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18 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
A Memorable Ahead-Of-Its-Time Classic, 26 March 2003
Author: Arthur Fiore from East Brunswick, N.J.

I went to see "Bananas," in the early 1970s with three of my high school buddies, in our local theater. And, it remains -- three decades later -- one of the most memorable and one of my most talked about movie-going experiences ever. So much of it was comprised of absolutely hysterical scenes which I've told countless people about through the years, and still tell people about.

Watching this movie today, it seems as if it had been somewhat haphazardly written. I get the feeling that Woody Allen had kept a journal in which he noted the funniest sights he'd witnessed and the cleverest one-liners he'd heard, over a period of years, and then set about mixing all of these totally unrelated funny things into one script. It's like he was saying to himself, "I think I'll throw in the bit about the guy trying to discreetly buy a sex magazine in a quiet neighborhood store and getting embarrassed, and then the snake bite bit later on. But first before the next plot turn, I think I'll put in the bit in which a guy gets out of his car and falls into an open manhole.", etc. You feel at times like you're watching a Benny Hill-type comedy show, or a TV variety show with a series of comedy skits that have nothing at all to do with each other. Somehow, Woody blended it all together into a fairly coherent story. There are also a few scenes which feature "Airplane"/"Naked Gun"-style tongue-in-cheek humor. But, this movie had been made *long* before those were even thought of. There's a message in that: This movie was ahead of its time. There's a segment of "Bananas," early on, which is just one outrageously funny bit after another after another.

I guess the movie doesn't really have a point . . . except maybe that maniacal dictators are crazy, dangerous and should be driven from power . .. or maybe that freedom is worth fighting for . . . or maybe that some causes are worth laying down your life for. Obviously, there's relevance in all of that for us, today. Or maybe the whole point of this movie could simply be that Woody Allen knows how to make people laugh.

Later, Art

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15 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Woody Allen's best comedy, 2 September 2003

Author: griess from San Antonio, TX

This is one of Woody Allen's earliest films -which should rank with the all-time greatest comedies. Although it was made back when the trial of The Chicago Seven was still fresh and Tobacco was still advertised on television, Bananas is timeless and still topical: J. Edgar Hoover in drag; the CIA sending US troops to fight on both sides of a revolution because they are afraid of being on the wrong side. One can usually recall a few scenes from a good movie, but Bananas is one of those great movies which one can replay in the mind from beginning to end. (Bananas is neatly bracketed at the beginning and end by Howard Cossell playing himself in bizarre Wide World of Sports coverages.) Allen has total control as writer, director and lead actor as in his later films, but in Bananas, the humor is broader and more cinematic. He plays the nebbish Fielding Mellish with less of the existential whining that mars his later films. There is a youthful resiliance like a toy punching bag that keeps coming back up. That is what made Chaplin's little tramp both comical and endearing.

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13 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Often hilarious comedy with a few dead spots., 3 December 1999

Author: gridoon

"Bananas" is one of Woody Allen's earliest films: a pure comedy, with some satirical and political overtones. It's a strictly hit-or-miss effort, but, fortunately, the hits are definitely more than the misses. It contains many laugh-out-loud scenes; the whole courtroom sequence, the scene where he tries to pass unnoticed while he's buying a pornographic magazine and his reaction to the line "You're not tense, are you?" are among the many highlights. It does have its dead spots, though, and some rather too obvious jokes that can't match the level of the rest. And it leaves no residue after it's over, failing to stay in your memory for long. But I admit that, while you're watching it, it's great fun.

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14 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Allen's funniest movie ever, 9 July 2005

Author: Lee Eisenberg (eisenberg.lee@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA

"Bananas" shows why Woody Allen's early movies were far better. He plays Fielding Mellish, a products tester who is wishing that he had stayed in college ("I was taking black studies. I could be black!") After a brief fling with political activist Nancy (Louise Lasser), who is trying to restore democracy in the Latin American country of San Marcos (the movie begins with Howard Cosell hosting a "live, on-the-spot assassination" there). After she leaves him, he decides to go to San Marcos, where he gets involved with the revolutionary forces. Following the revolution's success, the leader installs some loony policies, and the US arrests Mellish for aiding the revolution. What follows shows the meaning of the expression "trial and error"!

Allen truly reached his apex with this movie. It's just one crazy thing after another, namely when Mellish and the revolutionaries buy lunch. Sylvester Stallone, in an early role, plays one of the hoodlums on the subway.

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9 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
pretty crazy, not altogether successful, but it's also very funny, 30 June 2006

Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

Bananas is like a cookie-batter of all of those early Woody Allen jokes all plopped into a bowl and shaken around. It's a film loaded with political jokes, but without a direct focus aside from Cuba and dictators and the like. There are numerous sexual jokes, including one of Woody's funniest scenes involving a magazine (the buying and holding on a subway, very silent comedy-like). And even Howard Cosell becomes an iconic figure in Woody's comedy in the brilliant opening scenes. The plot is very loose, so if you're looking for that look elsewhere. Also, to put it mildly, some of the jokes may not work at all for some viewers of today. But it's the go-for-broke irreverence of the picture that has it still worth viewing today. Much of Woody's own verbal bits are very good, but it's also worth to note how the physical comedy- while crude and a little off-key- also has a good ring to it. Unlike the director's later films, you can still sense that he's trying to 'get' how to make a film, and so in trying to do anything he can think of to get a laugh, of course, some of it doesn't work. For example, in Cuba the gag where the gargantuan pile of dung is carried down the stairs with the Lain music in the background gives a grin, but not as big a laugh as might be intended. Indeed, this might be Woody's most 'immature' film, while still containing some of his more biting, satirical jabs at dictators and oddball politics. Woody would still have this wild, go-for-broke style of humor more akin to some of his quirkier short stories in other films of the early 70s. While this isn't as successful in that regard as Sleeper or Love and Death, I'd still watch it again if it was on TV; even the romantic subplot, undercooked in comparison with the rest of the more satirical stuff, is interesting.

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15 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Keep up! Keep up!, 5 January 2002

Author: intercostalclavicle from Edinburgh, Scotland

Bananas is mad. That may seem like an ungrammatical statement, but Bananas is about as bananas as any film totally lacking in bananas (except for one small reference) could possibly be. The popular conception of the arc that Woody Allen films have taken over the past 30 odd years is one that goes from silly to serious. It is certainly true that his earlier films (from Take the Money and Run to Annie Hall) are faster, sillier and more crammed-full with one-liners and hysterical gags than his more thoughtful, analytical tragicomedies such as Crimes and Misdemeanors – which are in no way less satisfying, but are certainly more controlled than the likes of this gem.

Woody's second feature as writer, director and leading actor shows what true master of comedy he was right from the start of his career. The entire film never pauses for breath and is a constant barrage of witty gags, farcical situations, physical humour and satirical jibes at ... everything really! The beginning is relatively famous and rightly so (perhaps not famous enough), with ABC's Wide World of Sports providing coverage of the assassination of the President of the small republic of San Marcos. The comments and remarks by the presenters are wonderful and the entire scene is a bold, brash start to a fast-paced, dazzling film.

Many other fabulous scenes and moments are quick to follow, favourites of mine being: "The Execucisor"; Fielding and Nancy trying to pinpoint what Nancy feels is missing from their relationship; Fielding's utter embarrassment purchasing a pornographic magazine; his recurrent dream; Nancy (just ... Nancy!); the training with the guerrilla rebels; the entirely bizarre courtroom scene; dinner with the president and Fielding's desperate struggle to keep three unconscious men upright!

And that's just a small part of this quick-fire spectacle!

The music is great – mixing Latin American, Dixieland jazz and that great 1812 Overture moment! Allen's direction is suitably all over the place – in the good way! – and the speed is relentless. Any bad points would be some over-the-top jokes and occasionally one might wonder whether things are a little too disjointed. However, it shows that Woody was on top of his game right from the start.

Rating: 8 1/2 (out of 10)

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
The title says it all, 28 July 2006

Author: blanche-2 from United States

"Bananas" is just that on the surface - a crazy, off the wall movie written by, directed by, and starring a very young Woody Allen as a clumsy New Yorker who winds up as the leader of a small country. In the beginning, Allen plays a product tester whose parents are surgeons (in fact, he walks in on them at one point while they're performing surgery, and they have him take over the reins). He basically just wants to get laid, and when a young activist (Louise Lasser) appears at his door with a petition, he sees an opportunity. The two eventually break up, and in despair, he quits his job and goes to San Marcos, one of her causes. There he becomes a pawn in the revolution, later becoming their leader dressed like Castro but with a red beard.

Only Allen could have imagined this, and it's quite brilliant. Underneath the one-liners and crazy situations is a statement about the war in Vietnam and the way it was reduced to sports reporting on television. To make his point, Howard Cossell is on hand for a play by play of the character's wedding night before an audience.

Total Woody, with some hilarious moments. Highly recommended.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Laugh out loud funny, with some dull spots, 19 July 2006

Author: RovingGambler from United States

This is one of Woody Allen's earliest movies, and I'd rank it probably 2nd out of his pre-Annie Hall movies, only behind Love and Death. It's certainly one of his funniest. The plot is pretty ridiculous (a neurotic product tester goes to the fictional San Marcos and ends up joining the rebels and eventually becoming president), but it's really secondary, and only serves to provide transitions from one comedy skit to another.

It's pretty much a hit and miss movie, but when he hits (which is more often than not), it's very funny. There are plenty of hilarious one liners throughout. The music is very cheesy as well, but it fits in well with the silly humor. Obviously, this isn't like Woody's later movies, just take it for what it is -- a silly comedy -- and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Also of note, the opening credits are very funny and rivals Monty Python and the Holy Grail for best opening credits sequence.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
One-liners aplenty, and definitely worth a watch., 24 August 2006

Author: glocksout from United States

At the recommendation of a friend, I watched Woody Allen's Bananas. Allen is often portrayed in the media and by critics as an albatross of Hollywood, and I really don't have a lot of experience with his films. Besides Bananas, I have only seen Match Point, which is one of the best films I've ever seen. Being made in 1971, Bananas touches on the activism culture of the time, and the USA's involvement in South American politics. Focused around the the fictitious country of San Marcos, presumably any number of nation-states the USA was involved in destroying. It opens with the president of San Marcos being assassinated and a general taking the reigns of power in the country.

Good afternoon. Wide World of Sports is in the republic of San Marcos where we are going to bring you a live on the spot assassination. They're going to kill the president of this lovely Latin American country and replace him with a military dictatorship.

A strong-handed dictator, a group of (apparently marxist) rebels ban together in opposition. Woody Allen's character is living in the States and falls in love with an activist who is looking for support of the people of San Marcos. They make plans together to fly down there in a show of solidarity, but his girlfriend breaks up with him (in one of the most humorous moments of dialog recorded on film). Because he already had plans to go, he visits San Marcos where he is unwittingly joined to the rebel cause.

This is a very funny movie, especially is you are a fan of Groucho Marx - Allen's influence is quite obvious through lines such as, "I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham." But Woody also brings his own spin, which is pretty political - "You cannot bash in the head of an American citizen without written permission from the State Department." Most of it is one-liners or character comedy, but there are also cleverly composed dialog sequences and wacky settings. The film making is somewhat weak, and the musical score is odd, but this is about on par with early 70s movies. The story was flimsy, but apparently most of the movie was filmed improv. It is definitely worth a watch if only for the last scene alone.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Amusing Satirical Comedy, 13 September 2006

Author: James Hitchcock from Tunbridge Wells, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

When asked why this film is called "Bananas", Woody Allen is said to have replied "Because there are no bananas in it". Given that the action takes place in a military dictatorship in South America, the name is presumably a reference to the expression "banana republic", and possibly also to the phrase "go bananas", meaning to go crazy.

Woody plays Fielding Mellish, an early incarnation of the sort of character he was to play in most of his films, the perpetually worried, neurotic New Yorker (although in this case less obviously Jewish than some later Woody characters). Fielding, who works as a consumer products tester, gets involved with Latin American politics when he falls in love with Nancy, a political radical whose pet cause is supporting the guerrillas fighting to overthrow the dictatorial President Vargas of the small Republic of San Marcos. When their relationship comes to an end, he decides to visit the country for himself, only to become mixed up with the rebels. The film ends with Fielding himself becoming President of San Marcos after a revolution and then, on his return to the United States, being placed on trial as a subversive.

This film was made in 1971, near the beginning of Woody's career, and like most of his other early films such as "Take the Money and Run", "Sleeper" and "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex……." it is a "pure" comedy, without the philosophical depth or analysis of human relationships that were to mark later films such as "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan". The film with which it perhaps has most in common is "Sleeper" from two years later, which also deals in a comic way with the theme of the little man getting mixed up in a rebellion against a dictator. Nancy has something in common with Luna, the character played by Diane Keaton in the later film.

The main difference between the two films is that "Sleeper", which is set in an imagined future two centuries hence, revolves around physical slapstick humour of the sort familiar from old silent comedies. Although there is some humour of that type in "Bananas", such as the scene where Fielding tries to demonstrate an exercise machine for busy executives, the style of humour is less physical and more satirical, particularly in the scenes set in San Marcos.

I particularly liked the scene where Vargas receives tribute from the peasants, each of whom has to present their President with his weight in dung on his birthday, so that he can fertilise his private estates- a farcical concept, but a suitably surreal and Chaplinesque comment on the politics of dictatorship (and there have been some dictators who have made their subjects do things that are almost equally absurd). Some of the satire is aimed at American foreign policy; during this period of history the State Department was prepared to support virtually any non-Communist ruler, no matter how oppressive (and even Communist ones, such as Tito, if they were anti-Russian), on the basis of "he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch". The trial scenes (also very funny) can be seen as a critique of the American establishment's McCarthy-style intolerance of any political dissent.

This does not, however, mean that Woody is simply concerned to attach the political Right from a left-wing position. There is plenty here to offend the political Left as well. Nancy is a shallow character, a radical-chic fun-revolutionary whose support for foreign revolutionary movements owes less to idealism than to a need to bring glamour and excitement into a humdrum existence. Fielding is initially even more shallow- his interest in the politics of San Marcos is due to nothing more elevated than his hopes of getting Nancy into bed. Woody's also satirises the Left through the figure of Esposito, the Marxist guerrilla leader (modelled on Fidel Castro) who succeeds in overthrowing Vargas only to prove as power-hungry as the man he has replaced, and even more irrational. If there is a political message here, it is that there is little point in a revolution which simply exchanges one dictator for another; Castro was originally supported by many American liberals who became disenchanted when, having overthrown the dictator Batista, he failed to hold free elections and instead turned Cuba into a one-party Communist state and a launch-pad for Khrushchev's missiles.

I felt that the film started off rather slowly, although there are some good scenes even in the early part, such as the one where a reporter gives a commentary on the overthrow and assassination of the President of San Marcos in the style of a sports commentary. It soon, however, picked up and turned into an amusing satirical comedy. It doesn't, however, have the depth of some of Woody's later films or quite the same biting verbal wit. 7/10

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