The Films of Woody Allen: Part 1
The Brazen Nebbish (1966-1975)
Comedians making the leap from stand-up to feature film is a much more familiar trajectory now, but it was something of a revolution when Borscht Belt comedians like Mel Brooks and Woody Allen established themselves in television and then the movies. A university and college drop-out who began selling jokes to television and Broadway writers as a teenager, Allan Stewart Konigsberg was born in 1935, grew up in Brooklyn and went on to have one of the most prolific and, by now, notorious careers in the movies, writing and directing an impressive number of movies while maintaining a personal life that has grabbed far more attention than any ninety year-old has in many a decade.
His stand-up career took off in the 1960s and was accompanied by success on stage as a playwright, after which he wrote screenplays that he felt were ruined by other directors. He was frustrated by studio interference in his 1969 directorial debut, Take The Money And Run and thereafter insisted on taking no back-end points on any of his films in exchange for full control over the final cut (he insists that whatever fortune he possesses is the result of some lucky Manhattan real estate deals and not movie salaries).
Allen’s earliest films won him a beloved fan base for his clever but silly concept comedies, a following that he would risk when he would take a chance on a whole new form of humour by the end of the decade.
What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
Rating: BB.5
Cast: Tatsuya Mihashi, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Tadao Nakamaru, Susumu Kurobe, Sachio Sakai, Hideyo Amamoto, Tetsu Nakamura, Osman Yusuf, Kumi Mizuno, Woody Allen, Julie Bennett, Frank Buxton, Louise Lasser, Len Maxwell, Mickey Rose
Producer Charles H. Joffe hired Allen to take a Japanese action film and rewrite the soundtrack for comedic effect. The original footage is from a series of “International Secret Police” films that were basically ripoffs of James Bond adventures, with scenes taken from “Key of Keys” and “A Barrel Of Gunpowder”, but with the English-speaking voices taking over the soundtrack. A plot about a spy asked to steal money from anti-government villains is now someone trying to steal the perfect egg salad recipe, and characters who have an important mission to accomplish are now just immaturely obsessed with sex. It sounds offensive by today’s standards, you expect something culturally tone deaf and wholly insensitive, but Allen was always a healthy combination of lowbrow sight gags and highbrow wit and he uses the film as an opportunity more to make fun of arthouse-loving North Americans than to indulge in cheap jokes trading on offensive Asian stereotypes. Audiences of the sixties were flocking to movies like La Dolce Vita and The Lovers in theory because the films were racking up critical raves and awards, but actually it was because they had way more sex and nudity than American films did, and this hypocrisy is the target that Allen is aiming at. All that said, though, this experiment is only funny at points, not throughout, and Allen, who now distances himself from the project, was infuriated by the producers adding extra footage and throwing in musical numbers by The Lovin’ Spoonful to pad it out to feature length.
Take The Money And Run (1969)
Rating: BBBB
Cast: Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire, Jacquelyn Hyde, Lonny Chapman, Jan Merlin, James Anderson, Howard Storm, Mark Gordon, Micil Murphy, Minnow Moskowitz, Nate Jacobson, Grace Bauer, Ethel Sokolow, Dan Frazer, Henry Leff, Mike O’Dowd, Louise Lasser
Allen’s first proper feature as director is a hilarious riot that is still a treat to watch today. It’s a staged documentary about a bank robber (Allen) who, despite his best efforts, can’t avoid being completely inept at his criminal occupation. The inquisitive camera interviews his family and friends as they divulge the details of his life and how difficult it is for him to get ahead in his business. Some of the sight gags (like Allen using a loaf of bread to hide the camera he is using to scope out a bank’s security cams) are priceless.
Bananas (1971)
Rating: BBB.5
Cast: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalban, Natividad Abascal, Howard Cosell, Jacobo Morales, Miguel Ángel Suárez, David Ortiz, René Enríquez, Jack Axelrod, Roger Grimsby, Don Dunphy, Martha Greenhouse, Dan Frazer, Stanley Ackerman, Charlotte Rae, Axel Anderson, Dorothi Fox
Allen’s hilarious comedy spoofs the Cuban Missile Crisis and Fidel Castro. He plays a regular, everyday Manhattanite who meets a beautiful political activist (Louise Lasser, who filmed this soon after their divorce) and joins a spy training program to impress her, not realizing that he will be sent to ‘San Marcos’ to infiltrate the camp of the enemy. While there, his ruse as a Castro-like leader ends up being so convincing that he becomes President of the country. Full of terrific sight gags and goofy slapstick humour, this film promises plenty of fun for anyone who watches. Look for a very young Sylvester Stallone playing a subway thug.
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask (1972)
Rating: BB.5
Cast: Woody Allen, John Carradine, Lou Jacobi, Louise Lasser, Anthony Quayle, Tony Randall, Lynn Redgrave, Burt Reynolds, Gene Wilder, Jack Barry, Elaine Giftos, Toni Holt, Robert Q. Lewis, Heather MacRae, Pamela Mason, Sidney Miller, Regis Philbin, Titos Vandis, Stanley Adams, Oscar Beregi, Alan Caillou, Don Chuy, Dort Clark, Erin Fleming, Geoffrey Holder, Baruch Lumet, Tom Mack, Jay Robinson, Ref Sanchez, Robert Walden, Norman Alden
Comical adaptation of David Reuben’s self-help book, a sometimes funny, sometimes boring collection of skits strung together. Among the best of them is a hilarious tale featuring Lynn Redgrave as a beautiful princess who wears an extremely well-secured chastity belt, and Allen as the court jester who wants to find the right key for it. There’s also Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep, a game show about sexual fetishes, a fake television commercial about football players falling in love, a spoof of sexually-explicit Italian films and a very charming segment that takes place in the male body and stars Allen as a sperm who is terrified about his upcoming assignment.
Sleeper (1973)
Rating: BBBB
Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Bartlett Robinson, Don Keefer, Mews Small, Jerry Hardin, Charles H. Gray, Jackie Mason, Douglas Rain
Woody Allen’s funniest pre-Annie Hall comedy is this terrific romp set in the distant future. He plays a New Yorker who wakes up in a hospital room two hundred years after he was put into a deep freeze by his physician; he had originally gone in for minor dental surgery and unknowingly became a cryogenics experiment. Now he has to survive a way-groovy future world where bubble cars are used for travel and sex is accomplished with the help of an ‘orgasmatron’. Diane Keaton plays his delightful love interest, and the two of them come up with classic comedy moments.
Love and Death (1975)
Rating: BBBB
Cast: Woody Allen, Alfred Lutter III, Diane Keaton, Harold Gould, Olga Georges-Picot, Zvee Scooler, Despo Diamantidou, Sol L. Frieder, Jessica Harper, Lloyd Battista, Georges Adet, Frank Adu, Féodor Atkine, Yves Barsacq, Yves Brainville, Brian Coburn, Tony Jay, Aubrey Morris, Beth Porter, James Tolkan, Howard Vernon
One of Allen’s funniest comedies, this joyful film is a hilarious spoof on epic Russian novels and films. In it, a young farmer from the provinces achieves fame on the battlefield and the love of a beautiful woman (Diane Keaton) with whom he suffers under the wrath of an evil tyrant. Clever dialogue and witty sight gags, plus it’s beautifully photographed and features a gorgeous score with music by Prokofiev.