Themes: Dropping Out, Underdogs, Success is the Best Revenge
Main Cast: Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalban, Natividad Abascal, Jacobo Morales
Release Year: 1971
Country: US
Run Time: 82 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
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. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
Review
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. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Miguel Angel Suarez - Luis; Stanley Ackerman - Dr. Mellish; Axel Anderson - Tortured Man; Hy Anzell - Patient In Operating Room; Jack Axelrod - Arroyo; Conrad Bain - Semple; Eddie Barth; Beeson Carroll - FBI Security; Ted Chapman - Policeman; Howard Cosell - Himself; Dagne Crane - Sharon; Ed Crowley - FBI Security; Don Dunphy - Himself; Rene Enriquez - Diaz; Princess Fatosh - Snakebite Lady; Dorothi Fox - J. Edgar Hoover; Dan Frazer - Priest; Allen Garfield - Man on Cross; Martha Greenhouse - Dr. Feigen; Roger Grimsby - Himself; Arthur Hughes - Judge; Bob O'Connell; David Oniz - Sanchez; Charlotte Rae - Mrs. Mellish; Sylvester Stallone - Subway Hood; John Braden - Prosecutor; Dick Callinan; Norman Evans; Baron DeBeer - Ambassador; Marilyn Hengst; David Ortiz - Sanchez; Eulogio Peraza; Tigre Perez - Perez; Nicholas Saunders; Robert Dudley - FBI Man#2
Credit
Vicky Hernandez - Casting, Gene Coffin - Costume Designer, Fred T. Gallo - First Assistant Director, Woody Allen - Director, Ron Kalish - Editor, Marvin Hamlisch - Composer (Music Score), Yomo Toro Trio - Composer (Music Score), Howard Liebling - Songwriter, Guy del Russo - Makeup, Ed Wittstein - Production Designer, Andrew M. Costikyan - Cinematographer, Robert J. Koster - Production Manager, Jack Grossberg - Producer, Charles H. Joffe - Producer, Ralph Rosenblum - Producer, Jack Rollins - Producer, Jake Holmes - Singer, Herb Mulligan - Set Designer, James J. Sabat - Sound/Sound Designer, Nathan Boxer - Sound/Sound Designer, Woody Allen - Screenwriter, Mickey Rose - Screenwriter
Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen) is a neurotic blue collar man who tries to impress social activist Nancy (Louise Lasser). Trying to get in touch with the San Marcos revolution, he visits attempting to show his concern for the native people. However, nearly killed by the local caudillo, only to be saved by the revolutionaries, he is then indebted to help them. Mellish clumsily learns how to be a revolutionary, and then in an effort to feed the troops goes to a restaurant and in typical New Yorker fashion asks for thousands of deli sandwiches (including one special order), plus wheelbarrows of coleslaw on the side. When the revolution is successful, the Castro-style leader goes mad (declaring at one point that all underwear be worn on the outside), forcing the rebels to place Mellish as their President. When traveling back to the U.S. to obtain financial aid, he reunites with his activist ex-girlfriend and is exposed. In a classic courtroom scene, Mellish tries to defend himself from a series of incriminating witnesses (including J. Edgar Hoover disguised as a black woman). He is eventually sentenced to prison, but his sentence is suspended on the condition that he doesn't move into the judge's neighborhood. Nancy then agrees to marry him.
An announcement before the closing credits: Special news bulletin ... the astronauts have landed safely on the Moon and have erected the first all Protestant cafeteria"
According to an interview in the notes of the film's DVD release, Allen said that there is absolutely no blood in the film (even during executions) because he wanted to keep the light comedic tone of the film intact.
Title
The title is a pun, "bananas" being slang for "crazy," as well as being a reference to the phrase "banana republic" describing the film's setting. The title also may be a respectful nod to The Cocoanuts, the first film by the Marx Brothers, by whom Allen was heavily influenced at the time. However, when Allen was asked why the film was called Bananas, his reply was, "Because there are no bananas in it." In Don Quixote, U.S.A., the novel by Richard P. Powell that served as a source for Bananas, the protagonist was an agronomist specializing in bananas.
Famous scenes
Allen's most famous scenes in this film include his testing a work office gym (a reference to Chaplin's Modern Times), his cowardly attempts to defend an elderly woman from subway thugs (one of them played by a then-unknown Sylvester Stallone), his indiscreetly trying to buy men's magazines in a general magazine store in front of mixed company, carefully helping a driver back up his car until it smashes into another one, the series of mishaps he goes through learning the various techniques of jungle warfare (sucking the poison out of a snakebite wound...), and a totally absurd courtroom trial:
“
Prosecutor: Tell the court why you think he is a traitor to this country.
Miss America: I think Mr. Mellish is a traitor to this country because his views are different from the views of the president and others of his kind. Differences of opinion should be tolerated, but not when they're too different. Then he becomes a subversive mother.
”
Also noteworthy is Fielding's return to the United States as the President of San Marcos, where he is greeted by a representative from the State Department and Mr. Hernandez, the official interpreter, who speaks broken English. After a few pleasantries are exchanged and it is obvious that Fielding speaks and understands perfect English, Mr. Hernandez continues to try and translate until he is chased away by two men with butterfly nets. And also an interview with his psychiatrist:
"I remember when I was a little boy, I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts."
Bookending the movie are two scenes of absolute absurdism, where ABC's Wide World of Sports covers a live assassination in San Marcos, complete with Howard Cosell shouting "It's all over for El Presidente!" as well as Fielding Mellish's honeymoon with Nancy, which plays out as a boxing match.
