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Gene Wilder, in his first movie after his wife Gilda Radner died, is excused from criticism here. He probably thought he was signing up for a lark that would take his mind off his grief. If the film did that for him, that's nice. There is, though, a bewildering moment when his character, political cartoonist Duffy Bergman, bursts into tears; his sorrow seems motivated by something deeper than the plot's drippy mechanics. A pity that Wilder may have dredged up painful memories just to spruce up this piece of shit.

This comedy, once it decides to get going, concerns the attempts of Duffy and his wife (the appallingly wasted Christine Lahti) to have children of their own, exhausting every medical method of insemination. Here's the level of humor: Duffy's doctor, a practical joker, hooks a microphone to Duffy's testicles to listen to the sound of his sperm, and the speakers attached to the mike suddenly blare "Great Balls of Fire." There are also a stultifying number of double-entendres involving the word "come."

Mary Stuart Masterson has the thankless role of a young spitfire with whom Duffy has a fling; Farrah Fawcett, as was widely publicized at the time, had a similar role but was left entirely out of the finished film. Sometimes the unkindest cuts turn out to be lucky breaks. One can only regret, on behalf of Wilder, Lahti, and Masterson, that they weren't so fortunate.

Directed, with a truly frightening and unerring worship of the banal, by Leonard Nimoy; suggested by an article by teenage-skirt-chaser Bob Greene.

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originally posted: 04/12/07 14:01:45
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