Main Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Jerry Lacy, Susan Anspach
Release Year: 1972
Country: US
Run Time: 84 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Herbert Ross directed this adaptation of Woody Allen's hit Broadway play concerning a shy film critic who has trouble with women. Woody Allen plays Allan Felix, a writer for Film Quarterly consumed by movies, particularly his favorite film of all time, Casablanca. At the start of the film, Allan's wife Nancy (Susan Anspach) has just left him and is applying for a divorce. Unable to deal with this emotional turmoil, Allan seeks solace in the movies he loves, imagining Humphrey Bogart (Jerry Lacy) has dropped by his apartment to offer Allan advice on dealing with the ladies ("Dames are simple. I never met one that didn't understand a slap in the mouth or a slug from a forty-five"). Helping Allan meet new women are his good friends Dick (Tony Roberts) and Linda Christie (Diane Keaton). Dick and Linda fix him up with a succession of dates, all of which end disastrously because of Allan's nervousness and insecurity. Finally, Allan realizes that he has been spending more time with Linda than anyone else and he is becoming attracted to her -- she's the only woman he truly feels comfortable around. Linda proves unexpectedly receptive to Allan's advances, since Dick's workaholic ways leave Linda neglected and ignored. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
Adapted from his own stage play, Play It Again, Sam is arguably Woody Allen's most consistently funny early film, even as it blended his broader comedy with more serious relationship insecurities, precluding his greatest triumph, 1977's Annie Hall. Before Play It Again, Allen's films had been praised for their laughs and their nonconformist styles: the faux-documentary of Take the Money and Run (1969), the schizophrenic political satire of Bananas (1971), and the skit-comedy of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex (1972). Director Herbert Ross was criticized by some viewers for turning Allen's material into more conventional romantic comedy. Play It Again, Sam was also Allen's first film with frequent future collaborators Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts. ~ Brendon Hanley, All Movie Guide
Frank Capra, Jr. - Associate Producer, Anna Hill Johnstone - Costume Designer, William C. Gerrity - First Assistant Director, Herbert Ross - Director, Marion Rothman - Editor, Charles H. Joffe - Executive Producer, Oscar Peterson Trio - Composer (Music Score), Billy Goldenberg - Composer (Music Score), Stanley R. Dufford - Makeup, Ed Wittstein - Production Designer, Owen Roizman - Cinematographer, Arthur P. Jacobs - Producer, Doug von Koss - Set Designer, David Dockendorf - Sound/Sound Designer, Richard Pietschmann - Sound/Sound Designer, Woody Allen - Screenwriter, Herman Hupfeld - Featured Music, Max Steiner - Featured Music, Woody Allen - Play Author
This article is about the 1972 Woody Allen film. For other uses of the phrase, see Play it again, Sam.
Play It Again, Sam is a play and 1972film written by and starring Woody Allen, originally entitled Aspirins for Three. The film was directed by Herbert Ross.
The original play and the movie follow the same lines: Allan Felix (played by Allen) has just been through a messy divorce. His two friends, Linda (Diane Keaton) and Dick (Tony Roberts), attempt to convince him to go out with women again. He agrees, and throughout the film, he is seen receiving dating advice from the ghost of Humphrey Bogart (played by Jerry Lacy), who is visible and audible only to Allan.
As the film goes on we see that, when it comes to women, Allan puts on a false mask, a facade. He attempts to become sexy and sophisticated, only to end up ruining his chances by being too nervous. Eventually he develops feelings for Linda, around whom he feels relatively at ease and does not so much feel the need to don the mask.
However, as she is married to Dick, their relationship is ultimately doomed, just as it was for Rick (Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) in the 1942 film, Casablanca. The ending is a parody of Casablanca's famous ending. The fog, the trenchcoats worn and the dialogue are all reminiscent of the film, as Allan nobly explains to Linda why she has to go with her husband, rather than staying behind with Allan.
Woody Allen and Diane Keaton first met playing their roles on Broadway. By the time the play opened, they were lovers. When it closed, in 1970, they stopped living together.
Allen was fully aware that Bogart never actually said "Play It Again, Sam" in Casablanca. The title was chosen due to its clichéd familiarity. This is in keeping with the Bogart characterization, which itself is a cliché.
The Bogart character's comment, "You're as nervous as Lizabeth Scott was just before I blew her brains out!" is a reversal of the way it actually happened in Dead Reckoning.
This movie was spoofed on a third-season episode of SCTV, in a sketch entitled "Play it Again, Bob"; in it, Woody Allen (Rick Moranis) is getting advice from the ghost of Bing Crosby (Joe Flaherty) to clinch a business deal with Bob Hope (Dave Thomas).
The Bertie Higgins song "Key Largo" is about the movie of the same name and about Bogart movies in general; one line puts emphasis on the phrase "play it again."
A character by the name of Woody Allen appears in an episode of Quantum Leap named "Play It Again, Seymour." In the episode, Sam leaps into a detective investigating the murder of his partner, and eventually ends in a scene parodying the final scene of Casablanca.
Alternative rock band Manchester Orchestra references the film in the title of their song "Play it Again, Sam! You Don't Have Any Feathers"
Quotes
Dick: You're Insecure? What about the day I've had, Today I bought 100 acres (0.40 km2) in Florida and then found out that 98 of it was quicksand. My syndicate wanted to build a golf course. Now all we can do is build a 3 hole course with the biggest sand trap in the world.
Allan Felix is trying to make conversation with a morose-looking woman at an art museum:
Woman (speaking in monotone): It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos.
