Advice to the Loveworn

By JAY COCKS

PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM

Directed by HERBERT ROSS

Screenplay by WOODY ALLEN

The joke here, as frequently with Woody Allen, is Woody and women. It remains a fairly fertile field of inquiry. But although there are some random laughs in Play It Again, Sam, there are also signs of strain and thinness. Allen's tilting matches with the opposite sex, for all their manic frenzy, are becoming mechanical and familiar. Sam isn't the only one who plays it again.

The source of the somewhat dispirited fun is Allen's play of the same title: standard long-running Broadway stuff about the romantic tribulations of daffy film critic Allan Felix (Allen), whose wife (Susan Anspach) has just left him. Felix also worries a lot about his sex life, which, because of congenital clumsiness, is virtually nonexistent.

From time to time the slouch-hatted and trench-coated shade of Humphrey Bogart (Jerry Lacy) appears and dispenses bits of hard-boiled advice to the lovelorn and loveworn Felix. With such expert assistance, Felix finally beds a kindly but dedicated neurotic (splendidly played by Diane Keaton of The God-lather, who spins something funny and touching from the script's few scattered remnants).

His lust quieted, Felix is promptly besieged by a battalion of guilts. The girl is the wife of his best friend (Tony Roberts), who was too busy with financial wheeling and dealing to pay proper attention to her. Remorse. Anguish. What would Bogie have done? The ectoplasmic Bogart steers Felix through an honorable leave-taking at foggy San Francisco airport--Casablanca come true.

The dialogue is mostly stand-up comic patter, and the movie is virtually bereft of visual humor. Herbert Ross, who was also responsible for T.R. Baskin and the musical remake of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, continues to direct as if he were dressing a window at Bloomingdale's. Everything looks terribly fussy and sterile. Play It Again, Sam badly needs the headlong energy and comic chaos that Allen worked into Take the Money and Run and, especially, Bananas, both of which he directed himself. Allen's comedy is at its best when it is loose and utterly crazy, untouched by human hands. .Jay Cocks

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