By Richard Winters
My Rating: 6 out of 10
4-Word Review: Sibling solves the case.
Gene Wilder plays Sigerson Holmes, the jealous younger brother of Sherlock, who is upset that his sibling is so famous for solving crimes while he sits in obscurity having not seen as much success though he feels he’s just as smart if not smarter. One day Sigerson gets a case that his brother doesn’t want to get involved in due to him desiring to lay low for awhile. It involves Jenny Hill (Madeline Kahn) who’s a beautiful music hall dancer who is being blackmailed by an opera singer named Eduardo (Dom DeLuise) over a lewd letter she sent him years ago. However, the document proves to be much more than just a letter and is in fact an important paper that foreign powers will pay high price to get their hands on. Eduardo agrees to sell it to the evil Professor Moriarty (Leo McKern), but will only hand it over to him during one of his operas, which Sigerson and his loyal partner Orville (Marty Feldman) plan to attend in order to intercept the paper before it gets into the wrong hands.
Gene Wilder was approached by producer Richard Roth to do a parody of Sherlock Holmes, but Wilder didn’t like the idea of poking fun of what he felt was an iconic character. Roth told him to think about it and then approached him a week later. By this point Wilder said he had come up with a better idea instead of it being about Sherlock it would focus on his jealous brother Sigerson. Roth found the premise intriguing and suggested Wilder begin writing the screenplay which he did while working on Young Frankenstein. Once completed he asked his friend Mel Brooks to direct, but Brooks declined saying he didn’t like working on projects that were not his own idea, so Wilder took the reins himself calling it a ‘terrifying commitment’.
While the movie has some good moments the Sigerson character is not interesting. For one thing he’s poorly defined. One minute he’s cunning and sharp and then the next he proves dimwitted and clumsy almost becoming another Inspector Clouseu. The comedy should feed off the character, but with it unclear whether he’s brilliant or buffoon it never catches its stride and for the most part the scenes with him in it are boring and the audience doesn’t care if he solves the case nor feel that there’s any redemption if he does. He’s also genuinely unlikable particularly with the way he snaps at Jenny Hill making you almost want to despise the guy and hope he doesn’t succeed. Also, if he really is Sherlock’s brother then I felt there needed to be some scenes with them together and the interplay between the two could’ve been amusing if done right, but this never happens.
Wilder directs the film the way most actors turning director do by having the scenes more extended and allowing the actors to drive the pace and momentum versus the editing. With a so-called ‘zany’ comedy like this that doesn’t work and there’s several segments that go on too long until it becomes dull and looking a bit amateurish. The biggest example of this is when Jenny arrives a Sigerson’s place to tell him about the letter. Their interplay doesn’t go anywhere and ultimately in order to get out of it the characters, for some unexplained reason, break-out into song and dance making it seem like its a musical, which it isn’t, but either way it’s dumb and not funny. During Jenny’s music hall show, which Sigerson and Orville attend, she sings a long song there too, which wasn’t needed and saps the comic energy.
There are though some offbeat moments much of which comes from McKern a usually serious actor who shines in his campy part and really plays it up to the point that he becomes the highlight. The part where he goes to a fortune telling machine, that he has inside his residence, is inspired and his visit with Eduardo in which the two strangely fondle each other and even go to bed together that gives off weird homoerotic vibes is good too in a sort of bizarre ‘what am I looking at’ type of way.
The best part though is when a giant saw blade cuts off the back of Wilder’s and Feldman’s trousers causing their bare behinds to be exposed. They then go to a formal dance party and shock everyone who sees their asses with them still not aware that they’re showing. What’s so interesting about this part is that they both have really good looking butts especially Feldman. You’d think with his freaking looking face that his rear wouldn’t be so hot either, but it amazingly is, so in keeping with our current male ass scorecard we still have Dabney Coleman, who bears his behind in Modern Problems, coming in first and Tim Matheson’s in Impulse, being a close second and then Wilder and Feldman tying for third place.
My Rating: 6 out of 10
Released: December 14, 1975
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
Rated PG
Director: Gene Wilder
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Available: DVD, Blu-ray
Scopophilia 