Haunted Honeymoon

For his fourth, and final, film as a director, Gene Wilder returned to the spoof genre by lampooning the golden age of the radio serial and classic horror films with 1986's Haunted Honeymoon.

Wilder and Gilda Radner play Larry and Vickie, two popular performers on a murder mystery radio program who are planning on getting hitched at a castle that was Larry's childhood home. Once there, a real life mystery begins to unfold that involves murder and a werewolf. Larry's nerves begin to set in and begins to suspect that he might actually be the killer.

I'll admit, when I first saw this I wasn't that crazy about it. But the older I get, I've grown to appreciate it more. I think now that I'm older, I like the fondness that Wilder has for a bygone era. Just like he did with the silent film era in The World's Greatest Lover, Wilder pokes fun at the golden age of radio with a loving touch. Hope that doesn't sound dirty.

Wilder and Radner prove once again that they worked as well together on screen as they did off.The two are aided by a great supporting cast that includes Dom Deluise, spending most of the film in drag as Wilder's eccentric aunt. Jonathon Pryce as Wilder's skirt chasing cousin. And Paul L. Smith as Wilder's shrink.

A funny story from the set, I read that Radner didn't wear a wedding gown when she married Wilder. They had eloped and din't have a big ceremony. So she asked the photographer on set to snap as many photos of her wearing the gown she wears in the movie and make her a wedding album, which he did. Sadly, this was Radner's final film.

Haunted Honeymoon is far from being ranked with the best of Wilder's resume, but it does have some laughs and isn't a total time waster.

It's available on dvd and blu ray.