Bananas

"Bananas" is just that on the surface - a crazy, off the wall movie written by, directed by, and starring a very young Woody Allen as a clumsy New Yorker who winds up as the leader of a small country.

In the beginning, Allen plays a product tester whose parents are surgeons (in fact, he walks in on them at one point while they're performing surgery, and they have him take over the reins). He basically just wants to get laid, and when a young activist (Louise Lasser) appears at his door with a petition, he sees an opportunity.

The two eventually break up, and in despair, he quits his job and goes to San Marcos, one of her causes. There he becomes a pawn in the revolution, later becoming their leader dressed like Castro but with a red beard.

Only Allen could have imagined this, and it's quite brilliant. Underneath the one-liners and crazy situations is a statement about the war in Vietnam and the way it was reduced to sports reporting on television. To make his point, Howard Cossell is on hand for a play by play of the character's wedding night before an audience.

Total Woody, with some hilarious moments. Highly recommended.

By the time he got to Bananas, Woody Allen was reaching new heights in absurdist comedy. The idea of covering a South American revolution as a sporting event certainly was original one. Even getting to the point of getting the voice of American sports Howard Cossell to join the fun.

Allen is refining his schlepp persona in Bananas. Although he divorced his leading lady Louise Lasser in real life the two worked well together here. Allen tries to get a relationship going, but Lasser is interested in social causes. She has a bleeding heart for the people of the South American country of San Marcos and gives Woody his walking papers.

So off Allen goes to San Marcos as the schlepp from Brooklyn mixes with all kinds of folks there from dictator Carlos Montalban right down to the Che Guevara revolutionaries.

So many absurd moments in Bananas to count. My favorite is ordering takeout for the revolutionary army from a South American version of a Jewish delicatessen.

Definitely a must for Woody Allen.

In the film's opening, sports commentators report on the assassination of the leader of San Marcos, an obscure South American country. Then, the reporters document the takeover of the country by the top general. its tragic and its funny. Meanwhile, Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen) tests products for a leading Manhattan manufacturer but has a hard time getting a date. Unbelievably, an erstwhile and attractive political activist, Nancy (Louise Lasser) comes to Fielding's door, wanting a signature for the condemnation of the San Marcos situation. After many attempts, Mr. Mellish gets a date and the two start a relationship. But, all too soon, Nancy breaks Fielding's heart, insisting he has no leadership qualities. Eureka! Fielding sets off for San Marcos, where he joins the rebels. Will he become the person Nancy wants? This hilarious look at the truly tragic volatility of some Western Hemisphere countries has many wonderful moments and lines. Allen and Lasser are the stars, while a cadre of little known folks blend in nicely. Naturally, the scenery in Manhattan contrasts hugely with those of the "tiny country to the south" while Allen's script is as priceless as ever and his direction is sure-fire. Want to laugh, laugh, laugh? Get Bananas.

I went to see "Bananas," in the early 1970s with three of my high school buddies, in our local theater. And, it remains -- three decades later -- one of the most memorable and one of my most talked about movie-going experiences ever. So much of it was comprised of absolutely hysterical scenes which I've told countless people about through the years, and still tell people about.

Watching this movie today, it seems as if it had been somewhat haphazardly written. I get the feeling that Woody Allen had kept a journal in which he noted the funniest sights he'd witnessed and the cleverest one-liners he'd heard, over a period of years, and then set about mixing all of these totally unrelated funny things into one script. It's like he was saying to himself, "I think I'll throw in the bit about the guy trying to discreetly buy a sex magazine in a quiet neighborhood store and getting embarrassed, and then the snake bite bit later on. But first before the next plot turn, I think I'll put in the bit in which a guy gets out of his car and falls into an open manhole.", etc. You feel at times like you're watching a Benny Hill-type comedy show, or a TV variety show with a series of comedy skits that have nothing at all to do with each other. Somehow, Woody blended it all together into a fairly coherent story. There are also a few scenes which feature "Airplane"/"Naked Gun"-style tongue-in-cheek humor. But, this movie had been made *long* before those were even thought of. There's a message in that: This movie was ahead of its time. There's a segment of "Bananas," early on, which is just one outrageously funny bit after another after another.

I guess the movie doesn't really have a point . . . except maybe that maniacal dictators are crazy, dangerous and should be driven from power . .. or maybe that freedom is worth fighting for . . . or maybe that some causes are worth laying down your life for. Obviously, there's relevance in all of that for us, today. Or maybe the whole point of this movie could simply be that Woody Allen knows how to make people laugh.

Later, Art

Bananas is like a cookie-batter of all of those early Woody Allen jokes all plopped into a bowl and shaken around. It's a film loaded with political jokes, but without a direct focus aside from Cuba and dictators and the like. There are numerous sexual jokes, including one of Woody's funniest scenes involving a magazine (the buying and holding on a subway, very silent comedy-like). And even Howard Cosell becomes an iconic figure in Woody's comedy in the brilliant opening scenes. The plot is very loose, so if you're looking for that look elsewhere. Also, to put it mildly, some of the jokes may not work at all for some viewers of today. But it's the go-for-broke irreverence of the picture that has it still worth viewing today. Much of Woody's own verbal bits are very good, but it's also worth to note how the physical comedy- while crude and a little off-key- also has a good ring to it. Unlike the director's later films, you can still sense that he's trying to 'get' how to make a film, and so in trying to do anything he can think of to get a laugh, of course, some of it doesn't work. For example, in Cuba the gag where the gargantuan pile of dung is carried down the stairs with the Lain music in the background gives a grin, but not as big a laugh as might be intended. Indeed, this might be Woody's most 'immature' film, while still containing some of his more biting, satirical jabs at dictators and oddball politics. Woody would still have this wild, go-for-broke style of humor more akin to some of his quirkier short stories in other films of the early 70s. While this isn't as successful in that regard as Sleeper or Love and Death, I'd still watch it again if it was on TV; even the romantic subplot, undercooked in comparison with the rest of the more satirical stuff, is interesting.