Flicks

With Jeremy Littlejohn

Of the several films that opened in the capital last week, no doubt Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask commands the most interest, if only an account of its bizarre title. Arguably the first cinematic realisation of a dictionary devoted to sexual practice in the Western world (I just don't know why it hasn't been done before), Everything.... * will be seen by thousands, many of who may be satisfied in spite of the abscence of any likelihood of the experience leaving them any the wiser.

As it happens the film bears no relations (not even the least seminal) to sex know-all Ruben's pedantic hunk of hype. Its just an affectionate look at sex in its myriad manifestation (amounting to a grand total of seven), all very vaudeville with vagina-high humour and an excess of America's favourite grom, Mr Woody Allen. Some of it is very funny, as when it moves into parody (among other things, Allen points his prick at Elizabethan romance, Italian sex movies, horror movies and 'Fantastic Voyage') some not so funny, as when Allen goes for the straightforward stand-up comic approach.

Of course one docs not expect every joke to score, even with a comic genius, and the film does not merit its reproof in Mr Allen's not infrequent bummers (e.g. the sodomy skit). The crux of the film's failure is in its inability to provide any continuity for the different episodes. When on things back to classier episodic comedies, such as Bedazzled, one recalls the constant protagonists who guide and cohere the otherwise irreconcilable elements. But when one thinks of Everything.... * there is only the absence for such a device to muse on. The piecemeal presentation of events has the effect of making the film look lake an American Variety Special, no better, no worse.

In spite of this criticism, I would venture that this is better stuff than the last film we saw of Allen's — Play it Again Sam. It is more congenial, to his sense of the zany and madcap, for the film to take vaudeville as its essence, and consequently Allen's not inconsiderable powers of feigned idiocy run riot quite attractively. If it is nor a very good film it doesn't matter... Allen enjoyed making it obviously, and most viewer won't begrudge him that — one is entitled to the madness of one's choice. And for that matter, the censor saw fit to scissor out a sheep bedecked in a suspender belt — an action more ludicrous than the article it found offensive.

'Where does it hurt?'— 'Only When I Laugh', besides confusing space and time is also Peter Sellar's latest film. Its quite the worst I can remember — a singularly unfunny imitation of 'Hospital', with nothing to commend it and nothing more to be said about it than 'sold out Sellers stinks' or something equally puerile, mindless, unflattering and apt.

Walkabout was shown at the Lido onn Sunday — very good to sec again, but a sad reminder of how few new films of any quality come our way in recent months. The Sunday night Lido programmes remains the best value to be had for the rather dismal time being.