Protraph Lack of good storyline.
Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
strike-1995 Do you know what makes me laugh, hugo boss man of today adverts. This is not one of those.
classicsoncall You know, I thought the 'Execucizer' was a pretty good idea, a stationary, all purpose exercise machine for the busy executive who can't get away from his desk to work out. The picture played it for laughs but I thought it was pretty imaginative in concept. You wouldn't even have to miss a board meeting to get fit, what could be better?Well I can take Woody Allen up to a certain point, but when he gets too introspective it can become draining. When the scandals of his later life were revealed it took away any respect I might have had for the guy as a comic and an actor. Actually, the film was quite prophetic back in 1971, or was Woody even back then trying to tell the world he was a pervert waiting to come out. He gives himself away at the magazine stand when he tried to explain away his girlie mag - he was doing a study on perversion and child molesting. Someone should have taken him seriously.The film itself has it's funny moments, the best was the café order to feed the rebels of San Marcos. Every scene with Louise Lasser took me back to her mid-Seventies quirky hit, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". That's another one I could only take so much of, but quite funny when it first started out.It's no secret that liberal film makers take their swipes at folks of religious conviction, that was on display here with the parallel parking crucifixion scene and Mellish (Allen) making the sign of the cross prior to dining with the rebel President of San Marcos. But he balanced things out a little when skewering New Age sensibilities with non-sensical talk to Nancy (Lasser) about her totality and 'other-ness'.Some cool cameos in the picture, using Howard Cosell to good effect as the play by play announcer for the San Marcos revolution and Roger Grimsby in a decidedly somber journalistic mode. You'll also catch Sly Stallone as an uncredited subway thug, a couple years before he ed up with The Lords of Flatbush.
Hitchcoc While, in my younger day, I loved these movies, I see now how hit and miss they could be. Woody takes his shtick to a banana republic where there has been a revolution and uses every cliché about how unstable a government can be. He ends up on trial for his life, being confronted by a black woman claiming to be J. Edgar Hoover. Miss America also shows up. There is a consummation of a marriage with commentator (big at the time) Howard Cosell. Anyway, the story is nothing but an excuse for sight gags and silliness. Allen is often at his best in vignettes and this is full of them. As time ed, he became of the world's great directors, but it took time to get the whole package. Actually, when "Annie Hall" came along. See this for a lightweight bunch of laughs and realize that all this stuff is still going on in South and Central America.
ShadeGrenade Interiewed by Photoplay Magazine in 1980 about their then-new comedy film 'Airplane!', Jim Abrahams, Jerry and David Zucker cited Woody Allen's 1971 picture 'Bananas' as a major influence on their work. You can see why. Several gags, such as the spoof television commercial for 'Old Testament' cigarettes ( "I smoke them...HE smokes them!", quips a priest, glancing upwards ), the honeymoon consummation scene which is shot like a televised boxing match, the trial scene which involves Miss America and J.Edgar Hoover disguised as a black woman, could have fitted into any one of the gang's pictures. 'Bananas' was only Woody's second film as director, the first being the seminal spoof documentary - yes, the genre existed before 'This Is Spinal Tap' - 'Take The Money & Run'. It stars our bespectacled hero as 'Fielding Mellish', a products tester who is incredibly unlucky when it comes to girls. Nobody wants to go out with him. He meets and falls for 'Nancy' ( Louise Lasser, Allen's real-wife wife at the time ), a political activist keen to end American aid to the banana republic of San Marcos in South America. They have had a revolution there, and the country is now being run by a dictator called 'Vargas'. When Nancy breaks off the relationship, Mellish flies to San Marcos to find her, only to get caught up in the counter-revolution, ultimately becoming its new President...As was the case with 'Run', this picture contains all of Allen's usual preoccupations - sex, death, human relationships. The gags come at you like bullets from a Gatling gun, some work better than others. My favourites include Mellish trying to buy a porno magazine, dealing with thugs on a subway train ( one of whom is played by a young Sylvester Stallone ), falling down a manhole as he gets out of his car, hurting his back during training with the rebels and being forced to crouch as he s the queue for food, President Vargas thinking he has enlisted aid from the C.I.A. when in fact it is a Jewish organisation ( suddenly the streets of San Marcos are teeming with rabbis ), and Nancy telling Mellish that 'someone is missing' from their relationship. He asks what it is, and she does not know. He replies that if she does not know what it is, how does she know its missing? Woody has never made a secret of his love for the Marx Brothers' pictures, and their influence is evident. This hails from what what we might term his 'golden age' when, along with Mel Brooks, he was the best American comedy film maker around. Three films in similar vein followed - 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask' ( 1972 ), 'Sleeper' ( 1973 ), and 'Love & Death' ( 1974 ) - before Allen decided to reinvent himself with 'Annie Hall' ( 1977 ).
