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| Play It Again, Sam (1972) | |
| Background
The film's title has been the reason that many falsely claim that the line was actually spoken in Casablanca (1942). The film was notable as the first film pairing Allen with his on- and off-screen partner Diane Keaton (they were directly teamed together in 6 films). They appeared in seven more feature films together, also including:
The hilarious comedy followed the romantic trials and life of a San Francisco movie buff and film critic (for Film Quarterly), Allan Felix (Woody Allen). He was self-deprecating, neurotic, shy, fanatical about films, and obsessed over the film Casablanca (1942). He tried to model his behavior after the personality of its tough guy actor Humphrey Bogart. In the film's resolution, a complicated love triangle with Allan's two best friends was finally resolved during a re-enactment of the airport farewell scene in the 1942 film. The tagline on film posters declared: "It's still the same old story, a fight for love and glory." Another stated the obsessed connection between Allen's character and Humphrey Bogart:
It came in an intermediate and more accessible stage in Woody Allen's career, between his earlier gag-filled hits such as: Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972) (he was working on this film during filming of PIAS), and his later more polished works in the late 70s including Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979). Throughout the film, there were many great one-liners spouted by Woody Allen's character, such as:
[Note: A predictable spin-off, the romantic comedy Touch of Pink (2004) from Canadian writer/director Ian Iqbal Rashid (his debut feature film), portrayed the Woody Allen character as a young Canadian gay man in London being advised by a ghostly Cary Grant (Kyle MacLachlan).] Plot SynopsisPrologue: Casablanca Viewing During the film's opening credits, 29 year-old SF film magazine critic Allan Felix (Woody Allen) watched a theatrical screening of Casablanca (1942) in a movie theatre with his mouth agape during the famed airport farewell conclusion sequence. He remarked (in voice-over) as he walked out: "Who am I kidding? I'm not like that. I never was, I never will be. That's strictly the movies." Lying on his bed under a poster for Casablanca, he was introduced as a self-professed, insecure, depressed "aspirin junkie" and neurotic individual: ("Next thing, I'll be boiling the cotton at the top of the bottle to get the extra").
Flashback - Allan's Marital Breakup with Nancy: In a flashbacked scene while being very depressed and with low self-esteem, Allan recalled how he broke-up and divorced his wife Nancy Felix (Susan Anspach) after two years of marriage. She mostly regarded him as sexually inadequate:
Although Allan was entirely disoriented by the divorce, he clung to hopes of a better future with other women and fantasized 'stepping out' or inviting 'broads' up to his apartment: "Why should a divorce bother me so? Oh hell, maybe I'm better off without her. Why not? I'm young, I'm healthy, I've got a good job. This could be my chance to step out a little bit. If she can swing, so can l. I could turn this place into a nightclub. I'll get broads up here like you wouldn't believe. Swingers, freaks, nymphomaniacs, dental hygienists." However, he was still hung-up about the specific day that they separated, when she described how she was an active 'doer' and he was just a passive 'watcher':
When she proposed contacting his lawyer, he responded: "I don't have a lawyer. Have him call my doctor." The recently-divorced, shy, insecure and neurotic loser Allan sat in his room, where he was counseled by the trench-coated, fantasy ghost of his film idol Humphrey Bogart (flawlessly interpreted by Jerry Lacy). He was given hard-boiled, cheesy romantic advice about being a tough, self-confident, desirable and virile man, and about how to treat dames.
Allan's Supportive Married Friends - Dick and Linda: His married friends, hard-driven, workaholic Dick Christie (Tony Roberts) and pretty neurotic model-wife Linda (Diane Keaton) arrived and agreed to help Allan find another woman to share his life. They both wanted Allan to succeed in dating women.
Dick advised that Allan had much to look forward to now that he was single:
But when Dick and Linda asked specifically what Allan preferred, he answered: "I like blondes. Little blondes with long hair and short skirts and boots and big chests and bright, witty and perceptive," but Linda advised that women with large breasts "usually don't have great minds." As he discussed his dilemma with them, Allan had a fearful daydream of Nancy riding on the back of a motorcycle with a "tall, strong, handsome, blue-eyed blonde man" before they laid down outdoors to make love. Disastrous Arranged Dates for Allan: The nerdy Allan was about to experience many disastrous and fumbling blind date scenes and rejections. Dick and Linda arranged an 8 pm double-dinner-date for him with Linda's photographer's assistant Sharon Lake (Jennifer Salt), who had starred in a "very arty" 16 mm underground film - that was titled "Gang Bang."
Linda reassured Allan by proposing another possible date with Jennifer (Viva, one of Andy Warhol's X-rated screen actresses), one of her therapy group members, although cautioned by labeling her as "crazy" and "too weird for a relationship." During their date, Jennifer admitted that she was a sex-obsessed nymphomaniac: "Allan, I won't deny it. I'm a nymphomaniac. I discovered sex very early. I slept with everybody. My schoolteacher, my sister's husband, the string section of the New York Philharmonic. I want to have sex all the time, play all the time. Otherwise you're just down, and why be down? The best way to get up is sex. I'm not like my sisters. They're so inhibited, they never want to do anything. I believe in having sex as often, as freely and as intensely as possible." When Allan voraciously grabbed at her to kiss her, she unexpectedly retorted: "What do you take me for?" There was another failed pickup for Allan at an art gallery when he asked Museum Girl (Diana Davila) (in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) about her interpretation of Jackson Pollock's 1943 painting, 'Guardians of the Secret': ("It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos"), and then when he asked what she was doing on Saturday night, she responded: "Committing suicide" - then undeterred, he asked about Friday night instead! During a visit to Dick's and Linda's beach house, the threesome visited a discotheque, where on the dance floor, Allan ogled a big-breasted blonde Discotheque Girl (Susanne Zenor) and imagined propositioning her: "I love you, miss, whoever you are. I want to have your child," but she soundly rejected him when he finally courageously asked her to dance - with harsh words: "Get lost, creep!" The Growing Close Relationship Between Allan and Linda: Allan realized that through his many conversations with Linda that she was slowly becoming the girl of his dreams. She was sensible and supportive of his qualities ("You've got a lot going for you. You're bright, and you're funny and I think you're even romantic, if you'd only believe it. I don't see why you put on a false mask every time you meet a girl"), and he always felt free and comfortable to speak to her openly. Allan realized that Linda, who often craved attention (and fawning over) from Dick, also often felt neglected and ignored. She treasured Allan's birthday gift of a plastic skunk more than Dick's present. His next date was with a young, short-haired, "earthy" and sexy blonde named Julie (Joy Bang), one of Dick's office workers who had just broken up with her boyfriend. Allan asked her to join him for a Friday evening dinner, and afterwards, she suggested that they cruise inside a biker bar: "Hey, let's go in there and get stoned and watch the freaks." Allan was overtaken by two long-haired, leather-clad tough Hoods (Michael Greene and Ted Markland) when he vainly attempted to protect Julie from their crude advances at their table. (Linda learned of Allan's date during the evening and appeared jealously concerned that he might like his date.) Later when he returned to the beach house, Allan revealed how he had been bruised and beaten up during a fight, and Linda laughed hysterically at his description of his disastrous evening: ("I snapped my chin down onto some guy's fist and hit the other one in the knee with my nose...I could use a three-foot Band-Aid until the pain subsides. (toward Linda) She's laughing and my sex life is turning into the Petrified Forest"). Upon their return to the city, both Linda and Allan returned to their respective, normally-lonely lives. Allan bemused to himself: "Ten million women in the country and I can't wind up with one." He realized that his relationship with Linda worked so well because they were familiar with each other as friends and weren't dating: "There's no pressure with Linda, I'm not trying to make her....It's the girls that I try to score with that I can't get to first base with. I'm turning into the strike-out king of San Francisco." |
Play
It Again, Sam (1972) is director Herbert Ross' adaptation of
Woody Allen's own original, scripted 1969 Broadway play, with the
four main players reprising their roles from the stage (Woody Allen,
Tony Roberts, Diane Keaton, and Jerry Lacy). Allen could have directed
the film, and had already directed three films (What's Up, Tiger
Lily? (1966),