Remembering Gene Wilder (2024)

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have a favorite Gene Wilder performance, whether that’s his indelible performance as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), the Waco Kid in 1974’s Blazing Saddles, or a young Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein (1974). But most would be hard-pressed to say they know anything additional about Wilder, who’s large blue eyes and self-deprecating air made him a relatable everyman. Documentarian Ron Frank’s documentary Remembering Gene Wilder doesn’t do a lot to show us the man behind the curtain, but it brings together a lot of funny people to celebrate an equally funny man.

Remembering Gene Wilder is predominately about Wilder’s career and it certainly does a great job of showing how the actor lived up to the “wild” in his name. This clip-heavy presentation starts with Wilder — utilizing audio snippets of him reading his memoirs — discussing how fate played such a heavy hand in his life. If he hadn’t been in a stageplay with actress Anne Bancroft, then he’d never have met director Mel Brooks. And that’s a throughline that carries through the film’s brisk 90 minutes: Wilder let fate take him wherever it was meant to, introducing him to both collaborators and lovers.

Numerous talking heads from Wilder’s life pop in amongst the clips, from Brooks himself to actress Carol Kane. Some of the connections are a big more ill-defined, like singer Harry Connick, Jr. who was revealed to this writer to be a neighbor of Wilder’s towards the end of his life; this isn’t mentioned in the film and audiences might wonder “Why is he here?” All of them do a fabulous job of illustrating why Brooks was such a comic genius and, more importantly, why he was just a nice guy. Make no mistake, in a cinematic landscape where it’s hard to find someone who isn’t problematic, Remembering Gene Wilder does a fantastic job of asserting that Wilder wasn’t just an amazing actor who picked indelible projects; he was a genuinely nice person.

But those projects he picked are certainly legendary and are dived into heavily. His collaborations with Brooks take up the most time, from his pitching Brooks Young Frankenstein — a project that was considered Wilder’s favorite — to the ingenious tics he’d employ to catch the kids off-guard while filming Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. What’s more unique is the time spent on littler known features like 1979’s The Frisco Kid and 1972’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask. Outside of the Brooks collaborations, the most time is spent looking at Wilder’s features opposite comedian Richard Pryor. Clips from the pair’s movies do much of the heavy lifting in showcasing their dynamic, though Pryor’s daughter does a lovely job of illustrating how the two did care for each other — while never being best friend — particularly once Pryor started to deal with MS. (If anything I have no excuse now not to watch these movies for the first time!)

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What’s most surprising about Remembering Gene Wilder is how it steps back from Wilder’s personal life. There are elements touched upon. He was told at a young age to never upset his mother, who had a weak heart, for fear of killing her. As TCM’s host Ben Mankiewicz lays out, that’s a terrible thing to tell a child and no doubt saddled the young Wilder with an immense level of pressure and anxiety, though it’s never explicated where that manifested. And despite being married four times only two of Wilder’s relationships are explored and they come extremely late in the film. The entire section involving Wilder and Gilda Radner arrives with about 40 minutes left in the movie and is summed up rather quickly. The final few minutes, focused on his last wife, Karen, and his battle with dementia is dealt with all manner of sensitivity and will leave you sobbing.

Remembering Gene Wilder isn’t a comprehensive deep-dive into the actor or his life, but it’s the perfect encapsulation of why he’s endured to this day. It’s amazing to look at how many films he made that have endured in just a ten-year period. Call it fate or call it smart business decisions, Wilder was a genius and he has the body of work to prove it. If anything, Remembering Gene Wilder will want you to pop in your favorite Wilder movie and enjoy it all over again.