Play It Again Sam

After Bananas Woody Allen's next comedy classic was Play It Again Sam which he wrote but did not direct. This was his first film with Diane Keaton who would go on to co-star in six other Allen movies.

While the the physical and verbal gags still come pretty fast in Play It Again Sam I think its main difference is that the relationship between Allen and his love interest (Keaton in this instance) was more central to the plot rather than a series of sketches that dominated Allen's earlier output.

Allen plays another neurotic loser whose wife has left him and broken his fragile spirit in the process. Allen's best friends, Keaton and the brilliant Tony Roberts, try to help him out his lonely depression by getting him back into world of dating. Cue lots of clowning around on dates and lashings of self-depreciating humour from Allen while he also invokes the spirit of Humphrey Bogart to help him 'be a man.'

Slowly Allen and Keaton's characters fall for one another and the plot thickens....

Again I really enjoy this film whenever I see it. His self-diagnosis of having 'homosexual panic' is brilliant as well as his futile attempts to sweep an array of women of their feet.

I've included the trailer below and a scene from one of his dates when poor Allen gets all confused about what she wants. A very 1970s scene and not really a scene that would make it intact nowadays but I thnk Allen's face during the girls monologue his hysterical.