Delayed Reaction: Wonder Man

[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]

Connection to Foreign Correspondent: Both nominated for Special Effects Oscar

 

Premise: A comedian gets killed by a mob boss then appears as a ghost to his bookish twin brother to put his killers away.

 

Connecting Foreign Correspondent to Wonder Man with the Special Effects Oscar was arbitrary when I chose it, but it made for a fun way to watch Wonder Man. You see, these are very different special effects movies. Foreign Correspondent of more of a set piece movie. I’m sure it got its nomination for the plane crash sequence. That’s an intricate little piece of production design and coordination to simulate a crash. Wonder Man is on the other end of the spectrum. The effects were the selling point of the movie. Its Oscar nominations were all technical.

I definitely liked Wonder Man less. It’s tough for a movie that relies on effects to age well. A good performance is ageless. A good effect can be built upon. Many of the ghostly effects in Wonder Man look good for 1945. I’ve seen them all before though and they just aren’t that impressive. Like, there’s a scene where ghost Danny Kaye is clearly climbing up some stairs that are blurred out to make it look like he’s climbing in midair. The tricks that won it the Oscar that year are just a few in bag of tricks for lesser movies a few years later.

That means the rest of the movie is what needed to sell it to me. On a technical level, Danny Kaye is doing great work. He plays both brothers well and does some impressive physical work. He hits every beat hard. That’s also what wore on me fast. He’s a lot. There’s a type of actor who struggled to understand that they didn’t need to play for the back row anymore. It looks like he eventually moved to variety series for TV, and that makes a lot more sense for him. His Wonder Man character(s) was better for a 10-minute sketch than a 90-minute movie.

I do miss the days when a movie that’s thin on plot would just throw a musical stage number in full for no reason.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend