Bananas

Director: Woody Allen

Overview

One of Woody Allen's earlier, more slapstick-oriented efforts, Bananas tells the story of Fielding Mellish (Allen), a neurotic New Yorker who follows the object of his affections, Nancy (Louise Lasser), to the fictional Central American country of San Marcos, where she is involved in a revolution. Nancy wants nothing to do with Fielding, but he soon becomes a guest of the country's dictator (Carlos Montalban), before accidentally becoming the leader of San Marcos himself. Fielding is eventually shipped back to the US and tried as a subversive, but being that this is a comedy, and an especially light one at that, everything works out in the end. A far cry from Allen's later, more somber films, Bananas still works as an often hilarious amalgam of sight gags, one-liners, and bizarre asides.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/20/2022
UPC:	0850035985236
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Sandpiper Pictures

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Woody Allen	Fielding Mellish
Louise Lasser	Nancy
Carlos Montalban	General Emilio M. Vargas
Natividad Abascal	Yolanda
Jacobo Morales	Esposito
Miguel Angel Suarez	Luis
Dorothi Fox	J. Edgar Hoover
Bob O'Connell	Actor
David Oniz	Sanchez
Eddie Barth	Actor
Norman Evans	Actor
Dick Callinan	Actor
Rene Enriquez	Diaz
Jack Axelrod	Arroyo
Don Dunphy	Himself
Dan Frazer	Priest
Martha Greenhouse	Dr. Feigen
Axel Anderson	Tortured Man
Arthur Hughes	Judge
John Braden	Prosecutor
Ted Chapman	Policeman
Dagne Crane	Sharon
Conrad Bain	Semple
Robert Dudley	FBI Man#2
Ed Crowley	FBI Security
Beeson Carroll	FBI Security
Allen Garfield	Man on Cross
Princess Fatosh	Snakebite Lady
Hy Anzell	Patient In Operating Room
Howard Cosell	Himself
Roger Grimsby	Himself
Charlotte Rae	Mrs. Mellish
Stanley Ackerman	Dr. Mellish
Baron DeBeer	Ambassador
Marilyn Hengst	Actor
David Ortiz	Sanchez
Eulogio Peraza	Actor
Tigre Perez	Perez
Nicholas Saunders	Actor
Sylvester Stallone	Subway Hood
Jake Holmes	Singer

Technical Credits

Woody Allen

Mickey Rose

Woody Allen	Director,Screenwriter
Nathan Boxer	Sound/Sound Designer
Gene Coffin	Costumes/Costume Designer
Andrew M. Costikyan	Cinematographer
Fred T. Gallo	Asst. Director
Jack Grossberg	Producer
Marvin Hamlisch	Score Composer
Vicky Hernandez	Casting
Jack Rollins	Producer
Charles H. Joffe	Producer
Ron Kalish	Editor
Robert J. Koster	Production Manager
Howard Liebling	Songwriter
Herb Mulligan	Set Decoration/Design
Mickey Rose	Screenwriter
Ralph Rosenblum	Producer
Guy del Russo	Makeup
James J. Sabat	Sound/Sound Designer
Yomo Toro	Score Composer
Ed Wittstein	Production Designer

Editorial Reviews

A prime example of the "earlier, funnier" Woody Allen films, Bananas is a consistently off-kilter story about an American product tester (Allen) who ends up as a Latin American dictator. It's an anarchic take on 1960s-style revolutionaries. The satire is light, but the film is packed with trademark Allen one-liners, slapstick, and sight gags, and Allen the actor is in top form. Some of the material became quickly dated, but Bananas is an excellent showcase for the often-overlooked comic talents of the first of Allen's three leading actress/girlfriends, Louise Lasser. Marvin Hamlisch's witty score is a great contribution to the success of the film. Asked why the film was called Bananas, Allen told an interviewer: "Because there are no bananas in it." Building on the cult success of the extremely silly Take the Money and Run two years earlier, Bananas marked the real start of Allen's remarkable run of comic successes in the 1970s.

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