Bananas (1971)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

In common with pretty well all of Woody Allen's early comedies, Bananas has no shortage of gags - most clearly owing their origins to the director's comedy heroes Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin - but not enough in the way of structure and logic to make it entirely satisfying.  If was only after Allen began working with the more self-critical Diane Keaton that he came to appreciate the importance of narrative structure and changed almost overnight from being a talented sketch writer to a serious auteur filmmaker, one capable of making profound statements on the nature of human experience.  All of Allen's films prior to (and to some extent including) Sleeper (1973) are a muddle - a muddle doused to its eyeballs in humour, but a muddle all the same.  Bananas is a supreme example of this - a succession of blindingly hilarious sketches that just fails to gel, although that doesn't mean it isn't fun.  Watching Allen being harassed on the New York subway by a young Sylvester Stallone (near the start of his career) is one of many moments to treasure.

Perhaps the film's biggest failing is that whilst it picks up on many important social and political themes of the day (America's hopelessly confused foreign policy, Cold War paranoia, the dubious activities of the CIA and FBI) it does so with more zest than sense, the result being comicbook satire of the bluntest and silliest kind - not that Allen has any difficulty getting laughs.  The set-piece trial scene at the end of the film shows Allen at his best both as a comedy writer and performer, and the gags are relentless.  At one point in the trial, J. Edgar Hoover shows up as a middle-aged black woman (apparently a guise the head of the FBI likes to slip into whenever he wishes to confuse his enemies), Miss America delivers the most damning indictment: "I think Mr. Mellish is a traitor to this country because his views are different from the views of the president and others of his kind", and Allen - his zaniness going into overdrive - ends up having to cross-examine himself.  The only gag that stands out in the rambling middle section, in which Allen lends his support to a revolution in South America, is the one in which he walks into a fast food outlet and orders a thousand grilled sandwiches.  It's a wildly scattergun approach to comedy in which its author's origins as a stand-up comedian are readily apparent.  Only in Allen's scenes with his ex-wife Louise Lasser do we catch a glimpse of the more mature Allen, who would find a way to attach his comedy genius to something far more substantial and meaningful.  Bananas at least lives up to its name.

Film Synopsis

Fielding Mellish is leading a humdrum and nauseatingly safe life as a products tester when social activist Nancy suddenly enters his world.  Even though the relationship doesn't work out, Mellish is sufficiently changed by their encounter to take an interest in his fellow man, so he jets off to the South American republic of San Marcos not long after a military coup has replaced one detested dictator with another.  Mellish receives a warm welcome from the incumbent president, not knowing that the latter plans to murder him and blame his death on the revolutionaries who are plotting to overthrow him.  The plan is thwarted when the revolutionaries abduct Mellish and force him to join their cause.  Once the current president has been disposed of, the revolutionaries' leader takes his place, and one military dictatorship is followed by another.  The next man in the president's seat is Mellish himself, and to raise aid for his country he returns to the United States, where he is immediately arrested for subversive activity and put on trial.  This is what you get for trying to change the world...