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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: ALLEN,WOODY
EAN: 9780792846062
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0792846060
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 05, 2000
Running Time: 82 minutes
Sales Rank: 13112
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: April 28, 1971
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Woody Allen's second film as a director, co-writer and star takes parody to the extreme with a brilliant send-up of everything from relationships to dictatorships. An early example of what Allen called his 'slapdash' approach to comedy, Bananas' broad, fast humor and rapid-fire witticisms form a dazzling kaleidoscope of 'inspired ingenuity and comic artistry' (Look). When bumbling product-tester, Fielding Mellish (Allen) is jilted by his girlfriend, Nancy (Louise Lasser),he heads to the tiny republic of San Marcos for a vacation only to become kidnapped by rebels! Oncethe band of rebels seizes power, their leader goes crazy, and they replace him with Mellish, thinking he can save the country. But when Mellish is nabbed by the FBI, he is put on trial for subversionand in a side-splitting courtroom showdownincluding the most hilarious self-cross examination everWoody Allen proves beyond a doubt that he is not only our most gifted satirist he's a master comic artist.
Amazon.com essential video:
Woody Allen's second film as a director was a wild, unpredictable, and unlikely comedy about a product-tester named Fielding Mellish (Allen), who can't quite connect with the woman of his dreams (Louise Lasser, Allen's ex-wife). He accidentally winds up in South America as a freedom fighter for a guerrilla leader who looks like Castro. Once he assumes power, the new dictator quickly goes insane--which leaves Fielding in charge to negotiate with the U.S. The film is chockfull of wonderfully bizarre gags, such as the dreams Fielding recounts to his shrink about dueling crucified messiahs, vying for a parking place near Wall Street. Look for an unknown Sylvester Stallone in a tiny role--but watch this film for Allen's surprisingly physical (and always verbally dexterous) humor. --Marshall Fine
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - One of Woody's best films, still hilarious today....
This was Allen's second film, and it's one of my all time favorite Woody Allen films. It's still hilarious, filled with brilliant dialogue, incredibly funny setpieces (some of the best of Allen's career), funny performances, great satire, and a great musical score. Allen would go onto deeper material and even greater films, but I still love this one. With Howard Cosell hosting an assassination attempt (still funny even if you don't remember Howard Cosell), to Allen getting food for his revolutionary outfit from a local diner, Bananas is filled with brilliant comedy. Some have complained that the film is a bit rough, but that didn't bother me that much. Most of Allen's comedies are consistently funny, and there are few, if any, lulls in them. This is great comedic filmmaking, something future generations should study and emulate.
Rating:  - The themes keep tripping over the gags
I'm not a fan of physical comedy, and I generally dislike Woody Allen's earlier movies. Still, I acknowledge the possibility that my funny bone isn't as well developed as it might be, and that people better qualified than myself to judge comedy think "Bananas" is great. So be it.
Don't get me wrong. Even I can see that there are some really clever scenes in the film. The commercial for New Testament cigarettes--"I smoke 'em. HE smokes 'em"--is priceless, as is the generously proportioned black woman in the trial scene who identifies herself as J. Edgar Hoover--"I have many enemies. I rarely go out without a disguise."
But in general, the nonstop slapstick and silliness keep tripping up the themes that hold the film together: the almost ritualistic in its predictability violence of repressive regimes; the sex appeal of power (shades of Kissinger's "power is the best aphrodisiac"); this country's tendency to label as a traitor anyone who "disagrees with the President and others of his kind" (from the trial scene); the jab at mindless consumerism that Fielding Mellish's (Woody Allen) job as a product tester makes; the crowded and frenetic existence led by so many people who want to save-the-world (illustrated by Nancy's [Louise Lasser] crowded schedule); the media's invasion of privacy; the sad tendency of liberation movements to become repressive once in power; and the rather uncomfortable fact that the direction our lives take is often at the whim of chance events. ... Read More
Rating:  - Doesn't hold up too well
This is one of Allen's earlier efforts when he was mostly concerned with just being funny. The movie starts off at breakneck gag pace - plenty of physical humour and slapstick as the hapless Fielding Mellish loses the girl, exiles to South America and gets involved with the Castro like rebel movement of the fictional republic San Marcos. By the end, the jokes are waning and it is just Allen on hyper auto pilot - a long and not particularly funny courtroom scene and a tagged on ending of the consummation of his marriage played out as a boxing fight. This movie would never get produced these days,such is the amateurish and sloppy nature of the whole thing though I grant it was probably a fresh and funny satire back in the day.
Rating: - a wonderful political/social satire---classic early Woody Allen......
I first saw BANANAS on the local Public Broadcasting channel in Seattle. It's honestly surprising to me that people don't talk more about this film. I happen to think that it's funny, enlightening and very intelligent. What's more, it has chilling parallels with the state of politically revolutionary and anti-American Latin American governments of today (and no, I am not "naming names"---that would only get me into hot water here, and that isn't the purpose of the review). Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen) is a gawky product tester who falls in love with a politically active young woman, Nancy (Louise Lasser--Allen's first wife before the age of Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow or Soon-Yi Previn). Though very drawn to her, Mellish is not able to truly capture the young woman's heart. Why? Because he isn't as politically involved as she would like him to be. Well, all that changes when the awkward (not so young) man takes a life-altering trip to San Marcos, a small island nation falling under the thumb of pronounced political upheaval. Their leader, with strong leanings toward dictatorship and supression, has been assasinated and everything is in flux. It is during Mellish's trip that a very unlikely and (perhaps) profoundly unbelievable political shift occurs. I won't ruin it for you. You will have to see it for yourself. I will tell you that as many years as it has been since BANANAS' 1971 release, it still remains a very bold and wonderful showcase for Allen's irrerepresible physical comedy, as well ... Read More
Rating: - "Yes, well, freedom is wonderful. On the other hand, if you're dead, it's a tremendous drawback to your sex life."
In his earlier film, a pure comedy "Bananas", screen writer/director Woody Allen stars as Fielding Mellish, a timid and nervous New Yorker products tester for a marketing research. Fielding does not like his job, "I'm not suited to this job. Where do I come off testing products? Machines hate me. I should be working at a job that I have some kinda aptitude for, like donating sperm to an artificial insemination lab" and gets rejected by his political activist girlfriend Nancy (Louise Lasser, second Mrs. Woody Allen with whom he had made three comedies) who tells him that he's missing something and doesn't have leadership ability. Mellish takes a trip to the South American country San Marcos, reluctantly gets involved in a revolution and becomes the president of the country.
"Bananas" contains some great jokes and scenes and proves that Allen is one of the true comic geniuses along with Chaplin and Keaton. I liked the film a lot - but I liked the parts much better than the whole thing. Having seen every movie Allen directed, I prefer his later work and his funniest movie for me is "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993).
Very young Sly Stallone make a short appearance in "Bananas" - he played one of two hoods who terrorized the passengers in the subway car.
3.5/5 or 7/10
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