BANANAS

"You've heard it with your own eyes"

BANANAS (1971), Woody Allen's second film as writer, director and actor opens and closes with two bits of absolutely inspired insanity. In the opening, Allen stages an assassination in San Marcos, a small Latin America country, as an event worthy of coverage by ABC's WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS. He has the legendary Howard Cosell provide the play by play and then, an interview with the dying dictator.

The gag is repeated at the end of the film but instead of an assassination, it's coverage of the wedding night of Fielding Mellish (Allen) and Nancy (Louise Lasser). Once again, Cosell is there in the couple's bedroom (along with rooting fans), to provide play by play and post coital interviews.

Those scenes are indicative of the type of madcap, scattershot humor that fills every frame of BANANAS. Allen and co-writer Mickey Rose, load the screenplay with sight gags, one liners, fake television commercials, film references and just plain craziness all punctuated by a bouncy Marvin Hamlisch score. If one joke doesn't land, don't worry, there's another one coming, and one after that, and one after that..

For me, all of the jokes land. I had seen Woody Allen's first feature film, TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN when it was released in 1969 so when BANANAS came out a couple of years later, I was ready to see another film by the guy I thought was a comic genius. I believed that then and I believe it now.  

The story of a New York nebbish, Fielding Mellish, who inadvertently gets involved in a banana republic revolution for the sake of love, BANANAS is the kind of film that Allen would dismiss later in his career as being "one of his early, funny ones". It is that and even though I've seen the film several times over the years, I still laugh uproariously at most of the gags. Just ask Judy.

Originally intended as a vehicle for British actor Robert Morse, with Allen serving only as writer and director, the project was shelved when Morse reportedly read and hated the script. Following the tremendous success of TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, United Artist was quick to sign Allen to a contract and gave him the green light for BANANAS as a 100% Allen project.

A very young Sylvester Stallone appears, uncredited, as one of two subway thugs that Allen encounters early in the film.

BANANAS is a textbook laugh riot showing a young filmmaker learning and growing before our eyes, figuring out what works and what doesn't all while building one of the great bodies of cinematic comedy in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Highly recommended.