Sure, the humor veers into slapstick, but the characters are so rich and multi-layered and the script is so dense and fast moving that one forgives some of the broadness. The references to film noir and classic detective yarns embellish the pleasing story. The interplay between Allen and Keaton allows the history of their fictional marriage to be evident, with all its warmth, frustrations, doubts, and reliability. The distractions that Huston's and Alda's characters provide to each heightens the fun. The comic apsects of the movie don't stop it from having some genuine surprises. Although not the finest film in the world or even Allen's best, I have watched this many, many times and plan to enjoy it for a long while more.
Best, for me, are notable Allen films from the 70's: Annie Hall(1977), Love and Death (1975), Sleeper (1973), and Manhattan (1979).
Manhattan Murder Mystery is a notch or two below those terrific works-but it's still worth watching.
Originally, Mia Farrow was to star opposite Allen, but...well, you know the story. The two broke up (very publicly) and Allen-who likes to work with familiar faces-turned to his prior leading lady, Diane Keaton.
Manhattan Murder Mystery also reunites Allen with writer Marshall Brickman (the two share screenwriting credit here as they did on Annie Hall and Manhattan). Like those films, this one contains some very funny one-liners. I also liked the whole set up (the murder mystery of the title). And there's terrific chemistry between Allen and Keaton, who play sort of grown up versions of their roles in Annie Hall.
I really enjoyed the back-and-forth between Allen and Keaton. Allen plays Larry Lipton and Keaton plays his wife Carol. He's a book editor at Harper's and she's looking to open a little restaurant ("basically French, although international cuisine would be fine"). They live in Manhattan and have a grown son in college. Their marriage is comfortable, but Carol feels Larry's become rather stodgy and fears turning into "a dull, aging couple" like the older couple in the apartment down the hall.
Early on they spend an evening visiting this couple and are then surprised when a day or so later the wife turns up dead. It's deemed a "classic coronary", but Carol becomes suspicious of the husband (played by Jerry Adler), who seems "a little too perky." On a subsequent visit to offer condolences she stumbles upon an urn in his kitchen and recalls an earlier conversation where the widower's wife had talked about twin cemetery plots. So why then does it appear he had his wife cremated?
Right from the beginning Larry doesn't buy into her suspicions. But an old friend Ted (Alan Alda)-a recent divorcé who has a thing for Carol-goads her into thinking that maybe their neighbor killed his wife. A few scenes later Carol actually breaks into this guy's apartment looking for clues a la Hitchcock's Rear Window. Larry thinks she's nuts, but she feels he's being a fuddy-dud-that it was a cinch to get the key from the super-and she has caught the widower in yet another lie. He's not going snorkeling with his brother in Florida-as he previously told them-but instead has tickets for two to Paris.
The mystery gets even more complicated and I don't want to give much away because there's some fun surprises. Part of that fun involves Anjelica Huston, who plays Marcia Fox, a "dangerously sexual" novelist who has a thing for Woody Allen's character.
To deflect her advances, Woody sets her up with Alan Alda because deep down he really loves his wife and he doesn't want to mess that up, although the movie plays with the notion that the two are growing bored with each other-that they might both be attracted to other people.
It's the murder mystery that adds some juice to their marriage. At least that's the way Carol sees it: "Look, Larry," she says, "we've got plenty of time to be conservative. You know what I'm saying...it's like this tantalizing plum has just, like dropped into our laps. I mean, life is just such a dull routine and here we are, right? I mean, we're on the threshold of a genuine mystery."
As Manhattan Murder Mystery winds down, the one-liners fly fast and furious. But I also appreciated how the movie very subtly recalls Annie Hall with a reference to Wagner.
The two of them have this arrangement: she'll sit through an ice hockey game if he'll watch an entire Wagner opera. She fulfills her part of the bargain, but-as a Jew-he has a problem upholding his side ("I can't listen to that much Wagner, you know; I start to get the urge to conquer Poland").
In Annie Hall Allen was convinced that the record store salesman-a big, tall, blonde guy with a crew-cut-was trying to tell him something when he announced the store had a sale on Wagner ("So I know what he's really tryin' to tell me very significantly Wagner").
In Manhattan Murder Mystery he's still that same insecure guy-a little older, but still defensive and neurotic. There's something comforting about that.
