OK, I think it's time for Bananas! How many times do you think the Zucker Brothers watched this scene?
Help! I've been bitten by a snake. I wonder how well the opening and closing scenes with Cosell play with those too young to remember him and his omnipresence in televised sports. I loved the line (paraphrased), "The day began with a bombing of the American Embassy; a tradition as old as the country itself." Still my favorite Silly Allen.
The first Allen film I saw - or the first that I recognised as a Woody Allen film, because I'd seen Pussycat before this and Casino Royale, for that matter. I loved the early sequence where he helps the car reverse!
Robert Greenfield with Woody Allen Rolling Stone - September 30, 1971 RG: Woody Allen, you're a film director, a musician, a scriptwriter, an actor, and a comedian ... which of these roles do you prefer? WA: Yes. RG: Yes which? WA: Yes, all of them. Whichever one I'm not doing. RG: I, ah see. And how do you get your ideas? WA: They come to me all at once. I see the opening credits unfold and then the first scene... and then the rest of it. RG: You mean you see all of it at once? WA: Yes. RG: How long does that take? WA: In the case of Bananas, eighty-two minutes. RG: What is Bananas about, Woody? WA: The film is about the lack of substance in my movie. RG: You mean in America? WA: No, there's lots of substance in America. The theme is that the film is empty. The lack of substance puts you to sleep. It's an hour and a half nap. RG: Why have you made it then? WA: To confuse my enemies who, are legion. RG: And what do they want? WA: To make me think like them. RG: Which is what, exactly? WA: Numerically. RG: And you think? WA: In letters, usually. RG: Have you patterned yourself after any people in show business, like the Marx Brothers? WA: No. My idols are Frank Sinatra and Fatty Arbuckle. RG: Really, ah, I was wondering by asking that question what makes you put a large colored lady in a witness box and have her identify herself as J. Edgar Hoover? WA: What else do you do with a large colored lady? There are so many of them in the States. WA: I won't write for Broadway again. It forces you into a cycle of writing amusements, light comedies, that a certain kind of people like to see. I won't write a film like Bananas again either. They say it's a political film but I don't really believe much in politics, Groucho has told me that the Marx Brothers films were never consciously anti-establishment or political. It's always got to be a funny movie first.
Bananas is my favorite Woody film. Over the years most of his films have not held up for me. But this one is still classic. BTW a GREAT Marvin Hamlisch score
A laugh-every-time joke. Recycled with great success by Chevy Chase and Garrett Morris about 5 years later.
Very funny ... and then interesting that he gets serious at the end. While I don't think Woody was trying to make a Statement (capitalized on purpose) with the film, it's difficult for me to not see it as anti-establishment. The "bound and gagged" sequence in the court room certainly brings Bobby Seale instantly to my mind (again, not that Woody is trying to "say" anything, other than, perhaps, that it is ridiculous that someone should be bound and gagged at his own trial). I don't think there is any subtle message or allegory in "Duck Soup", both there is certainly a pervading "War is pretty stupid" theme throughout. The war isn't about patriotism or freedom, it's about absurd things like being call an "upstart". Chico and Harpo fight for whatever side made the last best offer! Patriotic fervor is mocked - "We got guns, they got guns, All God's chillun's got guns" (the scene that Woody's character would see years later in "Hannah and Her Sisters"). Certainly Woody is making a number of not-so-subtle statements about military governments, US imperialism, and guys who joined causes to try to get girls.
The full interview is online here. It's arranged as seven bits of shtick with some more serious moments. Those were politically charged times. Bananas is absolutely (and hilariously) a political send-up and a witty skewering of pop culture (e.g. Wide World of Sports and the commercial for New Testament cigarettes).
While the pandemonium at the end is of course hilarious, I love Woody's nonchalant "this is so easy" look when he first starts pedaling.
Family Weekly December 13, 1970 Q. What has television done for your mind? A. Over the years it has improved the level of my taste to the point where I no longer watch it. Q. If you were appointed as mediator of the Arab-Israeli conflict, what would you do? A. Duck. Q. Why are you against meat? A. I never said I was against meat. I am against eating meat. Actually I like meat - as meat. I’ve been known to stare at a veal cutlet for hours. You can look it up, it’s in the court record of my first divorce. Q. What’s your new movie Bananas all about? A. It’s about man’s search for truth and beauty in a world corrupted by material desires. Q. Interesting. What prompted you to make Bananas? A. I needed the money to buy a penthouse. Q. How has women’s lib changed your life? A. I no longer regard women as sexual objects. And no matter how much they beg me, I won’t change my mind. Q. You once were a love-starved child. How did you overcome this deficiency? A. It’s hard not to attract love when one combines virility, dash, and an animal magnetism that outrivals even Art Linkletter’s. Actually, from being love-starved, I’m now so stuffed with love it’s done dangerous things to my cholesterol count. Q. Do you think Americans pay too much attention to sex? A. Not the Americans I go out with. Q. If you were stranded on a desert island with one man and one woman, whom would you choose and why? A. My uncle Blender and Jane Fonda. My uncle Blender because he likes to swim a lot. Jane Fonda because she doesn’t. Q. Do you consider yourself antisocial? A. You might say that. Once my father and mother taught me to wave bye-bye, they couldn’t stop me. Q. If you were to leave the world with one message, what would it be? A. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. Badaboom! Though it wasn't presented as such, that might have been Woody Allen interviewing himself. The next Q&A certainly is, as Allen took over Jack O’Brian’s column for a little self-abuse, circa July 1970. Interviewer: First of all, can you tell me anything at all about Bananas? Woody Allen: I’d be happy to. It’s the tale of a simple woodman whose only wish is to be left alone in his little hut, roasting blueberries. Tragedy strikes when an enormous pack of wolves begin savagely circling the hut, precipitously lowering the real estate values in the neighborhood. INT: I see. WA: Actually, that’s what it was supposed to be about, but we decided to change the story a little when we found wolves are no fun on a casting couch. INT: Well then, could you tell me what Bananas is about now? WA: Yes, it’s about a revolution in a banana republic. I get involved and eventually find myself the leader of a Latin republic. INT: I can see where the title Bananas derives from. But do you think it’s a good box-office title? WA: At the very least, it should attract a lot of tarantulas. INT: You’re also the author of Bananas. Some critics feel that all authors put something of themselves in everything they write. Is there any of the real you in Bananas? WA: You mean aside from the part where I become the leader of a banana republic? INT: Well, um, yes. WA: I’m sorry, could you repeat the question? While you were answering, I just had a wonderful mystic revelation. INT: Really? What was it? WA: A saint walked toward me through a golden meadow with pastel birds singing softly in the sky, and in sweet, hushed tones, told me: “You’re better off with unbranded aspirin straight from the drugstore.” INT: I’ll make a note of that. Now then, is there any of the real you in Bananas? WA: Yes, the periods and the commas. Some of the semi-colons. It was edited out of the script, but at one time there was an asterisk that was directly influenced by my mother when I was five. That’s about it. INT: You’ve often mentioned that Ingmar Bergman is one of your favorite directors. Can you explain? WA: It’s a matter of ego. Whenever I see a Bergman film, I come away with a wonderful feeling that I’m much funnier than he is. INT: What about Easy Rider? It’s one of the most talked about movies of the decade. How did you feel about it? WA: I’m against anything that exalts carbon monoxide. INT: Well then, what about Midnight Cowboy? WA: I can’t remember it too well at all. I saw it on a double bill with The Love Bug. About the only thing I can remember is all these little kids coming out of the theater with this funny look on their faces. INT: Can you name some of your favorite movies? WA: Yes. Any of the ones where you’re allowed admission only if accompanied by a pervert. INT: So far we’ve said nothing about art. Is movie-making an artistic experience for you, or are you only in it for the buck, the way your mother says you are? WA: I do consider film-making an art, but it’s perhaps too - er - sophisticated an art. I remember art in grammar school. At least then you could eat the paste, you know? The same can’t be said for celluloid. INT: I understand there is some strong sex in Bananas. WA: That’s right. INT: Sex in a comedy? Is that really necessary? WA: It is when it’s the only way you can get it. I mean, it’s no fun staying home on a Saturday night kissing your sneakers. INT: What about your personal life? How do you spend your spare time? WA: Brooding. Sometimes I call up a friend and we brood together. Those are the best times. INT: Then I suppose you find a lot of release in your work. WA: You’re telling me! If it weren’t for my work, I don’t know what I’d do. Go on relief, I suppose. INT: You’re certainly very much a part of show business. What do you like best about it? WA: That nobody’s yet introduced me to Zsa Zsa Gabor. INT: And what about the other side? Is there anything about show business you don’t like? WA: Yes. The hate mail. It plummets me at times to bottomless depths of depression. INT: Really? But isn’t that the sort of thing that all entertainers get? I mean, hate mail is something more to be amused at than depressed by. WA: When it’s from one’s own father and mother? Badaboomboom!!
Funniest man who has ever lived. I know, that's a hyperbole of an overstatement of an exaggeration of two hyperboles. Yet it is true.
Woody is certainly a master technician of the "put-on", isn't he? And he was proficient at this through many mediums. (Including interviews.) Didn't he once say (paraphrasing): "I wouldn't want to be part of a any club that would want me as a member."? I believe that this is the crux of the vehicle of his comedy. The lonesome loser that may or may not want to be part of something bigger, but as soon as he is swept away by the ridiculousness of the situation he suddenly finds himself in, he wants no part of it. Bananas initiated this very personal comic ruse and it extended all the way through Annie Hall. And along the way he skewered everything in a subverssively topical fashion with a nod to artists that treaded paths before him. The comic possiblities were endless when viewed through this lens. Bananas was the template for what was to follow. It's the mold that wasn't broken. And that is why it's my favorite movie of his.
He cared about things. In Bananas, Sleeper and Love & Death he was the reluctant hero in major revolutions that had worldwide implications.
