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Woody Allen’s “Early, Funny Ones”

One of the most beloved groups of films in American comedy is the “early, funny” work of Woody Allen – the five films he directed, wrote and starred in between 1969 and 1975: Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*(*But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death.

Before turning toward a more mature, introspective comedy style, Woody Allen’s early works were heavily influenced by both the one-liners of vaudeville and radio comics like Bob Hope and the Marx Bros., and the slapstick and physical comedy of the great silent clowns.

Fans of Woody Allen are sometimes divided into those who prefer the earlier films, with their zany, freewheeling gags and anything-goes humor, while others prefer the more “cerebral” comedy of Annie Hall or Manhattan, or some of his more dramatic films, either blending comedy with drama (Crimes and Misdemeanors) or foregoing comedy altogether in favor of straight drama (Interiors, Another Woman). Fans use the “early, funny” label to refer to the first five films he directed (Allen himself is probably responsible for introducing this designation, when a character in his 1980 masterpiece Stardust Memories comments to Woody’s character, film director Sandy Bates, that she likes his films, especially the “early, funny ones”).

Whatever one’s preference, there’s no denying that the first five films Allen directed represent one of the most unique and distinctive bodies of work that American screen comedy has ever produced.

Allen’s first directorial effort came in 1969, with Take the Money and Run.

The film is fairly revolutionary in its technique – presenting the story of wanted criminal Virgil Starkwell as a “mockumentary”, years before This is Spinal Tap. Allen had initially approached Jerry Lewis about directing, but he declined. Cast into the lead role, both behind and in front of the camera, Allen achieved a remarkable comic directing debut. The film’s technique itself is often rough, which is appropriate given the formal approach. It was also done so partly out of necessity, as the film was shot using a mobile production truck that allowed for covering more locations in a given day than usual. How much the unpolished production technique is intentional is debatable, but the film is carried by a non-stop parade of gags, some of which work better than others.

By offering a virtual smorgasbord of gags, Allen makes sure the film is never in danger of falling flat, since there will be another joke along any minute.

His follow-up film (and his first for United Artists, the studio with which he would work almost exclusively until 1980) was the even zanier Bananas.

A light political satire, this one found Woody cast as Fielding Mellish, a product tester who becomes politically active to impress a girl he’s fallen in love with. After she leaves him unexpectedly, he travels to the fictional Republic of San Marcos, which is in the middle of a political revolution. Invited to dine with the President, Fielding makes a disaster of things in a hilarious scene that could have come straight out of a Bob Hope comedy. However, our hero is eventually kidnapped by the revolutionaries, who make him one of their own. After a series of misadventures in their rebel training camp (including a memorable scene in which Fielding has to order take-out lunches for the entire group of rebels), the revolution is on, and before he knows it, Fielding finds himself forced to pose as the leader of the rebellion. The plot, as is probably evident from this description, is merely a clothesline on which to hang a series of brilliantly constructed gags.

The film ends back in New York, with Fielding on trial in the most madcap courtroom sequence since Duck Soup before being reunited with the love of his life, as Howard Cosell gives a play-by-play account of their wedding night on national television!

If Allen’s first two directorial efforts emphasized gags in favor of a polished production style, this would change slightly with his next film, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask).

Ostensibly based on the best-selling book by Dr. David Reuben, the film was structured around loosely-connected vignettes dealing with some aspect of human sexuality, using Reuben’s book merely as a starting point to build a series of comedy sequences.

These include the stories of doctor Gene Wilder’s passionate affair with a sheep, a mock-TV game show called “What’s My Perversion?”, a parody of Italian films with Woody as a Mastroianni-like character whose wife can only get turned on in public places, and a now-classic sequence taking place inside the human body during sex, with Woody as a reluctant sperm. In terms of narrative, it’s just about as loose as Allen’s first two films, with the episodic nature justified by the presentation of a series of vignettes. Some of them fall flat (such as the sequence with Lou Jacobi as a cross-dresser who has to avoid getting caught by his wife), but the best segments demonstrate Allen’s growth as a filmmaker. As Allen himself said in an interview with William Wolf (and published in Landmark Films: The Cinema and Our Century), with this film, he “started to get more knowledgeable and interested about how to work the camera, how to get the color, and how to work with sets and make that stuff effective.” The TV game show sequence, for instance, is shot in black and white, and made to look like an old Kinescope recording – 16mm film shot off of a video monitor.

It’s a subtle technique, but is absolutely crucial in creating a believable (and therefore effective) subject for parody.

Sleeper, which followed in 1973, was a major advancement in both narrative and technique.

Heavily influenced by the great slapstick clowns of comedy’s golden age, Woody played a Greenwich Village jazz clarinetist and health food store owner who awakes 200 years in the future after being preserved cryogenically.

It turns out that scientists have brought him back to consciousness to help lead an important plot to steal the nose of the Leader of this futuristic society, which is all that remains of him after an assassination attempt, and will be used to clone another Leader. Woody, as Miles Monroe, undergoes an incredible series of misadventures, including having to disguise himself as a robot servant at a wild party given by Diane Keaton (her second appearance on-screen with Allen; they’d worked together the previous year in Play it Again, Sam, which he wrote, but did not direct), and at one point even finds himself at the center of an experiment that involves making him believe he’s won the Miss America pageant! Eventually, he and Diane Keaton are successful in stealing the Leader’s nose, and make their escape.

Allen’s comedy began to take a slightly more serious turn with his next directorial effort, Love and Death, in 1975.

A brilliant satire on Russian literature and cinema, studio executives were concerned the film would be a bit highbrow and difficult to market. It’s one of his most superb comedies, filled with some of the funniest one-liners Allen ever delivered.

Set in the early 1800s, he plays Boris Grushenko, complete with his trademark glasses. Boris is a coward (“yes, but a militant coward!”) who is reluctant to go off and fight in the war. Diane Keaton is his cousin, Sonya, with whom he is madly in love. War keeps them apart, however, as does her marriage to a fish merchant who can talk of little else besides herring. About halfway through the film, the plot takes a back seat to the extraordinary wit and verbal comedy that dominates the film, its best lines too numerous to quote here. The film ends with a mad parody of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

While Allen would go on to produce more profound and deeply important films, this group of five comedies that he made early in his cinematic career demonstrate the depth of his genius for both physical and verbal comedy. Each one demonstrates his continued evolution not only as expert comedian, but as a truly original cinematic artist.

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