The Purple Rose of Cairo

The Purple Rose of Cairo
March 1, 1985
Orion
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Historical, Fantasy
VHS
B

Although this is not at all a sequel to Zelig, and Broadway Danny Rose (which I've never cared for) was released in the interval, this is in some ways Woody Allen's follow-up to the quirky 1983 movie.  It's set later in the '30s (Top Hat, which we see a clip from, was released in '35), and the grimness of the Depression real world contrasts with the shiny, sleek onscreen world.  The main character, Cecelia (Mia Farrow), who loses her job at a diner and has a jerk of a husband (well played, perhaps too well, by Danny Aiello), escapes to that film world as often as she can.  And then one day one of the characters on the screen wants to explore her world, because he's fallen in love with her.  What will this mean in her life, and in the two-dimensional black & white lives he leaves behind?

Allen does a good job working out the ramifications, including when the real (but essentially fake) actor who plays the straying character shows up in Cecelia's town to get his alter ego back where he belongs.  (Jeff Daniels does a fine job of distinguishing naive but heroic Tom from charming but two-faced Gil.)  Unlike some other good '80s movies (notably Tootsie), there aren't any loose ends.  I admit to hating the ending when I was 17, especially since I adored the movie-within-a-movie (a note perfect parody/tribute to '30s society comedies).  I wanted Cecelia to stay with Tom Baxter, and live onscreen.  My favorite scene was and is when Cecelia enters Tom's world and innocently creates as much chaos as he's created in her world.  There's a night-life montage that I now suspect that Down with Love (2003), which is set in 1962, is paying homage to as much as it is to similar montages in non-parodies.  (There's a reference there to Woody Allen as a stand-up comic.)

But Allen's point, admittedly bleak, is that no matter how out of touch Cecelia is with reality, she can't fully live in the world of fantasy.  If this meant Cecelia doing something constructive with her life, then I'd support that point.  But let's face it, Woody doesn't give her any good options.  Even if she were to stay onscreen, the film is about to be burned and she would, along with Tom and his friends, "die."  (Unless there's resurrection later, on television and eventually VHS, DVD, and Blue-Ray?)  Gil the actor would never take her to Hollywood, and even if he did, she wouldn't fit in there.  So she's left with her unemployed husband, who drinks, cheats, and beats her.  At best, she might be able to stay with her sister (Stephanie Farrow again typecast but very good), but her sister has kids and probably not much more money than Cecelia.

The thing is, Allen could've had Cecelia boarding a bus to somewhere else, starting a new life on her own.  But that's not who she is, and she wouldn't necessarily find happiness that way either.  Her only happiness in the end is watching Fred & Ginger light up the screen.  That I wish that she could step into that movie and never look back shows that at heart I'm just as much of a sentimental movie fan as Cecelia.

As always, Woody reuses actors and actresses.  Loretta Tupper, who plays the Music Store Owner, is recognizable at 78 as one of the old ladies giving Alvy advice in Annie Hall.  Ken Chapin was an interviewer in Zelig and a reporter here.  Deborah Rush, Lita Fox in Zelig, gives a solid Jean-Harlowish performance as brassy but soft-hearted blonde Rita.  Sydney Blake, who's the Variety Reporter, would be Miss Gordon in Radio Days.  Of the Penny Pitchers, Peter Castellotti and Paul Herman would in Radio Days be respectively Mr. Davis and a burglar, while Rick Petrucelli was one of the Italians bugging Alvy in Annie Hall.  Of the onscreen movie audience, Crystal Field would be half of the Abercrombie couple in Radio Days and George Hamlin was Experimental Drugs Doctor in Zelig.  Helen Miller and Leo Postrel would be Mickey's parents in Hannah and Her Sisters.  And of course Dianne Wiest, playing Emma the hooker here, would be Hannah's sister Holly.

Milo O'Shea, who has had many roles, including as Dr. Jameson in Digby, is Father Donnelly here.

"I just met a wonderful new man.  He's fictional, but you can't have everything."