michael (Huddleston) is having an affair with the wife of a doctor who calls him whenever her husband is called away on a medical emergency. Yep, Teddy has some positive influences! His desire and tenacity ultimately lead to him sitting on the building ledge as a crowd gathers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the main problems with today\u2019s comedies is that they ALL seem geared towards younger audiences. I might have appreciated this 30 years ago, but now I see the folly of that type of thinking. In doing this, studios alienate the over-30 crowd. I\u2019ll admit that I enjoyed The To Do List and The World\u2019s End, but I would love to see sophisticated comedies for adults make a comeback. I\u2019d like to see more funny movies like The Woman in Red<\/strong> playing at the multiplex.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s one of Wilder\u2019s better starring roles. He\u2019s the kind of person you\u2019d expect to see get into situations like the ones depicted in the movie. I love the bit where he fakes a heart attack in the back of his car after being confronted by an angry Ms. Milner. Let\u2019s just say that you do NOT want to get on this woman\u2019s bad side. She\u2019s a vindictive one, she is. Radner does a great job in the role. The whole cast does a good job, but I especially liked Bologna and Grodin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Woman in Red<\/strong> has a pleasing score with songs by Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick. Ah yes, Ms. Warwick, I love her! She\u2019s the right choice for this kind of movie. Wonder won a Best Song Oscar for \u201cI Just Called to Say I Love You\u201d. The only false note is the song \u201cDon\u2019t Drive Drunk\u201d; it just feels out of place.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like any comedy, The Woman in Red<\/strong> has scenes that work and scenes that don\u2019t. It takes a bit of dramatic turn when we discover a secret about Grodin\u2019s character. It\u2019s unclear whether his friends already know, but he has a rather affecting scene with Wilder after a break-up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Overall, it\u2019s a funny little movie and it\u2019s quite good for an Americanized remake. We see far too few of movies like this anymore and I can only hope that some filmmaker will take pity on us adults and offer up something that doesn\u2019t involve endless gags about bodily fluids. At 16, I never imagined that I would be saying this, but life is strange.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Woman in Red (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, brief nudity, sexual humor\/references, mature themes, adult situations)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gene Wilder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gene Wilder\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Morris\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Fred Schuler\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 15, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Gene Wilder, Kelly LeBrock, Gilda Radner, Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, Judith Ivey, Michael Huddleston, Michael Zorek, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-Woman-in-Red-PIC.jpg?fit=656%2C368&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12745"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12769,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12745\/revisions\/12769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}