Undescribable Perfection

The Worst Film Ever

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

After having never heard of this movie until I scrolled through the filmography of Gene Wilder did I come upon this forgotten film. Being that this featured the noticeable talents of performers from yesteryear : Wilder, Kahn, Feldman, DeLuise and McKern, I was expecting some interesting curios that are a reminder of 1970's comedic and cinematic styles that have faded from the fabric of our culture. After his colossal success with Mel Brooks on Young Frankenstein, Gene Wilder takes a crap shoot at his directorial and writing debut to bring us this boring spoof from his childhood passion of Sherlock Holmes. The result was a hodgepodge of the antics and shticks he frequented from song and dance numbers, frantic hollering and lunacy which proved more successful when he teamed with Brooks. Here, Gene is alone and doesn't fare as well. The jokes fall flat. The typically funny Marty Feldman has a superfluous role as Sigerson Holmes" sidekick. Poor Marty Feldman again is exploited for his Graves disease deformity. Madeline Kahn's beauty and operatic achievements shine, but the disjointed script doesn't allow her character to expand. The song and dance numbers such as the Kangaroo Hop are cringe-worthy and actually made me ill. Gene Wilder is Gene Wilder and doesn't possess any of the famed talents of his sleuth brother. Dom DeLuise is pretty funny as a zany opera star with a silly toupee. I also noticed Leo McKern, the dour, ugly and intimidating man from the Omen movies. His comedic skills are a bit off so his performance is barely tolerable.The true core of the movie's mediocrity lies in its script and the film's title. Sigerson Holmes' is not as smart as his older brother and we don't get to see him delve into any capers that reveal investigative talent which makes the acclaimed sleuth so thrilling. Sigerson is also not stupid. So the title doesn't even work paradoxically. We don't get to see Sherlock aside from his brief part in the beginning and his 15 second talking shadow near the end. It's really a disappointment for those who crave detective stories, because the caper plot is so threadbare. The comedy gets muddled in hokey song routines that aren't funny at all. Thus, this project was bound to please no one. And watching Wilder and Kahn break into song together looked tawdry and was embarrassing.

Just because it has the same basic cast as "Young Frankenstein" doesn't mean anything. If the script has nothing for them too say and do, it doesn't matter. This is a one joke movie where Gene Wilder's other Holmes tries so hard to one up Sherlock. Madeline Kahn is doing the same stuff here, but the interactions with the other characters just don't click very well. Also, some people think this is a Mel Brooks film. It is not. Wilder is fun to watch with his paranoid, defeated, second banana act, but he never can overcome the aforementioned writing. Don't hesitate to see it. Just don't expect too much. I'm certain this was project for some actors during time between more meaningful films.

How can a movie starring Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn not be funny? I'm still not sure how this one managed it, but it did. The plot was difficult to follow and seemed to constantly meander... this wasn't helped by the numerous inexplicable bursts into song which broke up the narrative and destroyed any momentum the plot might have managed to gather. The desperately un-amusing "Kangaroo Hop" is repeated several times and is more tedious with each repetition. I think during Dom DeLuise's lengthy career he was funny once for about five minutes... unfortunately, those five minutes are in some other film. Wilder, as writer and director, seems to be trying to channel Mel Brooks, who was pretty much a hit-or-miss kind of a guy himself, so the failure of this movie to impress isn't so surprising. Still, I do wish it had been better. It should have been, with this pedigree.

Gene Wilder was a wonderful actor. Unfortunately, here with "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" he bit off way more than he could chew, as he not only starred in the film but directed, wrote it and sang throughout the film. As an actor, he is wonderful...and he should have stuck with acting alone. The project is tedious, horribly unfunny and a waste of great talent.The film stars Sherlock Holmes' younger brother, Sigerson (Wilder). As far as his being smarter, he's certainly not....and again and again he makes a mess of things when Sherlock passes a case off to him. The film features many horribly unfunny things--most of which go on and on and on. Why does Wilder frequently break into song with Madeline Kahn? It's not funny and just seems weird. Why does Kahn constantly lie, it's not funny and just seems weird. And, why is Marty Feldman in the film when he's given nothing funny to do...and this seems REALLY weird. The bottom line is that this film was a misfire from the onset and I kept waiting, in vain, for it to start getting funny.