The film was an early success for Woody Allen, grossing over $18 million in North America alone against a $2 million budget, making it the
10th highest-grossing film of 1972.
Film structure
The credits at the start and close of the film are played over a backdrop of a large mass of white rabbits, to the tune of "
Let's Misbehave" by
Cole Porter.
What Is Sodomy? Dr. Ross falls in love with the partner of an Armenian patient, a sheep.
Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm? Allen's homage to Italian film-making in general and Casanova 70,
Michelangelo Antonioni, and
Federico Fellini in particular, about Gina, a woman who can only reach orgasm in public.
Are Transvestites Homosexuals? Sam Musgrave, a middle-aged married man, experiments with women's clothes.
What Are Sex Perverts? A parody of the television
game showWhat's My Line? called What's My Perversion?, filmed in
B&Wkinescope-style and hosted by
Jack Barry. The four panelists who attempt to guess the contestant's perversion are
Regis Philbin,
Robert Q. Lewis,
Pamela Mason, and Toni Holt. After they fail to guess that the contestant's perversion is "Likes to expose himself on subways," a second segment of the show is presented, in which a selected viewer (in this case a rabbi) gets to act out his
bondage and
humiliation fantasy while his wife
eats pork.
Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate? Victor, a sex researcher, and Helen Lacey, a journalist, visit a Dr. Bernardo, a researcher who formerly worked with
Masters and Johnson but now has his own laboratory complete with a lab assistant named
Igor. After they see a series of bizarre sexual experiments underway at the lab and realize that Bernardo is
insane, they escape before Helen becomes the subject of another of his experiments. The segment culminates with a scene in which the countryside is terrorized by a giant runaway breast created by the researcher. The first part of this segment is a parody of
Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster (1955), and especially, The Unearthly (1957), which also stars John Carradine. The second part parodies many of the "Giant" monster movies of the 1950s.
What Happens During Ejaculation? The
NASA-like mission control center in a man's brain is seen, as he gets involved in a sexual clinch with an
NYU graduate (knowledge that she is a graduate of NYU assures coital success). As he achieves orgasm, the soldier-like, white-uniformed sperm are dispatched
paratrooper-style into the great unknown.
Cast
Woody Allen as Victor / Fabrizio / The Fool / Sperm
An August 1972 review by Time said that many of the film's ideas "sound good on paper" but that the "skits wind down rather than take off from the ideas"; the film includes "some broad, funny send-ups of other movies (Fantastic Voyage, La notte), and its fair share of memorably wacky lines" but that "overall it is just Woody marking time and being merely a little funnier".[4]
The Time Out Film Guide noted that some of the film's sketches are "dross, but the parodies of
Antonioni (all angst and alienation of a wife who can achieve orgasm only in public places) and of TV panel games ('What's My Perversion?') are brilliantly accurate and very funny. Best of all is the sci-fi parody entitled What Happens During Ejaculation?"[5]
In 2004,
Christopher Null, founder of filmcritic.com, called it a "minor classic and Woody Allen's most absurd film ever".[6]
Censorship
The film was banned in
Ireland on March 20, 1973.[7] A cut version was passed in 1979 and released theatrically in 1980, removing both a bestiality reference ("the greatest lay I ever had", referring to a sheep) and a man having sex with a loaf of rye bread. The ban on the uncut version was eventually lifted.[8][9]