Like the proverbial question, "What came first? The chicken or the egg?," the same question could be said about parodies of film genres. Was it Mel Brooks or Woody Allen who started the trend? Both men began their careers as Jewish comedians in the 1950s and 1960s performing in clubs and television before moving into writing and directing their own films. Off the top of my head, I guessed it was Mel Brooks lampooning the western in BLAZING SADDLES (1974) who started it all. I would be wrong. Upon further review, Woody Allen eight years earlier took a Japanese spy film from 1965 and re-dubbed it hilariously in English renaming it WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY? (1966), spoofing the James Bond craze at the time.
Brooks's parodies are very clear cut. Besides the western, Brooks affectionately made fun of horror films in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1975), sending up Hitchcock films in HIGH ANXIETY (1977), and poking fun at the STAR WARS franchise in SPACEBALLS (1987). Allen had fun with the crime drama genre (and possibly the first mockumentary) in TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969). Besides film genres, Allen took a shot at history and literature. In BANANAS (1971), Allen had some fun with Third World revolutions. He got intellectually funny in LOVE AND DEATH (1975) poking fun at Russian literary greats like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. My introduction to Woody Allen was one of his best and funniest early films called SLEEPER (1973), spoofing the sci-fi genre and described as a dystopian sci-fi slapstick comedy.
As with BLAZING SADDLES, I heard about SLEEPER from word of mouth from my parents and the older brothers who lived in the cul-de-sac below me who both had seen SLEEPER at the movie theater. Both were conduits to comedy films I wanted to see but wasn't old enough yet. They told me the funny bits of the film until I could finally view the film for myself. I finally saw SLEEPER on television a few years later. It was worth the wait. Woody Allen's stand up jokes throughout SLEEPER mostly went over my head but Allen's physical antics and sight gags made me laugh out loud. SLEEPER also introduced audiences to Allen's future leading lady and comic co-partner for some of his best comedies. Diane Keaton.
SLEEPER was directed by Woody Allen with an original screenplay by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman. Miles Monroe (Woody Allen), part owner of the Happy Carrot health food store in Greenwich Village and part time clarinet player with the Ragtime Rascals had gone in for a routine ulcer check-up in 1973. There were complications and Miles wakes up two hundred years later in 2173 cryogenically frozen. A group of doctors led by Dr. Agon (John McLiam) and Dr. Tryon (Don Keefer) unearth Miles time capsule in the forest and whisk him away to a place called the Farm. With the help of Dr. Melik (Mary Gregory), Miles is illegally revived. The doctors warn Miles he's in danger as he's not registered in the government's database. The United States is ruled by an omnipresent dictator known as the Leader and his police state. Miles is considered an outlaw, an alien. The doctors urge Miles to go to the Western District, make contact with the anti-government Underground movement, and infiltrate the government's mysterious "Aries Project" since he's not registered with them. The Security Federation aka police show up at the compound. Miles tries to escape into the woods with a flight pack but he fails. He backtracks to the Farm and hides out in a delivery truck full of domestic robots. Miles disguises himself as one of the metallic servants.
The vehicle drops Miles off at the home of aspiring but talentless poet Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton). Luna's throwing a party for her artist friends and needs a domestic robot. Miles attempts to hang the guest's coats, serve drinks, and make instant pudding all with hilariously bad results. The guests pass a round silver object called the orb to each other. Miles grabs on to it and it makes him amorous. Miles overhears Luna's friend Herald Cohen (Brian Avery) mention the Aries Project. After the party, Luna takes Miles back to Domesticon for a more pleasing head. When Miles witnesses repair men rip off other robot's heads, Miles flees the factory, kidnapping Luna and driving away in her car. Miles ties Luna up in the woods and searches for food for them. Miles stumbles across an organic garden growing gigantic fruit and vegetables. He returns with a monstrous stalk of celery and humongous banana to share with Luna.
Searching for the rebels and information about the "Aries Project", Miles and Luna stumble across a gay couple's house. From their bathroom, Luna calls the authorities. When the police arrive, they try to arrest Luna. Miles puts on the owners hydrovac suit and inflates it. Luna climbs on top of Miles, releases the air valve in the suit, and they propel across a nearby lake to safety. Miles and Luna enter a cave and discover a 200 year old Volkswagen Bug. Miles turns the dusty key and the car starts. Miles and Luna begin to warm up to each other and begin to fall in love. They return to the Farm where Miles was thawed out. The police show up again. Miles hides in a spherical device now used for sex in the future called the Orgasmatron. He's apprehended by the police. Luna sneaks into the woods where she fends for herself before she's found by the leader of the Underground, the handsome Erno Windt (John Beck).
The authorities prepare to integrate Miles into its dystopic society by scrubbing his brain which includes making Miles think he's Miss America and later Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire. Now working with the Underground, Luna sneaks into the complex where Miles lives and grabs him, trying to snap the brainwashed Miles back to his old neurotic self. When Miles does shake off the brain wash, he notices Luna and Erno are now in a relationship. Luna convinces Miles to set aside his jealousy and complete the mission. Miles and Luna sneak into the "Aries Project" where they discover that the Leader was maimed by an explosion eight months earlier. Only the Leader's nose survived. Miles and Luna disguise themselves as doctors and become mistaken for the surgeons who are to perform the cloning procedure to bring back the Leader. Miles and Luna grab the nose and race out of the facility. Will they destroy the Leader's nose before the secret police catch them? And will Luna ditch Erno for Miles?
For Woody Allen fans accustomed to his urban New York comedies like ANNIE HALL (1977) and MANHATTAN (1979), SLEEPER is full of surprises and a different kind of Woody Allen film. Foremost, it's a genuine slapstick comedy (a sci-fi slapstick comedy no less) in the vein of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, the Marx Brothers, and Mack Sennett films. Allen proves to be up to the task. From his body's awkwardness in reacclimating after having been cryogenically frozen for two hundred years to impersonating a housekeeper robot and reeking havoc at Luna's party to fighting and fleeing the secret police multiple times, Allen channels the silent film greats with his physical comedy. Look for references to the Marx Brothers DUCK SOUP (1933) and Charlie Chaplin's MODERN TIMES (1936). SLEEPER has a host of sight gags that are not common in later Allen films. Accompanying the comic set pieces is the jazz music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band including Allen on clarinet, making the bits more frenetic, loose, and funny.
The other surprise to SLEEPER in the canon of Woody Allen films are the film's locations. It's not the streets of Manhattan or Brooklyn that SLEEPER takes place in. SLEEPER was shot in Colorado and California, a rare venture by Allen to the western United States. The futuristic architecture that Allen needed for the film was more available in the wide open American west like Denver, CO. Later in his career, Allen would venture out of New York with a series of films set in Europe including MATCH POINT (2006) and SCOOP (2007) in England; VICKI CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008) in Spain; MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011) in France; and TO ROME WITH LOVE (2012) in Italy.
Allen touches on his favorite topics in SLEEPER including God and sex that will pop up in his New York films. One theme that seemed to preoccupy Allen early in his career were revolutions. In SLEEPER, Miles reluctantly joins the rebels fighting the repressive government alongside Luna and rebel leader Erno Windt. After Miles and Luna damage the Leader's nose (they throw it in front of a road steamroller where it is flattened), they debate if Erno will turn the country around. Miles cynically (and possibly strategically) tells her that Erno will become as corrupt as the Leader was as that's how all revolutions end up (in Miles opinion). In BANANAS, Allen plays a nebbish New Yorker who travels to a Latin American country to impress his girlfriend and winds up joining a group of revolutionaries and becoming their leader. Allen would move on from films about revolutions as he would find inspiration in his comic and romantic counterpart for the next few years: Diane Keaton.
With SLEEPER, Allen would find his muse and comic partner for some of his best films in the 70s with Diane Keaton (they would also have a romantic relationship during that period). Prior to SLEEPER, Janet Margolin in TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN and Louise Lasser in BANANAS played Allen's romantic leads. No one saw that the Diane Keaton who burst onto the screen as Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) somber and suffering wife Kay in Francis Coppola's THE GODFATHER (1972) would be the perfect foil and love interest to the neurotic characters played by Woody Allen.
In SLEEPER, Keaton is funny and goofy (her trademark) and yes, sexy as the uncreative poet turned revolutionary Luna Schlosser. Luna transitions from spoiled party girl to anti-government rebel, falling in love with both the alien Miles and the good looking rebel leader Erno. Allen and Keaton were cast together the year before in Herbert Ross's PLAY IT AGAIN SAM (1972) based on Allen's play. Allen may have seen her comic potential in that film. After SLEEPER, the hits kept coming for Allen and Keaton with LOVE AND DEATH, ANNIE HALL, and MANHATTAN. In the 80s, Mia Farrow took over for Keaton as Allen's on-screen and off-screen love appearing in THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985), HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986), and RADIO DAYS (1987). Allen and Keaton would reunite one more time for Allen's MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (1993).
The only other familiar face in SLEEPER is John Beck who plays the Underground leader Erno Windt. It's a fun role for Beck who mostly played strong, macho characters in films like Sam Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973) and Norman Jewison's ROLLERBALL (1975). In SLEEPER, matinee idol Beck plays his character Erno straight, giving the laughs to Allen and Keaton. In a cameo, psychologist and one time LSD and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary portrays the Leader who we only see in glimpses including a promotional video, sitting by the ocean with a dog, waving to the camera. The rest of the unknown cast in SLEEPER is up to the task interacting with Allen's pratfalls and gags that include Allen swallowing a rubber glove, erratically driving an electric wheelchair, and slipping on a giant banana peel.
SLEEPER includes some early collaborators that would work with Allen as he became an acclaimed writer/director/auteur. Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe were Allen's Executive Producers (aka managers) for his films from the very beginning with TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN all the way until Rollins death in 2015. Editor Ralph Rosenblum began with Allen on BANANAS and continued to edit Allen's films up to INTERIORS (1978) winning an Academy Award for Best Editing for ANNIE HALL. One production member who went on to directing films himself was costume designer Joel Schumacher. Schumacher's costumes in SLEEPER are futuristic yet aesthetically clean, just like the film. Schumacher filmography includes THE LOST BOYS (1987) and BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) with George Clooney as the Caped Crusader.
Mel Brooks starred in and directed SILENT MOVIE (1976), his ode to silent films. That makes sense as Brooks' film parodies were obviously aimed at different film genres. In SLEEPER, I was not expecting Woody Allen's sci-fi comedy to also be a love letter to the silent film greats like Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. Like Allen's choice of snappy jazz music instead of moody synthesizer sounds to be the score for his futuristic film, the melding of two different genres (science fiction with slapstick comedy) in SLEEPER is genius. SLEEPER is Woody Allen beginning to find his feet as a filmmaker, becoming bolder and braver in the type of films he was going to make. For some, SLEEPER is the very funny, early phase of Woody Allen before he became a little more serious in his future films.
