Gene Wilder (1933-2016) had an unusual career. “He’s naïve,” Mel Brooks says in the documentary “Remembering Gene Wilder” of Wilder’s screen persona. “He’s innocent. He’s sweet, simple, and honest. But when he got excited he was a volcano.” Has any other movie star been so good at suppressing hysteria — until he didn’t? Add in that Brillo-pad coiffure, eyes of nearly Paul Newman blue, and a voice that went from a whisper to a shriek. There was no one else quite like him.
Born Jerry Silberman, Wilder grew up in a non-observant Jewish family in Milwaukee. His mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever when he was 8. The doctor told him that because of her heart condition he was forbidden to argue with her. Instead, his job was to make her laugh. This had two consequences: a love of performing and an ongoing sense of “rage I didn’t, or couldn’t, express.” He idolized Danny Kaye and Sid Caesar (“to me, the king of them all”) and later viewed Chaplin’s “The Circus” as a big influence.
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From 1967 to 1974, Wilder had a great run. It started with his cameo in “Bonnie and Clyde” and starring role in Brooks’s “The Producers” (both 1967). He played the title role in the now-much-loved “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971), though it flopped on first release. In 1972, in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask),” he takes a swig of Woolite, and some of us are still laughing. Reunited with Brooks, Wilder had an annus mir(th)abilis in 1974, with “Blazing Saddles”, as the Waco Kid, and “Young Frankenstein” (as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein — pronounced steen, thank you, very much). The latter film was Wilder’s idea, and he cowrote it with Brooks.
After that, though, not so much. Wilder directed five movies, none of them especially notable. What was notable was his costarring with Richard Pryor in three films. “Silver Streak” (1976) and “Stir Crazy” (1980) were big hits, though neither holds up. “I’m not a good actor,” he said, “I’m a good re-actor. That’s why Richard and I were so good together.” Wilder pretty much retired from acting at the end of the ′90s. Instead, he wrote books and painted.
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It’s not surprising, then, that “Remembering Gene Wilder,” which Ron Frank directed, is a somewhat unusual documentary, starting with the odd career arc it chronicles. The most unusual thing, and very much in a good way, is that Wilder serves as de facto narrator. Among the books he wrote was a memoir, “Kiss Me Like a Stranger.” The documentary includes extensive excerpts from Wilder’s reading of the audiobook. Talk about a gift to a filmmaker.
That’s a major plus, as are the many film clips from 1967 through 1974. Numerous talking heads are heard from, Brooks chief among them. Others include Carol Kane, Alan Alda, TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz, Harry Connick Jr., Richard Pryor’s daughter Rain, Peter Ostrum, who played Charlie in “Wonka,” and Wilder’s fourth wife. The first two wives go unmentioned (it’s that sort of documentary), and there’s extensive treatment of his third marriage, to Gilda Radner.
That’s part of the unusualness. Their marriage, which by all accounts was very happy, lasted five years, ended by Radner’s death. The cause was ovarian cancer. Inevitably, her death casts a shadow over the documentary. The jolly treatment of Wilder’s fourth marriage — also, by all accounts, very happy — makes the shadow seem incongruous. Another shadow then comes over the documentary, the Alzheimer’s he suffered from during the last few years of his life. The final talking head is his neurologist. Wilder’s dementia makes the film’s title a bit disconcerting.
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The documentary really lays on the praise and sentiment. That may not be unusual in such an enterprise, but it gets tired sooner rather than later. That the score is more cloying than the output of the Wonka factory consumed in one sitting doesn’t help matters. The music is so dreadful it’s not even credited to a human being. Something called Audio Network Scorekeeping Music was responsible.
Wilder and Brooks first met in 1963, when he had a supporting role in the first Broadway production of Brecht’s “Mother Courage.” Brooks’ then-girlfriend and future wife, Anne Bancroft, was starring in the title role. It was Bancroft who suggested Wilder would be an ideal Leo Bloom in the screenplay Brooks was working on, which would become “The Producers.” Here’s the thing, though. Bancroft was 31 at the time — 31, playing Mother Courage! Four years later, she was Mrs. Robinson, in “The Graduate,” just eight years older than her movie daughter, played by Katharine Ross. Talk about unusual careers. Forget Gene Wilder. What was it about Bancroft playing characters so much older than her age?
★★½
REMEMBERING GENE WILDER
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Directed by Ron Frank. Written by Glenn Kirshbaum. At Coolidge Corner. 93 minutes. Unrated (as PG-13, the occasional casual conversational obscenity).
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.