Still, when he tells his friends Buddy, Joe, and Michael, they encourage him, and after meeting the woman again through his office, he tries to ask her for a date, but mistakenly phones Ms. Milner, a plain ad-agency employee who is flattered by his interest.

From the beginning, his attempts at an affair are doomed, as he creates a charade to get to the date, but Didi tells him that their neighbor told them to take care of her small boy.

He creates another charade by writing a fake telegram from work and sending it to himself, telling him to go to Los Angeles, but due to the airport being fogged in, his flight is detoured to San Diego.

After Buddy, Joe and Michael create a ruse to take him to Charlotte, he radically alters his wardrobe and begins acting nonchalant to try to capture his love's interest.

[12][13] In the U.S. and Canada Kino Lorber released The Woman in Red on Blu-ray in 2017 with a trailer and an audio commentary track by critic and filmmaker Jim Hemphill.

[15] The film gained publicity for Kelly LeBrock, a real-life model making her screen debut, particularly for the skirt-and-grate scene, a variation of Marilyn Monroe's iconic pose in The Seven Year Itch.

"[18] Variety wrote that "the laughs roll along readily as Wilder tries one idea after another to sneak out on wife Judith Ivey and family to rendezvous with Le Brock."

It is a light, summer-weight sitcom and a loving adaptation of its French predecessor, a pleasing 80 minutes that won't leave you hysterical, but will certainly amuse.

"[20] Kathleen Carroll of the New York Daily News had mixed feelings about the film, saying she thought it was "a giddy, reasonably funny farce, but its characters, especially Teddy's three infantile male buddies, are not nearly as well-defined as they were in the original French comedy.

"[21] A far more negative review came from Ralph Novak of People, who said, "when it comes to criminal waste of time and talent, it would be hard to top this would-be romantic comedy, which Gene Wilder wrote, directed, and stars in"; he singled out the use of Stevie Wonder's songs ("having access to the ability of Stevie Wonder and trashing it in this way ought to be a capital offense"), and called it "spurious in the extreme" before adding that it "drones on through all the clichés of infidelity to a resolution that isn't emotionally, morally or comedically satisfying.

[23]Nancy Scoll of the San Francisco Examiner also awarded the film a one-star rating and said that it was "a classic example of a self-indulgent actor who should never direct or write [because] the script is embarrassing and the gags are clumsy.