Love and Death

Director: Woody Allen

Overview

Woody Allen's Love and Death is purportedly a satire of all things Russian, from Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky novels to Sergei Eisenstein films, but it plays more like a spin on Bob Hope's Monsieur Beaucaire. Allen plays Boris, a 19th century Russian who falls in love with his distant (and married) cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton). Pressed into service with the Russian army during the war against Napoleon, Boris accidentally becomes a hero, then goes on to win a duel against a cuckolded husband (Harold Gould). He returns to Sonja, hoping to settle down on the Steppes somewhere, but Sonja has become fired up with patriotic fervor, insisting that Boris join a plot to kill Napoleon. Intellectual in-jokes abound in Love and Death, and other gags are basic Allen one-liners; for instance, after being congratulated for his lovemaking skills, Boris replies nonchalantly, "I practice a lot when I'm alone." The pseudo-Russian ambience of Love and Death is comically enhanced by the Sergey Prokofiev compositions on the musical track.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/20/2022
UPC:	0850035985656
Original Release:	1975
Rating:	PG
Source:	Sandpiper Pictures

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Woody Allen	Boris
Diane Keaton	Sonia
Harold Gould	Anton Ivanovitch
Sol Frieder	Leonid Voskovec
Olga Georges-Picot	Countess Alexandrovna
Henri Czarniak	Ivan Grushenko
Despo Diamantidou	Mother
Féodor Atkine	Mikhail
Alfred Lutter	Young Boris
Jessica Harper	Natasha
James Tolkan	Napoleon
Edmond Ardisson	Priest
Yves Barsacq	Rimsky
Larry Hankin	Uncle Sasha
Shimen Ruskin	Borslov
Helene Vallier	Mme. Wolfe
Georges Adet	Old Nehamken
Frank Adu	Drill Sergeant
Albert Augier	Waiter
Lloyd Battista	Don Francisco
Jack Berard	Gen. Lecoq
Yves Brainville	Andre
Gerard Buhr	Servant
Brian Coburn	Dmitri
Patricia Crown	Cheerleader
Sandor Eles	Soldier #2
Luce Fabiole	Grandmother
Florian	Uncle Nicolai
Jacqueline Fogt	Ludmilla
Tutte Lemkow	Pierre
Tony Jay	Vladimir Maximovitch
Jack Lenoir	Krapotkin
Leib Lensky	Father Andre
Roger Lumont	Baker
Ed Marcus	Raskov
Jacques Maury	Second
Aubrey Morris	Soldier #4
Denise Peron	Spanish Countess
Beth Porter	Anna
Chris Sanders	Joseph
C.A.R. Smith	Father Nikolai
Fred Smith	Soldier
Alan Tilvern	Sergeant
Howard Vernon	Gen. Leveque
Glenn Williams	Soldier
Zvee Scooler	Father

Technical Credits

Woody Allen

Woody Allen	Director,Screenwriter
Miriam Brickman	Casting
Daniel Brisseau	Sound/Sound Designer
Ghislain Cloquet	Cinematographer
Peter Dawson	Special Effects
Peter Dawson	Special Effects
Gladys de Segonzac	Costumes/Costume Designer
Paul Feyder	Asst. Director
Fred T. Gallo	Producer
Al Gramaglia	Sound/Sound Designer
Willy Holt	Art Director
Charles H. Joffe	Producer
Ron Kalish	Editor
Marie-Madeleine Paris	Makeup
Martin Poll	Producer
Ralph Rosenblum	Editor
Juliet Taylor	Casting
Kit West	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Before Woody Allen made Annie Hall, the first in a long series of romantic comedies and/or personal dramas about neurotic New Yorkers (and, to a large degree, himself), he made a series of wildly funny absurdist comedies, of which Love and Death was probably the best. Dominated by knowing parodies of Russian literature with a dollop of Ingmar Bergman on the side, Love and Death is that rare satire that wears its smarts on its sleeve while still going for the belly laugh. While you have to be quite well-read to catch every literary reference, the movie still works if you don't get them, and for every joke about the philosophical nature of being and nothingness, there's another one along the lines of father's "valuable piece of land" (a chunk of sod he carries with him), and the dialogue is delightfully silly more often than it's profound. This is also where Allen's acknowledged fondness for Bob Hope gets its strongest public airing; Woody's performance as Boris Grushenko, "the young coward all St. Petersburg is talking about," owes a lot to the mixture of bravado and jumpiness that marked Hope's best work, and the story bears more than a passing resemblance to Hope's Monsieur Beaucaire (1946). While this wasn't the first film Allen made with Diane Keaton, it was the first one in which she seemed to be on an equal footing and not just a girlfriend-turned-leading lady. Keaton's an able straight woman for Allen's gags, and she fields a number of her own with a delicious deadpan aplomb (most notably distracting a Spanish dignitary with the question, "I'm having trouble adjusting my belt -- do you think you could come over here and hold my bosom for a while?"). Allen's next film was his Oscar-winning breakthrough Annie Hall, and, while his subsequent work was often more personal and emotionally involving than his early films, he was never funnier than in Love and Death.

All Movie Guide - Mark Deming