MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY
With Allen, Diane Keaton, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Adler, Joy Behar, Ron Rifkin, and Lynn Cohen.
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As far as most critics are concerned, the turning point wasn’t Interiors but Manhattan (1979), the film that immediately followed it. Here at last was a movie that flattered and rewarded (while gently tweaking) the self-image of upscale urbanites so effectively that critics all but anointed Allen our official poet laureate out of sheer gratitude. Writing about the movie from Cannes in 1979, English critic Penelope Houston caught the zeitgeist perfectly: “A funny, nervous, garrulous, New Yorkerish picture, everything that one would expect of its maker and certainly a little more, it floats in on an advance wave of American ecstasy (‘The only truly great American film of the 70s’ –Andrew Sarris). You can sense the audience in the Palais purring with pleasure as Gordon Willis’s splendid black and white camerawork probes the skyline, and the Gershwin tunes suggest that if we wait long enough Fred and Ginger might even round a street corner. . . . The film’s accuracy in catching a New York setting of neurosis and cultural gush and underlying despair, where even the analysts (or perhaps especially the analysts) have lost their wits, seems undoubted; and bound to appeal especially to the New York critics, as comforting assurance that the world they inhabit really exists.”
If this wasn’t art, the zeitgeist seemed to be saying, it would do just fine until the real thing came along. So it wasn’t too surprising that this witty comic and devoted copycat came to occupy more or less the same cultural niche as his primary models, Bergman and Fellini. (Bergman’s retirement from filmmaking and the failure of many Fellini films, including one called Ginger & Fred, to get much or any U.S. distribution only helped this process along.) While a genuine inventor of forms like Samuel Fuller (who doesn’t conform to the mousy image of the cloistered artist this country finds so heartening) was being forced into exile to find work, Allen was being celebrated as our official idea man, our metaphysical sage–the perfect artist for an audience as nervous as he is about the very notion of art.
A day or so later, after a trip to a flea market and going to see Double Indemnity, Larry and Carol come home to the news that Lillian has dropped dead from what a doctor describes as a “classic coronary.” But before long Carol becomes suspicious about the cause of the death and the “perky” behavior of the husband; after Larry scoffs repeatedly at her doubts, she finds a more receptive ear when she phones Ted (Alan Alda), a playwright friend. Eventually this develops into some amateur sleuthing on her part a la Rear Window–filching an extra key to the House flat from the super, sneaking inside to look for incriminating evidence when Paul is out, calling Ted from there to report on her progress, and then hiding under a bed when Paul makes an unexpected return. Larry, who works as an editor at HarperCollins, is meanwhile developing a mild flirtation with Marcia Fox (Anjelica Huston), one of his authors, whose latest novel is entitled Comfort Zones.
Not everything works or is accounted for. Larry and Carol have a son enrolled in Brown (Zach Braff) whom we see once or twice, but he’s neither integrated into the plot nor represented in a way that makes us believe the lead couple are parents. Some of the thriller moves are handled awkwardly, and the characterizations of Ted and Marcia are perfunctory at best. A few of the plot maneuvers–notably a scene involving four cassette recorders–are simply pretexts for gags. But Allen’s willingness to let Keaton steal the movie from him gives me some hope that one of the most overpraised artists of our time–our perennial badge of middle-class insularity–may finally be creeping out of his cocoon.
