Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very, Very funny. Not as durable as most Allen flics., May 6, 2005
`Everything you always wanted to know about sex* (*But were afraid to ask)', written and directed by Woody Allen is Allen's third `triple credit' movie after `Take the Money and Run' and `Bananas', and his first with a large, `Big Name' cast. But unlike later movies such as `Interiors', `Hannah and her Sisters', and `Crimes and `Misdemeanors', this cast is probably less likely to have been assembled for the honor of working with Allen than for the very typical Hollywood casting strategy of filling a large number of roles which appear on the screen for a short time with recognizable faces, so you instantly know that Lou Jacobi, for example, is playing a very bourgeois, very middle class Jewish burgher who, we quickly discover, has a yen to dress up as a woman. We make the similar connection with Tito Vandis as a middle eastern shepherd, John Carradine as a mad Dr. Frankenstein-like scientist, Gene Wilder as a quirky and up-tight doctor and Tony Randall as a prim and very button down control room supervisor.
Allen's stock character is so well known by this time that among the four characters he plays, at least one is totally against type, where he has a part in a `La Dolce Vita' parody, in Italian with subtitles and all, as a character very similar to that of Marcello Mastroianni, in situations stolen directly from Fellini's junk drawer.
Here, Allen comes closer to Mel Brooks' style than in any other of his movies, going so far as to share Gene Wilder (a frequent Mel Brooks star) and a Mel Brooks parody subject (Frankenstein). Like Brooks, there are many patently improbable or impossible situations cooked up merely for the laughs. Later in their careers, Brooks and Allen diverge primarily with Allen's concentrating on literally deathly serious subjects with jokes while Allen stays with plots and situations which are light and humorous through and through.
Since both parody and visual humor are Allen strong points, he has a field day with not one but six different situations where the objects of parody are:
Aphrodisiacs and Fools in Medieval Castle
Sheep and Sodomy
Cross Dressing
TV Game Shows, Homosexuality, and Bondage
Monster Movies
Science Fiction / Antacid Commercials
While I think this movie does not hold up as well as almost all of this other early movies, it's great fun to see personalities and actors such as Regis Philbin (as himself), Robert Walden, and Anthony Quayle. Lynn Redgrave and Burt Reynolds in small roles. The parodies may not work that well with audiences under 30 who have no memory of TV shows such as `What's My Line' or of Italian movies from Fellini or Antonioni.
What is amazing is how totally unerotic the whole movie is. For the life of me, I don't see how it deserved an R rating except that young viewers may simply not see past the very unexplicit scenes involving sexual subjects to the total absurdity of the situations. This rating is probably a demonstration of the fact that the mere mention of sodomy/bestiality, homosexuality, bondage, and infidelity are seen as more dangerous to discuss than explicit sex. The bottom line is that while there is virtually nothing in the movie that is erotic to an adult, there is much which may be dangerous for an unprepared subteen to see.
The hard part of evaluating the movie in the long run is how well Allen's typically clever humor outweighs the thin and cheaply filmed parodies, where there is no attempt at all to hide the tongue in cheek (see Mel Brooks) attitude of the movie. In the end, this film is probably better (funnier) than `Love and Death' but not quite as totally inventive or funny as `Take the Money and Run'.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
just a silly funny move, May 11, 2003
Don't listen to Adi's review, calling the film "juvenile"
Adi should watch some of today's teen exploits to find a true juvenile movie.
This film was far beyond its time, and is a SPOOF, like many comedies. If you don't believe most of the reviews, just rent it first........have a few drinks, and you'll laugh hard......this is the one movie that made me "discover" the talent of Woody Allen, and I'm glad I did.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Inconsistent... but brilliant at times, August 13, 2000
I found this to be a very hit-or-miss affair. The scenes which Woody doesn't appear in ("Are transvestites homosexual?", "What's my perversion?", and "What is sodomy?") miss his comic touch. Granted, Gene Wilder is deliriously funny as a man in love with a sheep (shouldn't the segment have been called "What is bestiality?"), but the other scenes never rise above bad Saturday Night Live-style parody. The cross-dressing scene goes for cheap and easy laughs, while the tired cliché of a game show turned upside down has only one funny moment (the rabbi's wife grimly feasting on a plate of pork).When Woody does appear in a scene, the film comes alive. The 'Woody' character works perfectly in an anthology about the confusing nature of sex, because that for me is the essence of his character. His sexual confusion and manic personality kicks every situation into a higher gear. The Fool he plays in the first scene - a hapless borscht-belt style comic transported to a medieval court - delivers great line after great line in ridiculous old English ("TB or not TB, that is congestion"). His Fellini-esque Fabrizio (in "Why do some women have trouble achieving orgasm?"), confused about the frigidity of his newlywed wife, plays it cool in his Mastroianni sunglasses and world-weary Italian. But you know this guy is a hapless shnook anyway, when his wife can only get turned on for sex when it's in a public place. His Victor Shakapopoulous (sp?) saves the world from - yes it's true - a giant "tit" (size 4000X for those of you scoring at home). But the most wonderful scene is the last one, "What happens during ejaculation?" Taking a cue from "Fantastic Voyage", we see the bureaucratic inner workings of one man's body, including the control tower (conducted by Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds), the stomach (trying to process an unexpected order of fettuccini), the tongue (lubricated and rolled-out just in time to receive a kiss), and the penis (powered by sweaty men in workman's overalls). Woody shows up as a sperm, having second thoughts about ever volunteering for duty ("I hear some guys smash their heads on a hard, rubber wall!"). It is a great piece of satire, towering over the lukewarm parody of the rest of the pieces. Something tells me this last scene would have made a great feature-length movie itself.
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