oOoBarracuda It seems like a running line of commentary I'll be giving Woody Allen films through this retrospective project I've embarked on is that I'm constantly fascinated with the creative ways he opens his films. Bananas isn't started with the Woody Allen voice-over I love so dearly, but it does open with a fantastic scene in which the mood is set for the political comedy we are about to see. I don't need to see any further evidence that Woody Allen is the best film-opener of all time anymore, though I'm sure I will see further proof. The 1971 film, stars Allen as a bumbling New Yorker named Fielding Mellish who is dumped by his girlfriend who wants someone as committed to activism as she is. In an attempt to become more of the political type, Allen's character, a products tester by trade, runs off to San Marcos to expand his leadership potential needed to woo back his ex-girlfriend. While in San Marcos, he joins a team of rebels and accidentally becomes president of the nation. During his time as president, Fielding meets his ex-girlfriend who then falls for him unknowing that it is Fielding. Another installment of sharp ping-pong dialogue with a perfect score makes Bananas a rowdy comedic gem from the master, Woody Allen.

Antonius Block This early comedy from Woody Allen has many of his hallmark trademarks – clever dialogue, sight gags, and slapstick comedy. It also has Howard Cosell and a cameo from a young Sylvester Stallone. There is political satire – Cosell broadcasting an assassination as if it were a sporting event, J. Edgar Hoover "appearing" at a trial as an African-American woman, and a woman capturing the conservative views of the radical left so perfectly when she says in a sugary tone, "Differences of opinion should be tolerated, but not when they're too different. Then he becomes a subversive mother." But mostly it's a screwball comedy, one that for me was most interesting in the desperate relationship Allen's character, Fielding Mellish, has with a political activist (played by Louise Lasser), with her pointing out all of his shortcomings, always in such a nice tone. An example while they were breaking up – Him: "How am I immature?" Her: "Well, emotionally, sexually, and intellectually." Him: "Yeah but what other ways?" I'm sure you can just hear that in Allen's whiny, neurotic voice. This movie is not his best, but it's smart and was ahead of its time, and it's still entertaining decades later. Oh, last point - I also loved how Allen put the conservative 'National Review' in a row of pornographic magazines. :)

atlasmb After writing gags and doing stand-up, Woody Allen gets the chance to exert some control, as director, over his own film. The result is a real hodgepodge of comedy. Although it is held together by a story, "Bananas" feels more like sketch comedy, as though Woody was downloading his ideas straight onto film.If you like Monty Python, the feel of "Bananas" will probably appeal to you. The film includes all types of comedy. First, there is a heavy dose of the absurd. The film starts with a reporter doing a news story about the live assassination of a dictator. Then Howard Cosell delivers play-by-play and an interview with the dying head of state.Woody's character, Fielding Mellish, is a descendant of the stand-up persona he had created--a nervous, talkative, academic nebbish. He is the perfect foil for physical comedy. Mellish works as a tester of products for a manufacturing company. We see him test an Executive Workstation with funny results.The film even includes silent film sections. Feeling like a cross between Marty Feldman and Harold Lloyd, Allen's Mellish is a hapless victim of misfortune.Allen loves wordplay and, especially, witty repartee between characters. Note the scene between Allen & Lasser when she knocks on his door seeking signatures on a petition. It's like a modern-day Burns & Allen.Allen really loves the heavy subjects--art, philosophy, and religion, for example. This gives him a chance to express his opinions, to poke fun at silly conventions, and to ridicule those who are pompous. In a counseling session, Mellish delivers the classic symptoms and causes of neuroses on a silver platter for his psychologist, then skewers dream analysis with a recounting of a dream strong on religious symbolism that dissolves into the absurd."Bananas" is the young Woody spewing ideas faster than he can censor or refine them. In only a few years he will move into his next phase of writing and directing--with more polished and sophisticated results. Here the viewer can enjoy the riot of ideas that are the basis for Woody's later creations.

John Bailo Woody Allen is so well known now as more an "artist" than a comedian, it's hard to remember just how successful and ahead of his peers he was in his early days as a funny-man writer and performer.Bananas is a case in point. The fast moving episodic sketch and parody comedy is something that was often done by groups associated with Harvard Lampoon, SNL and Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker , but Bananas came out in 1971!The courtroom scene near the end, is highly reminiscent of that in Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), for example. And the fake ads an "Execuciser" is highly Not Ready for Prime Time Playerish as any.Funny, because in Manhattan, Allen portrays himself a successful TV writer who has it up to here with broad, scatological sketch comedy and quits. Maybe by then he'd done it all, before, and perhaps better, than others, and simply had to move on.