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."

Zelig

Zelig
July 15, 1983
Orion
Comedy, Historical, Romance
VHS
B+

As with Annie Hall, I saw this at the time.  But I was 15 by then and visiting New York for the first and only time.  My aunt, cousin, and I knew only (I think from The Village Voice) that a new Woody Allen movie was premiering that night, but we stood on line and had such a good time that we stayed for the second showing.  (I'm surprised we weren't kicked out, but I think theaters weren't as strict back then.)  Even now, I remember lines that were hilarious then and still funny now, like "She's elderly and uses her wrist a lot" and "It was nothing like the movie."

This mockumentary (released a few months before This Is Spinal Tap) is about the influence of the media on society and vice versa.  Not only do we get this documentary on the life of fictional but almost believable Leonard Zelig, "the human chameleon," but the documentary contains faked newsreel footage and scenes from the imaginary 1935 biopic, as well as radio broadcasts, newspaper editorials, toys and games, and wonderful songs.  (The best of the lot is probably "Chameleon Days," sung by the one and only Mae Questel, the voice of Betty Boop, who lived another 15 years, dying at almost 90.)   There are also modern-day interviews with people who knew or at least met Zelig, my favorite being Ellen Garrison as the older Dr. Eudora Fletcher.  The young Dr. Fletcher, who cures him and loves him, is played by Woody's then girlfriend, Mia Farrow.  She's quite good here and they're sweet together.  You just have to block out what happened to them later in life, although that's hard when Leonard gets caught up in many scandals, including marital ones.

When I said Annie Hall was probably my favorite Woody Allen movie, I wasn't completely wrong, although I'm giving this a B+ as well.  This is technically a better movie-- and all the more impressive for being pre-Forest-Gump among others.  But by its very nature, this film keeps us at a distance.  Even when the illusion is almost shattered, as in the interview of Dr. Fletcher's mother where the old lady says all the wrong things but the interview is released anyway, we're never not aware this is a movie, while we're practically in bed with Alvy and Annie.  In fact, it takes awhile to even hear Zelig's voice here, while Alvy talks to us right away.  Instead, our main contact is the earnest British narrator, who pronounces "Anti-Semite" with a long E.  (Even in '83, I wasn't sure if this was deliberate.)  All these layers of film (in several senses) make for a very interesting movie, but the movies I love don't hold me at arm's length.

The archive footage has many, many recognizable faces, among them, Adolphe Menjou more than forty years after he appeared in Turnabout, and Dolores del Rio half a century after starring in Flying Down to Rio.

Although this doesn't have nearly as many performers who went on to greater things as Jeff Goldblum et al in Annie Hall, there are some folks that Woody Allen would use again later in the '80s.  Wendell Craig, who's the Universal Newsreel Announcer, would go on to be a radio voice in Woody's Radio Days, while Hearst Metronome Announcer Dwight Weist would be the Pearl Harbor Announcer in the later film.  Dimitri Vassilopoulos, who's Martinez here, would be Perfirio in Radio D, despite his Greek-sounding name.  Paula Trueman, who was a street stranger in Annie Hall, is Woman on Telephone here, and she was Stick-up Lady in Can't Stop the Music during that gap.  John Doumanian was a semi-regular in Woody's movies, appearing as Coke Fiend in Annie Hall, a Greek waiter here, and a Thanksgiving guest in Hannah and Her Sisters, among other appearances.  Ken Chapin is On-Camera Interviewer here and would be a reporter in The Purple Rose of Cairo.   Peter McRobbie, the Workers Rally Speaker, aptly plays The Communist in that movie.  George Hamlin is Experimental Drugs Doctor here and would be part of the movie audience there.

Deborah Rush has more prominent, although still minor roles, as Lita Fox here and Rita in Purple Rose.  John Rothman, who has the supporting role of Paul Deghuee, would be Mr. Hirsch's lawyer in Purple Rose.  And Mia's younger sister Stephanie not only plays her sister Meryl here, but they would have some other nice sisterly moments in Purple Rose.

Keeping cool with Coolidge