Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)

Woody Allen was still finding his feet as a writer-director, being halfway between the slapstick of his previous two films Bananas  (1971) and Take The Money and Run (1969) and his breakthrough film, Annie Hall (1977). This gives little indication of the vastly better things to come.

Taking little more than the title of the Zeitgeist best-seller by Dr. David Reuben, Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask contains seven episodes based on topics covered in the book.  In Allen’s hands they largely involve him indulging his characteristically and at times wincingly juvenile reaction to sex.  For me the best segments are those in which Allen does not appear: "What Is Sodomy?" with Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep named Daisy; and "Are Transvestites Homosexuals?" in which Lou Jacobi gets caught dressing up in his hostess's clothes at a dinner party. "What Happens During Ejaculation?" is a quite funny depiction of male arousal from the point of view of the male libido with Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds co-ordinating the sexual functioning of the male psyche and Allen playing an anxious sperm cell . 

Of course what is funny and what is not will depend on the individual but even at its best, Allen’s finest hour this is not.

 

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