Play It Again Sam

Buy This Item Play It Again Sam by Paramount  Available from Amazon  $14.95  on 8-11-2008     Written for the stage and coherently opened up for the screen by veteran director Herbert Ross, <I>Play It Again, Sam</I> is closer to a conventional comedy than Woody Allen's more self-contained films, but his smart script and archetypal hero-nebbish achieve a special charm aimed squarely at movie buffs. Allen is Allan Felix, a film critic on the rebound after his wife's desertion trying to brave the choppy waters of born-again bachelorhood and struggling to reconcile his celluloid obsessions with the hazards of real-world dating. His apartment is a shrine to Humphrey Bogart, and it's none other than Bogey himself who materializes at strategic moments to counsel Allan on romantic strategy. He gets more corporeal aid from his married friends, Linda (Diane Keaton) and Dick (Tony Roberts), who try to orchestrate prospective matches and reassure him when those chemistry experiments explode. When Allan finds himself falling in love with Linda, the dissonance between fantasy and reality proves both funny and poignant--a precursor to the deeper emotionalism missing from the star's earlier directorial efforts that was soon to inform Allen's most affecting '70s comedies. It's also the start of his onscreen relationship with Keaton, further underscoring Allen's evolution toward a more satisfying contemplation of the friction between head and heart. <I>--Sam Sutherland</I> Reader Reviews I don't know what it is about this particular Woody Allen vehicle, but no matter how many times I have viewed it over the years, I laugh just as hard at all the one-liners as I did the first time I saw it. Annie Hall and Manhattan may be his most highly lauded and artistically accomplished films, but for pure "laughs per minute", I would nominate this 1972 entry, with a screenplay adapted by Allen from his own original stage version. Ironically, it's the only "Woody Allen film" that wasn't directed by him (those chores went to Herbert Ross). Allen portrays a film buff who is particularly obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. He fantasizes conversations with Bogie's ghost (played to perfection by Jerry Lacy) who advises him on how to "be a man" and attract the perfect mate. He receives more pragmatic assistance from his best friends, a married couple (Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts) who fix him up with a series of women (the depictions of the various dating disasters are hilarious beyond description). A true comedy classic.

Play It Again Sam Available from Amazon Price: $14.95 Updated on 8-11-2008.

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