Bananas Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Bananas Blu-ray Movie Review

A parody of guerilla war courtesy of guerilla filmmaking...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown April 18, 2024

"Good afternoon. Wide World of Sports is in the little republic of San Marcos where we're going to bring you a live, on the spot assassination. They're going to kill the president of this lovely Latin American country and replace him with a military dictatorship. And everybody is about as excited and tense as can be. The weather on this Sunday afternoon is perfect; and if you've just joined us, we've seen a series of colorful riots that started with the traditional bombing of the American embassy, a ritual as old as the city itself."

There's a strange assumption that great filmmakers emerge from the Hollywood womb fully formed. And while once in a while a director comes along who seems to know how to focus an innate talent from the start, most take a very long and winding road to master their creative and technical crafts. Woody Allen's sophomore directorial effort, the odd but often hilarious Bananas, is far more Airplane! than it is akin to his later works, and fans may be surprised at just how off the board and zany it tends to be. It doesn't quite hold up today -- jokes either soar or plummet in a fiery tailspin -- and follow a predictable pattern. Setup: Allen's inadvertent soldier pulls a pin on a grenade, mistakenly tosses the pin, and mangles his hand when the grenade he's holding explodes. Immediate follow-up: Allen pulls a pin on a second grenade, his mangled hand now comically bandaged, and tosses the grenade properly... only to have the pin explode in his hand. If that sounds like an 82-minute blast that teases a fantastic premise to hit-or-miss results, Bananas will delight you and yours. If not, well, consider this an early glimpse at a Woody Allen that exists somewhere in the multiverse, helming a still-thriving Naked Gun franchise.

"I was a nervous child. I was a bed wetter. When I was younger, I, uh, I used to sleep with an electric blanket and I was constantly electrocuting myself..."

Click here to read Jeffrey Kauffman's far more positive take on Bananas, which he calls "a bit more of a loosey-goosey feeling than some of Allen's later films," but says "it's undeniably hilarious quite a bit of the time." He goes on to write, "Allen and Lasser obviously are completely comfortable around each other, and their frankly kind of bizarre interchanges give the film a kind of sweet undertone offset by some of the more scabrous political elements." As for the plot, he offers a simple synopsis: "Probably all you need to know about the character Woody Allen plays in Bananas can be summed up in his name, Fielding Mellish. That first name is arch and pretentious, and the last name bears a certain Yiddish flavor which might remind some of less than positive descriptors like nebbish. Even this early in Allen's screen career, his heroes were already well defined, with ample amounts of both neurosis and libido. Both of those elements play into Mellish's predicaments throughout the film, with this sad sack trying to "impress the girl" by becoming a social activist, which in turn leads him to become the dictator of a banana republic."

Co-written (along with Mickey Rose) and directed by Allen, the film also stars Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalban, Natividad Abascal, Howard Cosell (as a sendup of himself), Jacobo Morales, Miguel Ángel Suárez, David Ortiz, René Enríquez, Jack Axelrod, Roger Grimsby and Don Dunphy (as themselves), Martha Greenhouse, Dan Frazer, Stanley Ackerman and Charlotte Rae as Fielding's parents, and Axel Anderson.

Bananas Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts."

Bananas features a decent but wanting 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that struggles, one, because it could seriously benefit from a from-the-ground-up restoration and remastering, and two, because it's roughhewn grainy photography isn't always easy on the eyes. Colors are dialed in nicely (minus a handful of oddly contrasted or saturated shots), primaries pop, skin tones fare pretty well, and black levels are deep. Detail is good on the whole as well, though softness invades from time to time, grain levels can become so aggressive that they undermine fine textures, and edges occasionally exhibit ever-so-slight haloing. Be that as it may, the film looks better than I expected from Sandpiper, without any banding, macroblocking or digital anomalies to speak of. There's a pint of print speckling here and there, but nothing too distracting. Ultimately, a high dollar overhaul (unlikely anytime soon) is the only thing that could breathe more life into the film's presentation, so solid marks here.

Bananas Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

"I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham!"

Sandpiper's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix is merely fine, with little in the way of revitalization or revelation. Dialogue is largely clean and intelligible, sound effects (though canned in the most amusing '70s-design sort of way) are bright and clear, and there isn't much in the way of elements that could feasibly be rejuvenated to a significant degree or enhanced by a surround track. That said, Marvin Hamlisch's score is sometimes muted and other times even muffled, sitting strangely and stockily alongside the rest of the soundscape. It's all front-heavy (obviously) but the music makes it feel even more two-dimensional; straight out of an old theater using and re-using an ancient print. It isn't all that bad, and lends itself to the slapstick and farce of the picture I suppose, but it could presumably be better with a dash of tender loving care.

Bananas Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

"And now, as is our annual custom, each citizen of San Marcos will come up here and present his Excellency with his weight in horse manure."

Previously released without any major extras -- first by Arrow in the UK and later by Twilight Time in the US (limited to 3,000 copies) -- Sandpiper's release of Bananas remains a barebones Blu-ray, with no notable special features to be had. Considering its uniqueness in Allen's canon, that's a shame.

Bananas Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"I think we should leave the happy couple on that note. It's hard to tell what may happen in the future. But they may live happily ever after. Again, they may not. Be assured of this, though. Wherever the action is, we will be there with ABC's Wide World of Sports to cover it. Now, on behalf of Nancy and Fielding Mellish and all of the others who have made this possible, this is Howard Cosell thanking you for joining us and wishing you a most pleasant good night."

Bananas is an early comedy from a filmmaker who would go on to pen and direct far sharper, funnier material, leaving it as one of the ugly ducklings of Allen's career. Still, there are plenty of laughs to be had, and other people seem to enjoy it far more than I do. Sandpiper's Blu-ray release, unfortunately, is only moderately successful, with a solid video presentation being its only real highlight. Its DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix could use some work (not that the transfer couldn't) and its lack of special features is a letdown. Ah well. Fans of Airplane! and Naked Gun-esque comedy will probably find enough to love here to warrant a purchase.