In the summer of 1984, Gene Wilder‘s passion project The Woman in Red hit theaters. Wilder (who also wrote and directed) stars in this remake of the French farce Pardom Mon Affaire as Teddy Pierce, a married, middle-aged San Francisco ad man whose world is shaken to its very core after he glimpses a beautiful brunette (Kelly LeBrock, in her film debut) wearing a red dress. Suddenly unable to think about anything but this alluring stranger, he becomes determined to bed her. As you can imagine, this results in plenty of domestic and workplace problems — especially those caused by Ms. Milner (Gilda Radner), a coworker whom he romantically snubs. But will he be able to make his dreams come true and have The Woman in Red fall for him?
These days, the movie’s biggest legacy might be that it spawned the Oscar-winning hit single “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder. (A popular misconception is that Chris de Burgh’s 1986 hit “The Lady in Red” is from this film, it is not).
The Woman in Red has recently hit DVD and Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics, giving audiences another chance to revisit its goofily seductive charms.