Gene Wilder exemplified a certain kind of crazed comic intensity that found a mass audience in the 1970s and 80s, with Wilder seeming to function best in partnership with other comedy greats: principally Mel Brooks, with whom he made three masterpieces, and Richard Pryor.

The Producers

Wilder had a small role in a TV production of Death of Salesman, and another minor part in Bonnie and Clyde, but the film that really put him on the map was Mel Brooks’ celebrated The Producers, released in 1967. Wilder played highly strung accountant Leo Bloom (named in homage to James Joyce’s central character in Ulysses) opposite Zero Mostel as the pair work a scheme to swindle wannabe theatrical backers on Broadway. Brooks originally tried to cast Peter Sellers as Bloom, but Sellers dropped out; Brooks remembered the “natural comic” he had met some years previously and the rest is history.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Roald Dahl didn’t much like Wilder’s version of eccentric sweetmaker Willy Wonka, having lobbied to get Spike Milligan the role. Be that as it may, the pop-art design and nifty musical soundtrack has meant the film remained a candy-coloured cult classic, and Wilder’s fizzing energy works well in the role.

Blazing Saddles

Wilder did his best work in the 1970s with Brooks, and this spoof western nailed it – and was commercially huge. As the Waco Kid – a boozed-up gunslinger who recovers to help the new sheriff see off a gang of racist goons – Wilder carried it off brilliantly. As he did in Young Frankenstein, Brooks’ 1975 parody monster movie, which includes the edifying sight of Wilder hoofing with his lumbering creation to Puttin’ on the Ritz.

The Frisco Kid

In outline, this sounds like the western Mel Brooks should have made, but bizarrely it was directed by The Dirty Dozen’s Robert Aldrich. Wilder plays a Godfearing rabbi trying to get a Torah scroll across the old west in the mid-19th century; he runs across Amish, native Americans, con artists and a bankrobber (played by, yes, Harrison Ford).

Stir Crazy

Wilder found another comedy partner in the shape of Richard Pryor; they were first cast together in Silver Streak, which features the slightly less edifying sight of Wilder hamming it up in blackface. They came together a second time on Stir Crazy – which was directed by Sidney Poitier – as two friends who end up in jail after being framed. There’s a pleasing equality to his and Pryor’s onscreen relationship, which represented a considerable advance in Hollywood’s appreciation of African American talent.