Watching all of Woody Allen's films in order: Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Then When I was at university, Leeds had an amazing choice of cinemas. Screens in the city were balanced across an Odeon on The Headrow with five and the ABC around the corner with another three. In Headingly, on Otley Road we have The Cottage Road, The Lounge about half a mile away and my favourite, the Hyde Park Picture House. Here it is on Google Street View:


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The interior looks like a classic old theatre. Looks in fact, like the theatre in the film. Viewing Bullets Over Broadway was like entering virtual reality. I’ve said this before, but the Hyde Park is were I began my film studies.

Now With Bullets Over Broadway, both me and Woody are entering unknown territory (assuming for the purposes of this that Woody is a metaphysical construct made up of his films rather like the Bogart that appeared in Play It Again, Sam). This is the first film not covered by the Bjorkman interview (though it is eluded to) and the Spignesi companion. I’m on my own. Unless I google the name of the film, of course. But I like a challenge. But if these reactions start to lose cohesion, you'll understand why.

For Woody, Bullets Over Broadway is the first acknowledgement that he’s becoming too old to play some roles and hires what amounts to an avatar to play the “Woody Allen” character, in this case John Cusack, who fits like a glove. On reading the script Cusack turned up and did an impersonation until Allen told him not to and just act. He might lack some of the ticks and gestures, but his bespeckled playwright David could still only be more like the figure who appeared in these films in the 70s and 80s if a younger version of Allen had played it himself.

Something I hadn’t appreciated before was the extent to which Woody was essentially box-ticking the traditional film genres. Looking across the dvd spines, about the only type of film he hasn’t attempted yet is the western (and I suspect it’s a bit late for that now). Bullets Over Broadway as the title suggests merges the gangster film with the back stage film as a way of discussing the compromise of art or the art of compromise, about how most artists will always follow the money.

Oddly, the relationship between Cusack and Chazz Palminteri’s savant thug Cheech, reminds me of the infamous dinner scene from Interiors. Back then, Woody seemed to have in mind a kind of self-flagellation as the family arrogantly turned on the apparently uneducated new wife of their father. I later imagined what might have happened if she’d randomly spoken up and offered a devastating contribution to their discussion, revealing that she too was educated but had decided that she’d realised that pseudo-intellectualism doesn’t make you clever.

Their reaction would be much the same as happens in the theatre when Cheek pipes up with his first amazing suggest which saves the play having been insulted constantly by David. Thematically it’s very similar – David thinks that he’s superior because of his job and outlook and politics but Cheech has insight – and an unfortunate moral compass which is his downfall. On reflection, I can see now how many of these films are about the internal battle between intellect and passion being externalised. Unless all films are about that and I’ve been missed something all of these years.

Oh god, I think I maybe. Wow. Um. Anyway, the production design in Bullets is impeccable. Look at those curtains.

Great cast as ever too. Diane Wiest in her final role in the Woodyverse as Helen Sinclair, demonstrating her flexibility, cartoon-like but still convincing and unlike anything else Allen has asked her to do before (“Don’t speak. Don’t. Don’t speak.”) Apparently she signed to do the film script/concept/title unseen. Force of nature Jennifer Tilly is in her hay-day bending the voice she’s been blessed without around some sharp comic timing as the gangster’s moll turned “actress” (“Chaarum. Chaarum. Chaarum”). Tracy Ullman as a faded English Rose.

If I have to have a favourite scene, it’s when Jim Broadbent’s rotund stage presence Warner Purcell has to flee Tilly’s dressing room in his underwear, much needed corset included. As he steps into the street, he’s greeted by some fans who are just leaving and they conduct a conversation about the play as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. The way it’s shot harks back to the Are Transvestites Homosexuals? sequence in *Sex or an anecdote from Radio Days, though much, much funnier. That final line is a killer.