Mia Farrow is the big surprise in this minor-league Woody Allen comedy from 1984. Before he started deifying ("Hannah and Her Sisters") and then skewering ("Husbands and Wives") her image as the consummate caretaker, he cast her against type as Tina Vitale, a brassy Mafioso widow in this frequently funny paean to Allen's days on the Borscht Belt in the 1950's. She is the mistress of a loutish Vegas-type performer named Lou Canova, who is represented by his woefully unsuccessful agent, Danny Rose. Danny gets Lou a big break, a high profile gig at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at which Milton Berle is to attend, and Lou insists that Danny take Tina to the show. Complications ensue as when Tina's mob connections think she and Danny are a couple, and much of the brief 84-minute movie is about the chase - which is frequently hilarious.
My favorite scene is when Tina and Danny are trapped by a thug in a huge warehouse where Macy's stores their Thanksgiving Day floats and their voices break into a helium pitch when the bullets hit the air tanks. As Tina, Farrow submerges herself so completely in the role that in hindsight, it seems a shame she didn't push for a greater variety in her film roles. For once, Allen plays a completely sympathetic character, a nice guy caught up in ludicrous circumstances that are truly not of his own doing. I am not sure who Nick Apollo Forte is, but he is completely convincing as Lou especially when he's onstage singing like Tony Bennett and acting like Vegas mainstay Danny Gans.
As a framing device for the story, Allen assembled several famous comics at the Carnegie Deli to talk about Danny's story. Led by Sandy Baron, who later played Jerry's father's adversary on "Seinfeld", they are the ones who usually played the Catskills hotel showrooms and showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960's. Speaking of which, I assume the story takes place sometime in the 1970's, but I'm not sure since Allen really does nothing to the set designs to make it feel like a period piece. Allen also jettisons his standard jazz score for the Italianate lounge music that Lou sings. The ending is surprisingly poignant given the shenanigans that precede it. Within his filmography, this is definitely one of his more modest efforts, but along with "Sleeper", "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Manhattan Murder Mystery", it's also one of his most ingratiating comedies. Other than the film's trailer, there are no extras with the DVD package.
My favorite scene is when Tina and Danny are trapped by a thug in a huge warehouse where Macy's stores their Thanksgiving Day floats and their voices break into a helium pitch when the bullets hit the air tanks. As Tina, Farrow submerges herself so completely in the role that in hindsight, it seems a shame she didn't push for a greater variety in her film roles. For once, Allen plays a completely sympathetic character, a nice guy caught up in ludicrous circumstances that are truly not of his own doing. I am not sure who Nick Apollo Forte is, but he is completely convincing as Lou especially when he's onstage singing like Tony Bennett and acting like Vegas mainstay Danny Gans.
As a framing device for the story, Allen assembled several famous comics at the Carnegie Deli to talk about Danny's story. Led by Sandy Baron, who later played Jerry's father's adversary on "Seinfeld", they are the ones who usually played the Catskills hotel showrooms and showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960's. Speaking of which, I assume the story takes place sometime in the 1970's, but I'm not sure since Allen really does nothing to the set designs to make it feel like a period piece. Allen also jettisons his standard jazz score for the Italianate lounge music that Lou sings. The ending is surprisingly poignant given the shenanigans that precede it. Within his filmography, this is definitely one of his more modest efforts, but along with "Sleeper", "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Manhattan Murder Mystery", it's also one of his most ingratiating comedies. Other than the film's trailer, there are no extras with the DVD package.