Tag: José Ferrer

Anyone else remember this movie? It was not a runaway hit – in fact box office receipts were poor – but it dates from a time when films like this were still shown at the local theater. It sprang to mind yesterday, as it always does, on Felix Mendelssohn’s birthday.

Woody Allen has always had a good ear for music. In fact, from “Love and Death” (with its wall-to-wall Prokofiev) on, with few exceptions, he’s basically dipped into his own record collection to gussy up the soundtracks of his films. “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy,” unsurprisingly, draws on a lot of Mendelssohn.

Often on composer birthdays, if I have the time and the opportunity, I’ll “celebrate” by pulling some of his or her music from the shelf. Yesterday, since I was in the car for a bit, I had a chance to listen to Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata No. 2 (with Lynn Harrell and Bruno Canino) and the Piano Concerto 2 (with Rudolf Serkin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy). The slow movement of the latter is used to evocative effect in Woody’s film. I still think of Woody and Mia in period costume sweetly kissing by a brook whenever I hear it.

The soundtrack also sports needle-drops of the “Scottish” Symphony (for an enchanting wildlife montage), the Violin Concerto (a rampage with a bow and arrow), and, of course, the overture and incidental music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (the scherzo supporting Woody on a flying bicycle!), all brilliantly employed.

The film is set in Upstate New York at the turn of last century. The plot is a farcical one, with love and desire sowing chaos among three couples who meet for a summer getaway in the country. Clearly, Woody draws on his affection for foreign films (especially, but not exclusively, Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night”). Our omniscient viewpoint allows us to chuckle at the havoc and heartache. What fools these mortals be!

I remember critics were largely underwhelmed by it, appearing as it did post-“Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” which resulted in middling reviews. “Stardust Memories” already had everyone feeling a little disoriented. Where were the rapid-fire jokes and slapstick situations of the earlier films?

“A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” is no knee-slapper, but it is consistently entertaining, a little thought provoking (but not too much), and my, is it gorgeous to look at. (The cinematography is by Gordon Willis and the costumes by Santo Loquasto, who hailed from my hometown of Easton, PA.) It also provides the great José Ferrer for once with a role worthy of his talents at a time when he was doing a lot of guest shots on television and films like “Zoltan… Hound of Dracula.”

I was 16 when “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” was released in 1982, and I loved it. But I loved everything Woody back then, from repeated viewings of the earlier films (“Take the Money and Run,” “Bananas,” and “Sleeper”) on television to every new release. Up through the turn of the 21st century, he was surprisingly consistent, although I would argue that his last “masterpiece” was “Crimes and Misdemeanors” in 1989.

That’s not to say I don’t find at least some enjoyment in some of his later movies, but they often seem to retread the themes he already explored so satisfyingly in better films, and the Woody surrogate – a younger actor clearly imitating Allen – gets old pretty quickly. It requires an enormous suspension of disbelief to accept that 20 year-olds listen to Harry James anymore.

And then there’s the whole drama of his personal life, with its elements of sideshow freakery and tabloid sordidness, that’s colored everything. It’s dispiriting. There was a time when Woody Allen was one of our great American filmmakers. I don’t want to be yanked out of the experience of enjoying “Manhattan” by something that flips the “ick” switch in a way it might not have in 1979.

The heart wants what it wants. And mine wants to continue to be able to enjoy early and middle-period Woody Allen movies.

There were two films I remember watching whenever they turned up on HBO. One was “Excalibur,” and the other was “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy.” A true brawn-and-brains double feature! To know this about me is to gain a window into the kind of truly peculiar teenager I was.

Woody Allen and Felix Mendelssohn, enjoyments out of season. “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” streams free, with commercials, on Tubi.

https://tubitv.com/movies/306937/a-midsummer-night-s-sex-comedy