Tudo o que Você Sempre quis Saber Sobre Sexo, mas Tinha Medo de Perguntar

Ever since the mid-70s, I have had a nostalgia for Woody Allen's early films. Everyone needs to grow, it's just that I think Woody has grown in the wrong direction. In the films that followed "Annie Hall" he seemed to be trying to be Bergman at times and Fellini at others, when I always thought he was better just being Woody. Why? Because he was funny, and this film is the funniest of them all.

This is Woody at his zaniest, his most anarchic, his most irreverent, his wildest. It is zany in the same sense that the Marx Brothers were at their height. He isn't afraid to have segments that are just plain crazy and unbelievable. I wonder if David Reuben realized that Woody was actually mocking his book when he sold the rights. A classic. 8/10

In a series of sketches Woody Allen looks at aphrodisiacs, bestiality, cross dressing, perversions, sexual experiments and the functioning of the body during intercourse. All this answers key questions about sex that perhaps we were all to afraid to ask.

Woody Allen apparently just noted down all his comedy thought about sex and decided to make them into a movie. The end result is a strange beast – like sex it has bits that are fantastic and bits that aren't quite as fun but you gotta do them to get to the good stuff! The questions that are asked in subtitle are never actually answered and several times are barely relateable to the actual sketches themselves – so don't expect to learn very much but get ready for some laughs – but not as many as you'd hope.

Allen's comedies are either surreal quick fire comedies or witty plot based things. This is one of the former, or at least wants to be. Some of the sketches are very imaginative and very funny – what's my perversion, the experiment and the innerspace look at sex are all funny. However some others are mildly amusing or totally pointless (the cross dressing one doesn't really work).

That said it is still quite funny despite the lapses. The cast are good – but I wanted to see Woody more as the weakest sketches were without him and needed his influence. Faces like Lynn Redgrave, Carradine, Tony Randall, Burt Reynolds, Barry etc are all good but only really serve to distract.

Overall fans will enjoy this example of his `earlier funnier work' but for others they may find that too many of the jokes don't hit as hard as you'd want and some just plain misfire. The hits only just outweigh the misses but it's still work a watch.

'Everything You Always To Know About Sex' is probably the last time Woody Allen really fooled about and made an ass of himself with minimal artistic pretenses, and given the mediocre quality of recent disposable duds like 'Melinda & Melinda' and 'Anything Else', it's quite refreshing. True, this 1972 collection of extremely lewd skits isn't quite as impressive and thought-provoking as some of Allen's best works, like 'Annie Hall', 'Manhattan' or for that matter even the follow-up 'Sleeper'; yet there's an energy to 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know' that Allen has not shown for at least a decade, and in that light it's still entirely classic.

If anything, the film is closest in its spirit to early Allen films like 'Bananas' and 'Sleeper', but it actually feels more like a British comedy, and is clearly influenced by shows like 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and 'The Benny Hill Show', in it's chaotic and rude humor. Still, Allen's mark is all over the skits, even when he isn't in them. One of the best of the bunch, in fact, is the skit titled 'What Is Sodomy', which stars Gene Wilder. Influences of both Monty Python and Mel Brooks can be felt in it, but it's entirely Allen; and still, it's Wilder that makes it perfect. Even more Pythonish is the fabricated game-show 'What's Your Perversion'.

The best and most memorable is the last skit, entitled 'What Happens During Ejaculation', in which Allen does a wonderful portrayal of a sperm, and we catch a glimpse of the action in the control room of a man's body during sexual intercourse. The skit is brilliantly satirical and ranks with Allen's best moments, nearly overshadowing the rest of the film. Still, it's not without it's unforgettable moments; other than Wilder, also worthy of special praise is John Carradine who is wonderful as the ultimate parody of a mad scientist, and let's not forget Woody Allen as a fool in the Middle Ages misquoting Hamlet and getting his hand stuck up the Queen's chastity belt, and his wonderful performance as an Italian Casanova.

So no, it's not quite one of Allen's best films, but it's close. The humor is dirty, yes, but not childish; Allen's intelligence is there, but it's much lighter than 'Annie Hall' or other classics, and like a Monty Python or a Mel Brooks it bears multiple viewings. A movie that's funny as hell, essential for Allen fans, and recommended for all.

`Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex' is a landmark, and of course a great exercise in comedy. Dividing the movie in 7 different segments (with some not including himself in the leading role) was the best Woody Allen could do, and this movie works better than his previous attempt (Bananas) and his posterior `Sleeper'.

In a way, it's less ambitious and targets all audiences. All short films are hilarious, in a crescent order. My favorite is the last, which satirizes the humanly body functions during intercourse. A must see, for all generations of movie likers. Rate: 5/5

An uneven early work of Allen's, really just a series of sketches tied around the unbelievable popularity of the "sex" book "Everything You Wantedto Know About Sex, But Was Afraid To Ask" which in the early 1970's was THE book in popular culture. Many of the sketches are too long and "peter" out, but ALL of them have very funny jokes and insight, but two of the sketches are classics and are as funny as anything Allen ever wrote: Gene Wilder's bit where he plays a man who is destroyed after a certain "fetish" is introduced into his life and the last sketch, where they show the inside controls of a man's body as he gets ready to have sex with a date: Burt Reynolds and Tony Randall help run the master control room. This is brilliant and clever. Some times it's refreshing to just go back to Allen's early, silly films like Sleeper and Take The Money And Run, even though the man has gone onto important funny films with deep dramatic throughlines: Crimes & Misdemeanors, Deconstructing Harry and Husbands & Wives.