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Such speculation may seem lugubrious to those who know the monster only through Boris Karloff 's film impersonations or through such burlesques as the TV sitcom The Munsters and Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. As this collection of twelve essays suggests, though, Mary Shelley's novel is a surprisingly open-ended source of disturbing, even terrifying implications. Its awkwardness and philo sophical uncertainties mark Frankenstein as the first and most powerful modern myth, not a pure Jungian river flowing through the collective unconscious but a polluted industrial spillway...
...dialogue and burlesque situations which could be effectively mounted on the stage. Even comedies of the 30's (including those made by the Marx Brothers which were unique in their own way) continued to exploit non-verbal, absurd gags. More contemporaneous comedians such as Jerry Lewis, Peter Sellers and Mel Brooks also rely heavily on verbal puns and physical mise-en-scene, yet still with no attempt made to convey it in cinematic terms. In contrast, Woody Allen has gradually and continously cultivated a singular approach to the comedy genre, stimulating laughter by auditory-visual devices which contribute a unique...
HISTORICALLY this film is significant not merely in the context of Allen's own career, but also as one which marks a substantial advance in American film comedy (which, for a long time, has been epitomized by trivial burlesques such as those by Mel Brooks). In an even broader sense, Manhattan stands as a cinematic achievement which successfully integrates authentic environment with narratives structure. As a film about New York, it represents an artistic contribution to a distinguished group of films, from von Sternberg's 1928 The Docks of New York, to Scorsese's 1977 New York, New York...
Despite the deadness of Arkin's performance, The In-Laws remains a funny movie throughout. This is not intellectual humor-it smacks more of Mel Brooks than Woody Allen, but has little of the former's vulgarity or the latter's self-indulgence. The best jokes center on Falk's character, and the audience remains uncertain about his qualifications-whether he's really a CIA agent or just a loon who thinks he's one-until the movie...
Bergman, a satirical detective novelist (Hollywood and LeVine) and sometime Mel Brooks collaborator (Blazing Saddles), has a splendid knack for the non sequitur. He thinks nothing of interrupting a tense action sequence for throwaway lines about freeze-dried coffee or The Price Is Right. His inventive writing could not be in the hands of a better cast. Sounding a bit like the bastard son of Bugs Bunny and Humphrey Bogart, Falk delivers his wildest speeches with a cool sincerity that bespeaks true comic madness. Arkin is the wailing violin that accompanies Falk's gravel-toned bass. Together these actors...