Manic Disorder

By J.C.

The Volkswagen, its front end crumpled like a concertina, shudders to a top at the curb. Fielding Mellish Woody Allen), in baggy chinos and grimy glasses, is eager for his date with he zaftig coed who showed up at his apartment door one night beseeching lim to sign her petition. Fielding flings open the car door, springs out of the car and plummets straight down into an open manhole.

He surfaces, only to plunge into a pulsatingly neurotic love affair with Nancy the canvasser. She throws him over and he departs in a plane and a funk for the explosive Latin American republic of San Marcos of wh:ch he eventually and improbably becomes dictator. Wearing a patently phony red beard, he flies to the U.S. to ask for foreign aid. He encounters Nancy once again, beds her, reveals his true identity and weds her--but only after he is tried by the Government on various charges including "using the word thighs in mixed company." He is found guilty on all counts, but released on the promise that he won't move into the judge's neighborhood.

This manic disorder is called Bananas, 80-some-very-odd minutes of certfied Allen hilarity, all patents pending. Allen is an expert practitioner of the scattershot technique, in which anything is attempted for the sake of the gag. Continuity and coherence are early victims of such an approach, but Allen keeps you laughing so steadily that you notice only later that nothing really hangs together or makes much sense at all.

Stylistically, Bananas is rather a mess in wh:ch Allen, who also directed and co-authored the script, is spread thin. (After all, he's only 115 lbs. to begin with.) Both Take the Money and Run, h:s first feature, and Bananas lack unity and the careful timing that turns chuckling into explosive laughter. His verbal comedy is brilliantly wacky: Fielding confesses to his startled shrink that as a child he stole pornographic books in braille and rubbed the dirty parts. But his visual comedy needs the kind of discipline he might get from a closer study of Keaton and Chaplin. If he achieves it, he may become an old master himself some day. J.C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.