Buddy Buddy

After failing to set the box-office on fire with such sublime achievements of the '70s as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and Fedora, Wilder was understandably playing safe this time around. One is therefore less inclined to condemn than to overlook this farce about a hardboiled hit man and the suicidal pest next door (previously filmed by Edouard Molinaro in 1973 as L'Emmerdeur). What makes it even easier to ignore is that it looks so little like a Wilder film. There is some byplay with doubles, disguises and mistaken identity, but the rest is all bland Panavision, dreary back projection, and laboured dialogue.