Thou Shalt Not

By R.C.

WHOLLY MOSES! Directed by Gary Weis Screenplay by Guy Thomas

This bastard son of Monty Python's Life of Brian had possibilities: Dudley Moore, fresh from his conquest of Bo Derek, plays Herschel, a comic biblical figure who never quite made it into the Bible. Instead he meets a fatherly slave (James Coco), a feisty pharaoh (Richard Pryor), a counterfeit beggar (David L. Lander), an inept angel of the Lord (Paul Sand), a show-bizzy Arab (Dom DeLuise) and an ornery young woman (Laraine Newman) who leaves Herschel to tryst with Goliath and is turned into a pillar of salt. Even in A.D. 1980, the wrath of God should not be ignored: for He brought upon this production a plague of unfunny punch lines and lackluster performances. There are a couple of droll sight gags (Goliath's oversize undershorts hanging out to dry; Coco at work in the pharaoh's palace, trying to sweep up hundreds of frogs with a dustpan and broom), but nothing can redeem Wholly Moses! from its destiny of eternal mirthlessness. It is a tattered Torah indeed, a comedy made out of hole cloth.

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