Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

Dir: Woody Allen

Plot: A restless Diane Keaton drags reluctant husband Woody Allen into a mystery after the death of an elderly neighbour sets off her alarm bells.


For me, this is Allen's most underrated film - a flooring exercise in modern screwball which reunites him with the irresistibly sparkling Diane Keaton. Taking its central inspiration from The Thin Man  (husband in search of a quiet life pestered into a murder investigation by over-inquisitive wife), the plot sees Keaton become convinced that their friendly neighbour has bumped off his missus and framed it as a heart attack. An even wetter than usual Allen plays her husband, Larry, who refuses to become involved, but is chagrined to find her then turning to his recently-divorced pal for help. At first he is spurred on by fear of potential infidelity, but then Larry too becomes certain that the cuddly gent across the hall is hiding something and soon the couple are in way over their heads.


I rarely laugh out loud at films if I'm on my own, but I was unable to stop myself from start to finish. Although there are plenty of Allen quotables here, most of the laughs come from the inimitable chemistry between the two leads (Farrow is a great actress but no match in the double-act stakes) . The spontaneous-sounding overlapping dialogue works perfectly as they squabble their way through the plot, which is actually remarkably intriguing, making this one of Allen's most mainstream and accessible films. Part of the reason this movie gets overlooked is, I think, the fast to the point of ceaseless flow of chatter between the leads. Even after many, many rewatches, I am constantly picking up on throwaway lines ("Taste this tuna casserole and tell me if I put in too much hot fudge...") that a lesser writer would be proud to push forward as a big gag.

And when you throw the supporting cast into the mix in the group scenes, there are often three or four streams of chatter which are impossible to pick apart in one or even two viewings. Alan Alda, Joy Behar and Angelica Huston are all on good form in these exhilirating multi-layered conversation sequences, and Huston in particular seems to be having a ball as an author who Larry terms 'dangerously sexual', to his wife's predictable displeasure. Alda, as the family friend with vague designs on Carol, does his best despite being lumbered with one of those one-note voices that starts to grate over time.

Some of the set pieces are brilliantly contrived - especially the scene where the couple and their friends attempt to trick their suspect into a telephone confession using spliced-together phrases recorded from his lover. The mounting chaos as they try to execute this clever-but-doomed-to-failure scheme is the perfect demonstration of Allen's knack for physical comedy - I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone whose can raise so much laughter from moving their hands - as well as a nice nod to the improbable mystery-solving schemes of on-screen detectives.

For a film which is essentially a stream of mystery cliches commenting on themselves, I found myself becoming surprisingly involved in the growing suspense. I think a lot of it had to do with seeing Allen and Keaton as a happy(-ish) married couple, emotional catharsis for someone who loves Annie Hall as much as I do. This is of course reinforced by the real-life context that the two had not worked together since Manhattan (her brief singing appearance in Radio Days aside) and the role was in fact originally written for Mia Farrow before Allen's messy love life put the kibosh on her involvement. Something about their interaction is so easy that it is impossible not to immediately buy their relationship, which largely consists of the two of them running verbal circles around each other and not really hearing what the other one says, in the ditziest tradition of Bringing Up Baby or My Man Godfrey. As in those classics, the male lead plays the straight man - of course, Larry is a fussbudget and a worrier like any respectable Woody role, but he is still considerably more grounded than his wife. In fact, next to Keaton's flustered antics he looks practically stoic, and his anxiety is fairly understandable given the circumstances. "I like something quiet," he protests wistfully, "Like a fishing trip, or Father's Day, you know; or the time we saw Bing Crosby walking on 5th avenue."

The denouement of the film had me sitting bolt upright, helped by the fact that it is such a beautifully filmed sequence -  behind the screen of a retro moviehouse filled with mirrors, The Lady From Shanghai playing behind. The ending in particular almost had me choked up with the effortless warmth that an on-target Woody can inject so smoothly, and not a million miles away in this case from the ending of Hannah and Her Sisters - possibly my favourite movie ending of all-time.

All in all, a beautifully put-together and engaging mystery which is kicked into hyperdrive by the interplay of its leads.

10/10