THE COMEDY SENSATION OF THE YEAR!

Napoleon is about to invade Russia; a coward (Woody Allen) is forced to join the army, and is eventually caught up in a plot to kill the French leader.

A film much in the same vein as the director’s Bananas (1971); this is slapstick comedy for New York intellectuals everywhere. It plays like a love letter to philosophy, Russian literature, French and Swedish movies and counts on its audience to also have a sense of humor about it. Not for all tastes, and not all jokes are successful, but there’s a steady stream of them and I certainly laughed. The lightness of Prokofiev’s music also helps.

Diane Keaton is fun as Allen’s slutty wife.

1975-U.S. 82 min. Color. Written and directed by Woody Allen. Cast: Woody Allen (Boris Grushenko), Diane Keaton (Sonja), Harold Gould (Anton Inbedkov), Alfred Lutter, Olga Georges-Picot, Zvee Scooler, Jessica Harper.

Quote: “If I don’t kill him he’ll make war all through Europe. But murder… What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild parties. I bet they all took a house together in Crete for the summer. A: Socrates is a man. B: All men are mortal. C: All men are Socrates. Means all men are homosexuals. Heh… I’m not a homosexual. Once, some cossacks whistled at me. I, I have the kind of body that excites both persuasions. You know, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don’t think about sex at all, you know… they become lawyers.” (Allen considers murdering Napoleon)

Last word: “He has never been a formal filmmaker. He’s just like [quickly], ‘Okay, here we are, we’re going, let’s go’. It just threw me off in the beginning. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, at all. It just didn’t seem like this was what my idea of making a movie was. Because I had done The Godfather, which was more formal. Woody was just going so fast. I just didn’t understand his technique at that point.” (Keaton, The Hollywood Interview)