A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
1982
MGM
PGCast • Woody Allen, Mary Steenburgen, Jose Ferrer, Mia Farrow, Julie Hagerty, Tony Roberts
Writer • Woody Allen
Director • Woody Allen
Today is Day One VE's SummerFest!
WOODY ALLEN TOOK A BREAK from continuing an astonishing string of comedies in the Seventies* and made the austere and disquieting film, Interiors (1978). Vincent Canby of the New York Times made the point that this wasn't Allen's first "serious" film, as other critics had labeled it -- all of his movies are serious. It's just that this one isn't funny and doesn't care to be. Canby's criticism of the film was that it seemed that Allen was making someone else's movie (Ingmar Bergman). And to Allen's fans, it was "culture shock."
Two years later, Allen made his next film, the self-reflexive Stardust Memories (1980). And it would be two more years before he produced his next film, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. Here again, Allen seems to be making someone else's movie (this time, Bergman and Renoir). And perhaps this film would have been "culture shock" to Woody's fans had it not been preceded by Interiors. But that's where the comparisons end. Sex Comedy is a breezy, old-fashioned sex farce, where the cast is in turn-of-the-century period costumes, and the gags, though there, are toned down.
Leopold: I had the privilege of escorting Ariel through the Sistine Chapel for the first time in her life and explaining to her exactly why Michelangelo's ceiling was indeed great.
Ariel: When Raphael first laid eyes on it, he fainted.
Andrew: Had he eaten?
The setting is the country getaway home of Wall Street broker and "crackpot inventor" Andrew (Allen) and his wife Adrian (Steenburgen), who have invited Adrian's cousin Leopold (Ferrer) and Ariel (Farrow) for a weekend to celebrate their recent engagement. Unexpectedly, Andrew's friend Dr. Maxwell (Woody-film stalwart Roberts) arrives with his newly hired nurse, Dulcy (Hagerty), and the roundelay is set in motion.
Gordon Willis' photography is beautiful, and they pulled out all the stops to create an over-the-top idyllic summer setting, where images of baby bunnies, rushing streams and cricket-filled fields play over music by Mendelssohn.
Woody gets most of the funny lines, but not all. Ferrer gets his in as the insanely pompous Leopold. In describing what he plans for his honeymoon with Ariel, he says, "We are only having one week of leisure, which we will spend in London -- a long-awaited opportunity to show her Thomas Carlyle's grave.'' • DAVE YOUNT
* Manhattan (1979), Interiors (1978), Annie Hall (1977), Love and Death (1975), Sleeper (1973), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) (screenplay), Play It Again, Sam (1972) (play) (screenplay), Bananas (1971) (written by).
