Sleeper Movie Review

“I can't believe you haven't had sex in 200 years.” “204 if you count my marriage.” Woody Allen has seen the future, and in it, tobacco, fat, and hot fudge are the healthiest things for you, and watching Howard Cosell is considered cruel and unusual punishment. Allen's most ambitious film to date is as much an homage to silent comedy as it is science fiction. Allen portrays Greenwich Village health food store owner Miles Monroe, who goes to the hospital with a peptic ulcer and is cryogenically frozen. He wakes up “in a bird's-eye wrapper” in the year 2173, where he immediately finds himself on the ten most wanted list as an alien. Diane Keaton costars as ditzy would-be poetess Luna, whom he is forced to take hostage. Great gags involve jet-pack suits, giant vegetables, stereotypically gay and Jewish tailor robots, and a malfunctioning Orgasmatron. Diane gets to do her Marlon Brando imitation. The rebel fight song (“Rebels are we/Born to be free…”) was first heard in Allen's Bananas. The Dixieland soundtrack features Woody wailing on clarinet.

1973 (PG) 88m/C Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Howard Cosell, Mary Gregory, Don Keefer; D: Woody Allen; W: Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen; C: David M. Walsh; M: Woody Allen. Hugos ‘74: Dramatic Presentation. VHS, Beta, LV MGM, FOX, FUS