Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (1972): Woody Allen’s Funny Comedy, Starring Allen, John Carradine, Lou Jacobi, Louise Lasser

Grade: B

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
Theatrical release poster

For a whole decade, from the late 1960s to “Annie Hall,” Allen specialized in making funny, broad, often messy comedies that lacked the structure, coherence, and discipline of his later work.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know,” in 1972, was essentially an aggregate of vignettes, sketches, and gags, loosely based on the book by Dr. David Rueben.

As written and directed by Woody Allen, the comedy contains some very funny moments, closer to his Jewish origins–the Catskill kind of broad and gross (sometimes dirty) humor.

The absurdist, often hilarious vignettes probe sexuality in all its facets! Aphrodisiacs prove effective for a court jester, played by Allen, who finds the key to the Queen’s (Lynn Redgrave, then very hot after gaining Oscar nomination for “Georgy Girl”) heart but learns that the key to her chastity belt might be more useful.

Unnatural acts get wild when a good doctor (Gene Wilder) falls for a fickle sheep. Jack Barry gives fetishism 20 questions on a wacky TV show called “What’s My Perversion?” Sex-research goes under the microscope when a mad scientist (John Carradine) unleashes a monstrous, marauding breast.

The absurdity comes to a climax, in more senses than one, with a hilarious image of Tony Randall, Burt Reynolds and Allen as sperm having second thoughts about ejaculation!

By standards of mainstream Hollywood comedies, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know” was audacious, depicting, among other deviant phenomena bestiality, exposure, perversion, and S&M. The final scene, which takes place inside a man’s body during a hot date, is truly funny.

The movie benefits immensely from the fact that Allen himself appears in many of the sketches. Critics at the time marveled at how Allen succeeded in pushing the envelope of the comedy genre, by incorporating his madcap, eccentric sensibility and his wicked irreverence. Cue magazine wrote, for example: “Allen reveals himself as a filmmaker of wit, sophistication, and comic insight.”

Narrative Structure

The film’s credits are played over a backdrop of mass of white rabbits to the tune of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Misbehave.”

The film consists of seven vignettes, as follows:

Do Aphrodisiacs Work?

A court jester gives a love potion to the Queen but is foiled by her chastity belt. There are references to Shakespeare’s Hamlet throughout.

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 filmmaking and Casanova 70, Antonioni and Fellini , 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 TV game show What’s My Line? called What’s My Perversion? filmed in B&W kinescope-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 in a sexual clinch with NYU graduate. 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
John Carradine as Dr. Bernardo
Lou Jacobi as Sam Musgrave
Louise Lasser as Gina
Anthony Quayle as The King
Tony Randall as The Operator
Lynn Redgrave as The Queen
Burt Reynolds as Sperm Switchboard Chief
Gene Wilder as Dr. Ross
Jack Barry as Himself
Elaine Giftos as Mrs. Ross
Toni Holt as Herself
Robert Q. Lewis as Himself
Heather MacRae as Helen Lacey
Pamela Mason as Herself
Sidney Miller as George
Regis Philbin as Himself
Titos Vandis as Stavros Milos
Stanley Adams as Stomach Operator
Oscar Beregi as Brain Control
Alan Caillou The Fool’s Father
Don Chuy as Football Player
Dort Clark as Sheriff
Erin Fleming as The Girl
Geoffrey Holder as Sorcerer
Baruch Lumet as The Rabbi
Tom Mack as Football Player
Jay Robinson as The Priest
Ref Sanchez as Igor
Robert Walden as Sperm
Norman Alden as Switchboard

Credits:

Directed by Woody Allen
Screenplay by Woody Allen, based on Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) by David Reuben
Produced by Charles H. Joffe
Cinematography David M. Walsh
Edited by Eric Albertson
Music by Mundell LoweProduction companies: Jack Rollins–Charles H. Joffe Productions
Brodsky/Gould ProductionsDistributed by United ArtistsRelease date: August 6, 1972Running time: 88 minutes
Budget $2 million
Box office $18 million

Woody Allen’s Beginnings

Born in 1935 as Allen Stewart Konigsberg, in Brooklyn, to working class parents. He began his career as a comedian, humorist, and playwright. Allen started writing comedy material for TV stars while still an adolescent. He also wrote jokes for newspaper columnists and contributed sketches for stage revues.

The versatile performer also honed his skills as a jazz clarinetist, a regular Monday night gig at Michael’s Pub in New York that has continued for decades.

He broke into films in 1965, as both screenwriter and performer in “What’s New, Pussycat?” The film features Louise Lasser, his second wife, who often appeared in his early movies. The following year he flaunted an absurd low-keyed humor by clever English dubbing of the soundtrack of a cheap Japanese film thriller, titled “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?” For Broadway, he wrote two hits, “Don’t Drink the Water” and Play it Again, Sam,” both of which were later made into films.

In 1969, Allen embarked on a filmmaking career, when he directed, co-scripted, and starred in Take the Money and Run, a hilarious parody of crime films. In the 1970s, Allen directed, wrote, and acted in a string of highly successful comedies. Typically disjointed in continuity, these films contained many moments of comic brilliance, highlighted by self-effacing humor, inside jokes, and endless spoofs of filmmakers (Antonioni, Bergman, Eisenstein), movie conventions, and philosophers.

At his prime, from his Oscar-winning film “Annie Hall” in 1977 to “Hannah and Her Sisters,” which was nominated for Best Picture and won Original Screenplay Oscar in 1986, Woody Allen was not only the most famous Jewish director but the most famous and acclaimed American filmmaker, with a strong cycle of serio-comedies.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (1972): Woody Allen’s Funny Comedy, Starring Allen, John Carradine, Lou Jacobi, Louise Lasser

PROFESSOR / CRITIC / AUTHOR