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Touches You

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Woody Allen's second film as co-writer/director/star (not including "What's Up, Tiger Lily?") is a grab-bag of lunatic revue sketches, some of them hilarious. Spurned by his activist girlfriend, product-testing schnook in New York City quits his job and heads to a strife-ridden Latin American country to become a part of their revolution. Trenchant political satire must have looked outrageous in 1971, but time has made a few of these gags gruesomely topical and accurate (but no less funny). Targets include man-woman sexual matters (territory Allen was spot-on with right from the start), television commentary (sent up brilliantly), urban violence, Catholicism, psychiatry, assassinations, a Marx Brothers-styled courtroom, Miss America and...J. Edgar Hoover. The pacing seldom flags, but Allen's screenplay (penned with his "Take the Money and Run" partner, Mickey Rose) sags in the middle--perhaps he should have kept the action going in NYC a little longer. Terrific music score from Marvin Hamlisch, adept comedic work from the entire crazy cast (including deadpan Howard Cosell and Roger Grimsby as themselves). ** from ****

While, in my younger day, I loved these movies, I see now how hit and miss they could be. Woody takes his shtick to a banana republic where there has been a revolution and uses every cliché about how unstable a government can be. He ends up on trial for his life, being confronted by a black woman claiming to be J. Edgar Hoover. Miss America also shows up. There is a consummation of a marriage with commentator (big at the time) Howard Cosell. Anyway, the story is nothing but an excuse for sight gags and silliness. Allen is often at his best in vignettes and this is full of them. As time passed, he became of the world's great directors, but it took time to get the whole package. Actually, when "Annie Hall" came along. See this for a lightweight bunch of laughs and realize that all this stuff is still going on in South and Central America.

Not, in my opinion, one of Woody Allen's best, being not quite as endlessly quotable as Annie Hall, as heart-breakingly truthful as Husbands and Wives, as relateable as Hannah and Her Sisters, as visually beautiful as Manhattan or as ground-breaking as Zelig. But it is tremendously entertaining, very easy to like and is one of Allen's most accessible along with Sleeper and The Purple Rose of Cairo(also great films, especially the latter which is another one of Allen's best). Sure it has some uneven spots, the story does play second fiddle to the gags and does feel rushed with the odd occasion when Allen seemed to be losing control of his material somewhat; the ending personally did fall flat and there are too many copy and paste close-up shots which did have a dizzying effect. For its unevenness though, Bananas still works really well and is a case of being flawed but with the pros outweighing the cons by some considerable distance. The score is very catchy with the odd witty touch and is very fitting, Allen's directing is very competently done though with the understandable- seeing as Bananas was only his third film- sense that he was still properly finding his own voice and he does give a great performance too(one of his funniest actually), here he shows that he is completely at home in comedy without being too self-indulgent regardless of his intentionally neurotic character. The acting generally in Bananas is fine and there is good rapport between everyone with the chemistry between Allen and Louise Lasser quite sweet, though only Allen really stands out. But it is in the dialogue and sight gags that makes Bananas as fun as it is. The dialogue is deliciously biting and smart(though a few parts may not sit well with some today), with the best of the one-liners are unforgettably quotable. And the sight gags and slapstick are easily some of the funniest of any Woody Allen film, the best of which being the subway train, magazine and especially trial scenes. Loved the homages to Ingmar Bergman, Charlie Chaplin and Luis Bunuel too and the title, deriving from banana republics and the Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts, is equally inspired. All in all, recommended highly, not a masterpiece but with a huge amount to enjoy. 8/10 Bethany Cox

"Bananas" carries the same mix of tender goofiness and self-deprecating romanticism than Woody Allen's first-feature film, confirming what it had already established : the emergence of the most promising comical and comedic talent. I still prefer "Take the Money and Run" because the film was more groundbreaking as the first comedy to exploit the documentary-format, a sub-genre that would be labeled next as 'mockumentary'. However, rediscovering "Bananas" is like an insightful journey into the roots of Allen's talent.Take the title for instance; "Bananas" as a double reference to the slang word meaning 'crazy' and the banana-republics (a derogatory term defining South-American dictatorships) has the same political resonance than the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup". "San Marcos" or "Freedonia" … like "Duck Soup", a fictional setting is the arena allowing to speak the most politically incorrect statements about human nature, and its thirst for power, in the names of such big words as 'freedom' and 'democracy'. But like in "Duck Soup", politics are the vehicles for gags, not the opposite. "Bananas" has the texture of a satire, but when you realize that no drop of blood is shed, even during executions, you know the comedy is to be seen in a lighthearted way.Take now the main protagonist, with the perfect name for a neurotic loser: Fielding Mellish. Mellish is a machine-tester for a General Equipment firm. The majority of movie lovers would recognize in his first entrance the clever wink to another comical milestone: Charlie Chaplin, during the famous eating-machine scene in "Modern Times" … and the mayhem caused by the Execusizer (a gym built into office desk) is even funnier because it goes unnoticed by the firm executives. Other bits of silent humor are used in "Bananas", a confrontation with two thugs in the subway (one is played by a young Sylvester Stallone), a training-montage in San Marcos' jungle. The legacy of Chaplin is so present I wondered if the grotesque sight of Allen with a false beard parodying Fidel Castro wasn't a reference to Chaplin as Hynkel … all things being relative, of course.However, Allen never imitates but rather uses his writing talent to plant the seeds of his comical inspiration, that would finally bloom with his first mature comedy : "Love and Death", the film that would reveal another major influence : Ingmar Bergman. Woody Allen would reveal himself as the unlikely center of a wide cinematic universe, reconciling even the most different genres and directing styles. "Annie Hall" would become the consummate -thus the most acclaimed- Woody Allen movie. And in "Bananas", you could tell there were some glimpses of "Annie Hall" through the intellectually engaging romance with Louise Lasser. The Allenian romance would be the director's signature. To close the Woody Allen's influences parenthesis, "Bananas" might borrow many elements from Allen's predecessors, but the film is original and unique in both style and writing.It borrows naturally a lot from "Take the Money and Run", through its clever mix of realistic directing and journalistic format style. The cameos of Howard Cosell commenting on a President's assassination and the aftermath of a honeymoon, with Allen and Lasser's delivery mimicking the way exhausted athletes talk after a match, are ones of the film's highlights. And it's quite an accomplishment to use non-professional actors parodying themselves to such hilarious extremes. This material isn't revolutionary, the parody has already exploited by Mel Brooks and Monty Python, but Woody Allen elevates them to much higher summits by juggling with other forms of humor, without never distracting from the core of the story, and even when it does, it's always redeemed by a hilarious punch-line.Many viewers would look at the film as a series of disjointed sketches, each one working alone but not necessarily making a good film altogether. I would understand the criticism if it wasn't for the pivotal element of the film, which is Fielding Mellish. As the central protagonist, he's both the actor and the victim of all the unfortunate incidents that fill the film with its zany goofiness. He's never too glorious to be a hero, but never passive enough to be a victim. He's just the way he is, and Allen doesn't need many efforts to make us laugh, he's so weird and incomparable that no matter which situation you put him into, it's a laugh-out-loud guarantee. And I can't go on without mentioning one of the funniest break-up scenes ever, when Lasser tries to find out what is missing in her relationship. They enumerate the different aspects of Mellish' personality that could have turned her off, and the list is so long you wonder why he's still trying to find the one reason.Still, the romance is never independent from politics, which are the subject of more mockeries than Mellish' character himself. Most reviewers would try to analyze the film on the basis that it was meant to be a satire… and I think this is the best way for disappointment. I love to take the word "Bananas" as the most standard gag of a man slipping on a banana peel, this is what the film is: a big gag. Belonging to Woody Allen's goofy period, the film is not to be taken seriously. Like in "Duck Soup", it's all about the gags. If one scene puzzles you, wait for the punch line and you're going to get its reason to be. The gags are unequally funny, but as a whole, we spend a great moment watching "Bananas". Last but not least the film is served by a catchy score and a love song signed by Marvin Hamlisch, who'd win an Oscar two years later for "The Way We Were".And this is the way Woody was, not to be taken seriously is one thing, but when it came to comedic film-making, Allen was the most serious talent emerging in the 70's, the rest is history …(PS: the titular quote is from Plato)