Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

Woody Allen was on a creative high when, his mockumentary masterpiece Zelig (1983) in the can, he threw himself into the first of three nostalgia pieces that positively gush with his love of show business in all its various manifestations. Preceding Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Radio Days (1987), which offered affectionate billets doux to cinema and radio, Broadway Danny Rose is the fondest of tributes to the world of the nightclub entertainer, with Allen casting himself in the role of the unsung hero, the talent manager who nurtures, develops and promotes future stars of the cabaret scene. It is the warmest and arguably most widely accessible of Woody Allen's films (suitable even for children) - indeed it frequently looks more like an Abbott and Costello comedy or Billy Wilder farce than the kind of more piquant adult fare he is known for. It is here that Allen gives what is probably his best screen performance, his sadder-than-usual nebbish loser being the most sympathetic of his film creations.

And then there's Mia Farrow. True, the actress did appear alongside Allen on two occasions prior to this - in Zelig and A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), but Broadway Danny Rose was where their acting partnership really did come to life. Her familiar angular face transformed by a beehive hair-do and ridiculously over-sized dark glasses, her vocal delivery altered beyond belief, Farrow is almost completely unrecognisable and you could almost mistaken her for Allen's former muse, Diane Keaton. Like Keaton, Farrow shows a natural genius for fielding Allen's free-wheeling brand of comedy and she has never been as funnier as she is here. It's a testament to her acting skill that she can take such a grotesque archetype - a gangster's moll lifted straight out of a Damon Runyon story - and make her a fully rounded character. In one memorable scene, Allen and Farrow end up being trussed up together on a table, bound to one another by a mile of rope. It's an uncannily prophetic metaphor for how strongly they would become tied to each other over the next eight years, both professional and personally.

Allen's lively comicbook escapades with Farrow provide most of the film's funniest passages (the surreal highpoint being a shoot-out in a warehouse stocked with helium-filmed balloons for a Thanksgiving parade), but there are plenty of gentler, sweeter moments which play to Allen's strengths as a philosopher and observer of human nature. Danny Rose may be the consummate loser, incapable of helping himself no matter what he may do for his fellow man, but he is unequivocally an heroic individual - innately good, incapable of malice, essentially an optimist. It's not his fault that the people he hooks up with are talentless weirdoes, egoistical drunks or gun-toting Mafiosa types with absolutely no sense of humour. He always tries to see the best in people and never stops helping them to develop their atom-sized potential. The only person he gives up on is Tina, whose cynical me-me-me view of life appals him, although even she is redeemed in the end through his child-like goodness.

If Broadway Danny Rose were only a self-indulgent tribute to New York's cabaret scene, it would be worth seeing, particularly as Allen pours so much love into it. But it is more than this. Beautifully shot in black and white by Gordon Willis (with the same artistic flair he brought to Manhattan (1979)), it is Allen's liveliest and most enjoyable comedy since Sleeper (1973) and his most effective moral fable. Without over-labouring the point or sinking into self-serving sentimentality, it convinces us that we should always look for the best in people instead of getting hung up on their failings. The reversal in the professional fortunes of a failed singer (a career highpoint for Nick Apollo Forte, who also brings immense charm and colour to the film) is an impressive feat but this is a minor result compared with the other achievement that Danny Rose manages to pull off - the redemption of a woman who, through his influence, grows to see that the road to happiness is one founded on acceptance, forgiveness and love. Like a glass of your favourite tipple,  Broadway Danny Rose leaves you with a warm glow that stays in your gut for hours afterwards. If ever you feel you are in danger of falling out of love with Woody Allen, this is the film to watch.

Film Synopsis

Gathered around a table at the Carnegie Deli in New York are a group of comedians who delight in recounting their favourite anecdotes about Danny Rose, a spectacularly unsuccessful talent agent. Danny had a genius for taking under his wing acts that had as much crowd-pulling potential as a mild outbreak of bubonic plague - a blind xylophonist, piano-playing birds, a man who bends balloons into animal shapes and a woman who makes weird noises by rubbing glasses. The latest addition to Danny's hopeless menagerie is an alcoholic cabaret singer whose best days are clearly behind him, Lou Canova. Surprisingly, Lou's act proves to be a winner, but his nerve suddenly deserts him when the career-changing prospect of an appearance on the Milton Berle Show looms into view. To boost his confidence, he needs his mistress Tina to be in the audience when he performs for Mr Berle, but she is mad at him for not having the courage to leave his wife and three kids. Danny finds himself in the role of go-between and has a hard job persuading the temperamental Tina to leave her present beau, a neurotically jealous mobster, and return to Lou. As he clumsily executes his errand, Danny is mistaken for Tina's boyfriend and becomes the target of the mobster's murderous revenge...