Plot
Con man Eddie Dash, required to complete community service for past crimes, reluctantly chooses the easiest assignment: accompanying mental patient and reformed pathological liar George as he adjusts to life outside the sanitarium.
Although George quickly assumes Eddie is his best friend, Eddie attempts to ditch him at a museum. Panicked, George runs outside and knocks over Al Sandro, who mistakes him for millionaire brewery heir Abe Fielding, missing for five months. Al arranges to meet George at a café to pay a large debt owed to Abe. Sensing an opportunity, Eddie convinces George to go along with the ruse. At the café, staff and patrons also recognize George as Abe. Forced to maintain the deception, George spins elaborate stories about his supposed disappearance.
Outside, George is confronted by Abe's wife, Elaine, who brings him to their mansion. Despite George's attempts to admit the truth, Elaine remains convinced he is Abe. The next morning, Eddie arrives to collect George, praising his lying skills, but George regrets deceiving Elaine, to whom he is attracted. Abe's business manager, Rupert Dibbs, appears with cash and a credit card for 'Abe'—which Eddie promptly pockets before leaving. Overwhelmed without Eddie's support, George panics and returns to the sanitarium.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that Elaine is actually actress Mimi Kravitz, hired by Rupert along with other paid actors to convince George he is Abe. Rupert, who expected to inherit the brewery after Abe Fielding Sr.'s death, discovered that Abe Sr. had an illegitimate son—now deceased. To stall probate and secure the brewery for himself, Rupert plots to pass George off as the heir. He even pays Eddie to participate.
Eddie brings George back to the mansion, where George tries to win Elaine's affection. Moved by his sincerity, Elaine begins to regret deceiving him. George serenades her with a yodeling performance at an Austrian restaurant, and they grow closer, eventually spending the night together.
At Rupert's urging, Eddie and Elaine escort George to doctors and a dentist to create false medical records. Overhearing a discussion about identifying bodies through dental records, they realize Rupert plans to murder George to claim the brewery. Rupert dismisses Elaine's concerns and secretly offers Eddie a large sum to kill George.
During a hunting trip, Rupert eavesdrops on Eddie and George through a remote device. Instead of hunting, George warns animals to flee, but the pair are soon confronted by a bear. Panicked, Eddie fires his gun, seemingly killing George.
At the funeral, Eddie delivers an impromptu eulogy—only for George to reappear, revealing they faked his death. Eddie announces he has recorded Rupert's incriminating conversations, exposing his murder plot. Rupert tries to unmask George as an imposter, but his own hired actors maintain the deception. Enraged that George will inherit the brewery, Rupert attacks him but is subdued by Eddie and Elaine and taken into custody.
Rupert warns George that living a lie will consume him. In response, George confesses his real identity to the crowd, but they dismiss it as a joke, leaving him in control of the brewery with Eddie and Elaine by his side.
Sometime later, George and Elaine celebrate their wedding on a tropical beach with Eddie and his girlfriend Gloria, Rupert's former secretary.
Production
The film was released five years after Pryor revealed that he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and his physical deterioration is evident in this film. [1] [2] Pryor said that he "got personally and professionally fucked on that film. They fired the director and hired another ego. I was told I wasn't going to have to reshoot scenes but the new ego had me do it anyway. That's when I discovered things weren't going well for me professionally." [3]
Peter Bogdanovich was the original director, but was replaced after five weeks of shooting in New York. [4] On the last night of location filming, he received a phone call from his agent near midnight letting him know that he was being replaced. After reviewing footage with the replacement director, it was determined that none of the New York footage was usable, and the script was rewritten to be shot entirely in Los Angeles. [5] The movie was shot and completed in Los Angeles, and none of Bogdanovich's footage was used. [5] Coincidentally, Bogdanovich had also been an early candidate to direct Silver Streak , Wilder and Pryor's first film pairing, [6] but was ousted in favor of Arthur Hiller.
In 2016, on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast (Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast!), Bogdanovich described how he and Gene Wilder did not get along because Bogdanovich devoted most of his time and energy to Richard Pryor due to his health issues. [7] Although Bogdanovich claimed that the film had been greenlit only because he had gotten Pryor involved (the studio apparently did not want Wilder to star alone), he believed that it was Wilder who successfully campaigned to have him replaced with another director. [7] Gottfried was cast in the Bogdanovich version of the film, but he was dropped when it was reshot. [7]
Reception
Another You was a box-office failure. [8] It ranks among the top thirty widely released films for having the biggest second weekend drop at the box office, dropping 78.1% from $1,537,965 to $334,836. [9] It has a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "So stubbornly unfunny that not even a reunited Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are enough to give it a spark, Another You is worse than none at all." [10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "C" on a scale of A+ to F. [11]
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film "a frantically incoherent comedy" with a screenplay that "jabbers along in ways that even Mr. Wilder, who carries the brunt of the dialogue, cannot make amusing. Mr. Pryor's role is paltry and his dialogue scant. When all else fails, he is reduced to repeating obscenities." [12]
Joseph McBride of Variety wrote that "producer Ziggy Steinberg's feeble script is given slapdash direction by the man who replaced Peter Bogdanovich on what is billed 'a film by Maurice Phillips' (the best joke in the film)... Though Pryor shows old flashes of his old comic brilliance and charm, it's painful to see how his health problems have affected him in this role." [13]
Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Producer-writer Ziggy Steinberg's script is like a stone tied around the movie's neck that sinks it, despite all those gaudy, glossy balloons pulling it up." [14]
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film half of one star out of four, calling it a "completely worthless comedy" with "no laughs". [15]
