It is easy to forget that Woody once was married to Louise Lasser, and accordingly she was featured in his early films. In Bananas, she is a young collegiate dabbling in lefty politics and Zen Buddhism and women's lib. Woody, as Fielding Mellish, just wants to get her in the mood: his response to Louise expounding upon her study of philosophy: "Do you like Chinese?"Shamelessly knockabout when ladies are mugged on the subway:
Mellish is shamefully knockabout transacting porno:
Bananas is a ripe example of Woody putting his nightclub act into movie form - scenes are tied together with punchlines and zingers. Mellish has a recurring dream, where he is bound to a cross and carried on the shoulders of cowled figures down a NYC sidestreet - but his fantasy of religious sacrifice is thwarted when a rival crucifixion comes along and tries to take his own death pageant's parking space. It is as if a scene from a Woody Allen short story finding life in the script.
Woody's directing style is vintage late 60s/early 70s, hip and slapdash, delightfully old-fashioned though the political schtick is timeless - especially in the wise use of Howard Cosell, color commentating the Mellish honeymoon:
Mellish is put on trial for his treasonous activities and goes pro se:
Louise Lasser's Nancy is whiny, humorless, shallow and is only interested in Fielding when she mistakes him for a courageous revolutionary leader - she is one of Woody's least cerebral female relationships and the most marginal of his infamous companions; and it only emboldens Fielding Mellish as a classic total hysterical loser.
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