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7/01/2014

Bananas (1971) - Woody Allen's South American misadventure is still a barrel of laughs



Humorous cartoon-style poster for Woody Allen's Bananas

QUICK REVIEW:

Our hero here is an aspiring but hopeless New York-charmer, who goes to the fictionally created Latin American nation San Marcos to impress a girl, but instead ends up getting kidnapped down there by the country's rebels and made the president of the tiny nation, - only to find himself later persecuted for this upon return to the States.
Bananas is (as the title suggests) a very, very silly crazy comedy; its humor is often silent film/early-sound-like, perhaps due to its writer-director-star Woody Allen's (Broadway Danny Rose (1984)) yen for Marx Brothers-comedies, but also because it is only scored with the kind of monkey business music that was used in most of their movies.
Allen plays the physical clown in Bananas, and has an unmistakable talent for doing so, and yet his talent for the verbal and intellectual comedy is greater, and that is luckily also at display here. In fact it seems that everything is tried in Bananas, and not all of it works, - some is just too silly, - but generally speaking, this is a very unique and very funny fooling-about picture with some very memorable scenes.
At the moment, we can look forward to Allen's coming picture, Magic in the Moonlight (2014), while he, as usual, is already in preproduction with his next one.

Related reviews:

Woody AllenTo Rome With Love (2012) - Woody Allen's slightest film to date 
Anything Else (2003) - Perfect contemporary relationship comedy 
Celebrity (1998) or, Beautiful Celebrities Talk About Sex guest review
Broadway Danny Rose (1984) or, Keep Your Heart 
Annie Hall (1977) or, My Relationship With Alvie Singer




 Watch very funny Woody Allen talk over his trailer for the movie here

Budget: 2 mil. $
Box office: 11.8 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Bananas?

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