ThiefHott Too much of everything

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

ThatMOVIENut A neurotic baker goes with his wife to 1920s Hollywood for a screen test. However, his wife is obsessed with star Rudolph Valentino, and decides to chase after him, and well, nutty mishaps ensue.While I do like this film as a guilty pleasure, I have to be critical and come clean: World's Greatest Lover is an uneven comedy that sums up the excesses of these wacky 70s comedies. But first, the good: The production values and score by underrated master John Morris (a Brooks regular, as well as Lycnh's Elephant Man) deliver, recreating the 'Old Hollywood' feel of the 1920s, and the actors are never awful, with the great Dom Deluise in fine form as the cartoonish studio boss.But it's the humour is what makes the film hard to recommend: it follows an basic formula of slapstick, awkward situations and plenty of shouting and eye-bogging from Gene Wilder. Rise and repeat for an hour an a half, and that's the film. Dear old Gene has no control (he wrote, starred, directed and produced this) and without the steady hand of someone like Mel Brooks, he goes way past over-the-top, and almost creates something more like someone parodying Wilder, screaming like a banshee every couple of seconds. He himself is not necessarily terrible, but less generous viewers will be grated. However, his opening dream dance number is quite fun, and probably the film's highlight.It's worth owning if you're a hardcore fan of Wilder, and it's taken a LONG time to finally receive a DVD, but, aside from aficionados, you're better off with Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles.

marcomeyer When I saw this movie on TV some decennials ago, I found it quite funny, because Gene Wilder was "in" at that time. We youngsters longed for more comedies with him after having seen him in the outrageous (is it still seen this way today?) "Young Frankenstein". The movie has its wonderful and romantic moments, sometimes even funny ones. Just enjoy it as a light-weight spoof, as a slapstick-comedy, and if you're a tongue-out-of-your-mouth-sticker, this is definitely the number one movie for you, for it is THE running gag of the show (if you like it or not). Yes, there are many clichés repeated over and over, like for instance Fritz Feld doing his standard hotel receptionist number, but there are so many little fun jewels hidden everywhere. Take for instance the scene when Gene/Rudy, in his exaggerated Hollywood craze thinks he sees Greta Garbo dancing in the hotel garden, falling/jumping on "her" dancing partner, only to detect Garbo is a transvestite. Cheep joke? From today's view perhaps, but not at its time. There were lots of comedies like this one which generate hardly more than a moan today (even the Mel Brooks series). If you can ever get hand on a VHS tape of this movie, grab it and watch it. Simply watch it. Be romanced. Be funny. Forget the cruel world and your cineast attitude. Leave your brain at home. Just watch (and enjoy) that movie!

willafly I strongly disagree with ptb-8. I love this movie. It's a favorite of mine and it makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. Personally, I think Gene Wilder is a genius. He successfully employs many forms of comedy, including vaudeville which is a rarity in modern film-making and so much fun to watch. Sure it's silly, but it's also a very sweet love story which I find surprisingly moving considering it IS set against a silly comedy. The story is always engaging. The cast is all top-notch: Carol Kane, Dom DeLuise, Carl Ballantine, Ronny Graham, Candy Azzara and of course Mr. Wilder himself, being among my favorites. If you're lucky enough to see this gem, I think you will agree with me. I hope it will be released on DVD soon so that more people can see it.

ptb-8 Fox execs and shareholders in 1977 must have thrown their collective hands in the air when presented with this infantile vanity project from a clearly unrestrained Gene Wilder: he wrote directed and starred in this excruciating and labored so called comedy and it is a blueprint for NOT allowing temporarily popular 'comedians' free reign to be auteurs. Just because he was funny in the clever Brooks/Kahn comedies does not automatically make him funny on his own...and this proves it beyond doubt. The Fox Studios art direction and set design of the 20s is lovingly crafted and expensively produced..... ...and then Wilder runs around like a neurotic infant, screaming and spluttering stomping all over the cast and extras like a male Lina Lamont at a jazz baby Bar Mitzvah.After Fox's expensive disasters AT LONG LAST LOVE and LUCKY LADY of the previous two years the studio management must have been chewing the palm trees on the lot down to the roots after previewing this. Thank God STAR WARS was on the horizon to bail Fox out of that money pit. In Australia Fox was SO embarrassed by this fiasco it was not released and sat on the shelf waiting for some sympathetic cinema owner to volunteer showing it...and here the other Wilder/Mel Brooks were huge successes. If ever a film needed Madeline Kahn and Mel brooks it is this. Instead we get more of the Huntz Hall level mugging from Dom Deluise that sent the planet mad in other painful misfires like SEXTETTE or THE END. This film should in Jewish comedy parlance be called THE WORLD'S GREATEST LIVER and chopped up accordingly. It is the same sort of ghastly and expensive mindset that also gave us HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK. Kids today, or even 30 year olds would just spit at the TV if you showed this to them, so rightly disgusted at the lame babyish drivel Wilder seems to think is his genius. I love fun / bad films and this is NOT one.