BrianKoller's Full Review: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Bu...
Dr. David Reuben's dry sex manual became the unlikely source of a completely unrelated series of risque comedy sketches by Woody Allen. Of course, it was the title that Allen really bought, although the film doesn't really answer any questions. It just laughs at our closet sexual desires, with the sarcastic moral that they will only lead to our destruction. Except for the subway exhibitionist who pockets $50. And the guy who has both Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds in his head.
Composed of seven shorts plus a really bad fake commercial, the film demonstrates Allen's inspired imagination. While all of the shorts have their moments, some are much better than others. And the best ones star Woody Allen. This may mean that Allen-the-actor was better than Allen-the-director, at least in 1972. Or at might mean that he simply gave the best roles to himself. Seeing Allen dressed like Julia Child, and affecting her voice as well, would have been more embarrassing today than having been chased by a breast whose size rivals the Hindenburg.
So perhaps the film should have been titled, "Everything About Sex That You Never Thought You'd See in a Movie". There's a lot of material present that really is funny, even if the next day you'd swear it was all a dream inspired by laughing gas and late night Cinemax. The problem is that the best skits fly by so quickly that we can hardly enjoy them. Fortunately, the skits that don't completely work also don't stay long enough to wear out their welcome.
The first short is my favorite. "Do Aphrodisiacs Work?" has Allen as court jester in medieval England. The ill-tempered, Henry the Eighth-like king is played by Anthony Quayle. Lynn Redgrave is well cast as the Queen, whose royal highness desires Allen after he slips her love potion #9. But Alas poor Woody, the Queen wears a chastity belt.
It all ends too soon. Now we're stuck with Gene Wilder mooning over an Armenian sheep. I know that there are people other than Mel Brooks and Gilda Radner who think that Wilder is hysterical, but as for me I can hardly wait for him to drink the Woolco and begone.
"Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching Orgasm?" is the next skit. In what seems to be a parody of a Fellini film, Allen plays a sophisticate whose listless wife (Louise Lasser) remains so in bed. But not in public.
"Are Transvestites Homosexuals?" stars a man in late middle age (Lou Jacobi) with a hidden desire to dress like the Queen Mother. Things get so embarrassing for him that you may actually feel sorry for him. Which probably isn't what Allen intended.
A parody of the 'golden age' television game show "What's My Line" follows, retaining its host Jack Berry. Regis Philbin is among the panelists, who must guess the contestant's perversion. The satire begins well, but falls apart towards the end. Bad Rabbi, indeed.
Yet another parody has sex author Allen and a comely blonde reporter teaming up to visit mad scientist John Carradine, who soon wants to have her gang raped by a group of possessed boy scouts. Merit badges must have had a different meaning in 1972.
Somehow this skit evolves into The Blob reincarnated as a woman's breast, with Allen taking McQueen's inaugural role as the only man who can stop it. With a size 4000 bra. When the general remarks that these things usually travel in pairs, one can imagine the groans coming from theatrical audiences.
But Allen saves the second best for last. In one of his most memorable roles, he plays a neurotic sperm, in a white costume complete with hood and tail. Meanwhile, Tony Randall camps it up as the brain man orchestrating the erection. As well as the digestion of mountains of pasta, which is a fitting analogy for the film's messy and rushed style.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex may not be everything that you always wanted from a Woody Allen film. But it has its moments, which for better or worse you will never forget. Woody Allen did make a great movie in 1972, but it was called Play it Again, Sam. (66/100)
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