Watch Play It Again, Sam For Free

Too much of everything

The Age of Commercialism

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Back in 1972, before he became known as the prolific writer and director of many classic and iconic movies - and the poster-boy for Jewish neurosis - Woody Allen was still finding his feet in the world of comedy and in cinema. Based on his own 1969 Broadway play, the film adaptation was not helmed by Allen himself but by Funny Girl and Footloose director Herbert Ross. This now seems unusual for Allen, who has always been keen to bring any of his original works to the big screen himself, but Ross' somewhat unfussy approach to film-making compliments the little man's shtick, and simply lets him get on with his motor-mouth monologues and comic pratfalls without the distraction of any cinematic trickery.Play It Again, Sam is centred around Allan Felix (Allen), a recently-divorced film critic who crumbles into self-loathing and pessimism when his wife Nancy (Susan Anspach) suddenly walks out on him. His friends Dick (Tony Roberts), a workaholic businessman, and his lovely wife Linda (Diane Keaton) talk him into dating again, setting up encounters with a string of women that Allan routinely makes a mess of. His favourite film of all time is Casablanca (he watches it on the big screen in the opening scene with his mouth agape during that famous climax), and is occasionally visited by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart (uncannily played by Jerry Lacy). Allan hates himself as he knows he will never be like Rick Blaine, Bogart's most iconic character, but the spirit of Bogie urges him to be a man and show the dames who's in charge. As more dates turn into embarrassment for both parties, Allan finds himself becoming closer and closer to Linda.Free from the wonderfully silly satire of Bananas and less ambitious in its mockery than, say, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Play It Again, Sam hints at the ingenuity to come. It doesn't reach the heights of Annie Hall or Manhattan, but there is plenty of clever work here, with Allen's seemingly improvised little stand-up routines hitting the mark just as much as his physical buffoonery. It's also the first time Allen and Keaton were on screen together, and the chemistry is just as apparent in their on-screen romance as it surely was behind the scenes. Keaton appears to love working with him, and in one scene she is doubled-up with laughter at Allen's babbling. It doesn't have much to offer the romantic comedy genre in terms of originality, nor does it succeed in reinvigorating it in the way his later works would, but Play It Again, Sam is consistently hilarious, sweet and charming, and reminds us why we loved the little New Yorker before those horrific recent allegations surfaced.

Woody Allen adapted his own hit play and stars in this modestly amusing comedy about a recently-divorced film historian in San Francisco, cartoonishly insecure around women, who is fixed up on dates by his best friends and advised on relationship matters by the spirit of Humphrey Bogart in his "Casablanca" period. Herbert Ross directed, with Librium-slow changes in tempo (the movie pokes along from low-keyed slapstick to dazed romantic comedy). In her first film with Allen, Diane Keaton hasn't yet found her niche on-screen; her whining matches Woody's, but her overall personality is so piqued she tends to evaporate in the middle of scenes. Allen has stuffed his screenplay with one-liners and repetitive jokes that tend to run together, some making an impact and all the rest bombing out. Susan Anspach adds a slight edge as Allen's ex-wife, but Tony Roberts is a hole in the screen as the buddy who may lose his wife to Woody, a complication only Bogie could help iron out. ** from ****

Allan Felix (Woody Allen) is a neurotic film critic and loves Casablanca. His wife leaves him and his couple friends Dick (Tony Roberts) and Linda Christie (Diane Keaton) try to set him up. His hero Humphrey Bogart drops by to give him advice and so does his ex-wife Nancy. He has trouble dating normal girls and the crazy ones are crazy. So he ends spending most of his time talking about girls with Linda.Some of it is hilarious. The incompetent dates are funny. I don't laugh as much with the fantasies. As a rom-com, it doesn't hit all the right notes. Dick has to be more of a dick for the audience to root for them breaking up. Of course, he's trying to re-engineer Casablanca and that's not Dick's role. Woody and Diane continue to have great chemistry. This has some hilarious moments and mostly works.

"I wonder if she actually had an orgasm in the two years we were married, or did she fake it that night?" - Woody Allen One of Woody Allen's best films precisely because it is directed not by Woody, a visually inept director who thinks verbally more than visually, but by Herbert Ross, a director who lends some pace, style, movement and energy to Allen's charming and funny screenplay, "Play It Again Sam" also marks the point at which Allen's films moved away from broad, Marx-brothers inspired comedy, to more introspective, supposedly "serious" territory.The film stars Woody Allen as Allan Fellix, a morose, neurotic, whiny, inhibited, nerdy, angsty, articulate, cynical, wormy, socially and sexually maladjusted loser. He's your classic Woody Allen schmuck, perpetually trapped between the musings of the mind ("What's the point of anything!?") and the lusts and longings of the body ("Why won't she love me!?").Divorced from his wife and desperate to hook up with another woman, Allen spends the film bouncing from one bungled romantic date to the next, until he realises that he's in love with a character played by Diane Keaton, wife of his best friend. Much of the film references Humphrey Bogart's "Casablanca", Allen's meek and dysfunctional brand of masculinity, compared with Bogey's suave, debonair demeanour. Poor Allen just wants to be a hero like his on screen idol, a chance which the film sets up in its "Casablanca" inspired climax, only to swiftly undermine. He'll always be a loser. But this reassures us, as the all pervasive sense of failure Woody brings to almost everything he does makes even the smallest victory, and every morsel of hope, both a triumph and inspiration.The film was seen as being fresh and unbridled in the early 70s, loosening up and destroying what many had previously thought of as "romantic comedies". The tone is breezy, the style somewhat experimental (as most of Allen's films are) and the script wild and devil-may-care, though filled with wit and observation. Much of the humour is improvised, and on several occasions Ross' camera catches the unscripted cracking-up of characters as they laugh at Woody's unexpected, improvised antics.Yes, today "Sam's" overall plot may be regarded as formulaic, Allen's brand of humour having long found its way into countless movies and TV sitcoms, but the jokes still hold up. Virtually every minute is packed with humour, wit, clever one liners and both smart and silly jokes. Like most of Allen's films during this period, he essentially mingles old school farce and physical comedy, with high brow humour, silliness, Camus/Sartre inspired existentialism and Kierkegaardian Absurdism.This sweet spot in Woody's career would end with "Interiors", when he began drifting away from his stand-up roots and began doing rifts on art-house directors. In this regard, his "Interiors" becomes a rift on Bergman's "Cries and Whispers", his "Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" becomes a farcical version of Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" whilst "Wild Strawberries" becomes Allen's "Another Woman". Meanwhile, Fellini's "8 1/2" becomes "Stardust Memories", "Amarcord" becomes "Radio Days" and Fellini's section in "Boccaccio 70" becomes Allen's short in "New York Stories".Most of Allen's scripts have some clever, experimental meta-construction. Here every character is an observer, looking in on Allen and sharing their observations. Allen himself plays himself looking and commenting on himself as Allan Fellix.All the film's female characters are air-heads, except Keaton, who plays a neurotic woman with a low self esteem; ie- easy prey for the equally maladjusted Allen.8.9/10 - Worth two viewings.