A skittish, inconsistent comedy about a starstruck rube from Milwaukee who travels to Hollywood in the 1920s ("Hollywood!" he shrieks from his hotel window. "Lillian Gish is in those hills!"), intent on launching himself on a new career as a Matinee Idol. Gene Wilder, a Chaplin-is-my-idol, quintuple-threat moviemaker (actor, director, producer, writer, songwriter), is strongest when he's operating at a pitch of strident hysteria; but he yearns to expand his range to include everything from pie-in-the-face slapstick to lump-in-the-throat pathos, and he jumps capriciously from one note to another as though he's flicking a TV dial. For the most part, the material here seems to be still in the brainstorming stage, before sense and selection have begun to prevail. The movie ends with an intriguing thank-you note from Wilder to his "friend" Federico Fellini, for encouragement at just the right time. What manner of encouragement did he get? Did Fellini encourage him to pilfer from the plot of The White Sheik? Did Fellini encourage him to copycat the vision of hustle-bustle on a movie set and the Nino Rota music from 8 1/2? This resembles the sort of encouragement a mugger gets from a snoozer on a park bench. Carol Kane, Dom DeLuise. (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
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