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| Long Live Underdog, and all he represents |
Not only one of Woody Allen’s best and most stylish films, but his performance goes outside the box...
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| Year: 1984 |
While the hardworking but low-rent New York talent agent Danny Rose... whose quirky clients range from a lady playing music on wine glasses to a blind xylophone player to a parrot pecking songs on a piano... embodies the usual Woody Allen nervousness and quick release of one-liners, they don't seem meant as punchlines. And there’s a kindhearted, fervently optimistic side you won't see in other Allen protagonists: He really cares about humanity; especially the ones in his stable of industry rejects.
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| Score: ****1/2 |
Among the bouquet of bottom-barrel acts, he has one client who might have a future. Hefty lounge singer Lou Canova spent his fifteen-minutes long ago, yet the nostalgia craze reignites possible interest. Danny, who will do anything to make sure the extremely superstitious Lou doesn't screw up this strategically important gig, picks up his feisty good luck charm, Tina, played in true character-actress form by Mia Farrow, for that night's show – but she ain't happy: the married crooner's got another "other woman" beside Tina. So Danny joins Tina in a party full of mobsters where he, mistaken as her lover by a jealous Italian, becomes a marked man.
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| A Glass Act |
The best scenes have Danny and Tina pursued by bloodthirsty goons, venturing through ghostly reeds and then, back in the city, captured within a giant warehouse harboring parade floats. The gorgeous black & white cinematography is richly enhanced by various insert shots of people’s reactions...
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| Woody Allen's Underdog character... literally |
From lounge audiences to party goers to mobsters. And the entire story's told by Sandy Baron at a Delicatessen to his contemporaries, providing a documentary-style legitimacy: making Rose an underdog folk hero, legendary to only those "in the know". So while Farrow plays the guiltless moll with perfection, and this being Danny and Tina’s time-racing adventure, Nick Apollo Forte’s genuinely cozy charm as the singing/songwriting Lou Canova ultimately steals the show. As the kind of flaky womanizer Allen's characters usually detest, this guy has heart... or does he?
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| Marquee Showing Woody Allen's ex girlfriend Stacey Nelkin's most famous role |
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