Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask

While all the early Woody Allen films are funny and worthwhile, this is probably the most uneven to my taste.

Allen took the famous, serious non-fiction book about sex, and turned it into a series of short comedy pieces. A couple segments are pure genius (inside the male body during sex, Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep), a couple are pretty good (Woody as a medieval court jester trying to have an affair with the queen, who is locked into a chastity belt, a mad scientist creates a giant milk squirting breast that goes on a rampage) and a few are real duds.

Also, of all the Allen films, this might have the worst DVD print/transfer quality.

It's bizarre and disturbing is that a lot of Allen's brilliant early work seems to be going out of print. Hopefully this is just a temporary state of affairs, and better re-releases are ahead. But if you're a fan you might want to grab copies of this, Bananas, Sleeper, Take the Money and Run, etc now, while you can.

'Everything You Always To Know About Sex' is probably the last time Woody Allen really fooled about and made an ass of himself with minimal artistic pretenses, and given the mediocre quality of recent disposable duds like 'Melinda & Melinda' and 'Anything Else', it's quite refreshing. True, this 1972 collection of extremely lewd skits isn't quite as impressive and thought-provoking as some of Allen's best works, like 'Annie Hall', 'Manhattan' or for that matter even the follow-up 'Sleeper'; yet there's an energy to 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know' that Allen has not shown for at least a decade, and in that light it's still entirely classic.

If anything, the film is closest in its spirit to early Allen films like 'Bananas' and 'Sleeper', but it actually feels more like a British comedy, and is clearly influenced by shows like 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and 'The Benny Hill Show', in it's chaotic and rude humor. Still, Allen's mark is all over the skits, even when he isn't in them. One of the best of the bunch, in fact, is the skit titled 'What Is Sodomy', which stars Gene Wilder. Influences of both Monty Python and Mel Brooks can be felt in it, but it's entirely Allen; and still, it's Wilder that makes it perfect. Even more Pythonish is the fabricated game-show 'What's Your Perversion'.

The best and most memorable is the last skit, entitled 'What Happens During Ejaculation', in which Allen does a wonderful portrayal of a sperm, and we catch a glimpse of the action in the control room of a man's body during sexual intercourse. The skit is brilliantly satirical and ranks with Allen's best moments, nearly overshadowing the rest of the film. Still, it's not without it's unforgettable moments; other than Wilder, also worthy of special praise is John Carradine who is wonderful as the ultimate parody of a mad scientist, and let's not forget Woody Allen as a fool in the Middle Ages misquoting Hamlet and getting his hand stuck up the Queen's chastity belt, and his wonderful performance as an Italian Casanova.

So no, it's not quite one of Allen's best films, but it's close. The humor is dirty, yes, but not childish; Allen's intelligence is there, but it's much lighter than 'Annie Hall' or other classics, and like a Monty Python or a Mel Brooks it bears multiple viewings. A movie that's funny as hell, essential for Allen fans, and recommended for all.

`Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex' is a landmark, and of course a great exercise in comedy. Dividing the movie in 7 different segments (with some not including himself in the leading role) was the best Woody Allen could do, and this movie works better than his previous attempt (Bananas) and his posterior `Sleeper'.

In a way, it's less ambitious and targets all audiences. All short films are hilarious, in a crescent order. My favorite is the last, which satirizes the humanly body functions during intercourse. A must see, for all generations of movie likers. Rate: 5/5

Representing something of an early high point in Woody Allen's career, this scattershot spoof of David Rueben's highly popular sex-manual has become somewhat sadly overlooked in favour of the more mature and whimsical charms of 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan', but 'Everything you always wanted to know about sex' is just as enjoyable as his later works, if not more so.

Although the overt intellectualism that many of Allen's detractors criticize in his subsequent work is already beginning to take form here, not only in the concept (seriously, who'd adapt a sex-manual?) but also in execution, which owes more to the high-brow Fellini and Godard than the low-brow Mel Brooks or John Waters, includes a great deal of metaphysical surrealism, bizarre camera angles and deliberately self-indulgent dialog. Here Allen's filmmaking approach is more self-serving than ever before, casting himself as a medieval stand-up comedian, a heroic leading man and a sperm, yet still finding time to feature in a lengthy satire on early-seventies European cinema. The reason it all comes together without succumbing to self-importance is down to the simplicity and stupidity of most of the set pieces.

The more interesting segments come at the beginning of the film, and if seeing Woody trying hopelessly to unlock Lynn Redgrave's chastity belt and miss-quoting Shakespeare to form a condemnation of T.B. doesn't bring a smile to your face, then the sight of Gene Wilder in the throws of foreplay with a sheep will probably do little to convert you. Humour for the most is juvenile, puerile and immature, but carried off with such hilarious comedic style, that the Farrelly brothers should really reassess their careers. Allen is as likable as ever in his many surreal incarnations -- appearing in fifty percent of the sketches -- his ultimate triumph being the oily, Italian play-boy causing a stir when he and his frigid girlfriend par-take of a little outdoor nookie. And even if he is less confident when trying to be socio-satirical, as in the molestation game show, Woody still manages to inject a wit and ingenuity to the proceedings, always carrying off the gags to his trademark self-deprecating style.

However, despite technical assuredness, the finished product borders on the same hit and miss territory that befalls most anthology films, however, it has to be handed to Allen for making a genuinely intelligent movie that basically celebrates boob-gags and outbursts of rampant misogyny. The best policy with 'Everything you always wanted to know...' is to ignore the false starts of the later segments, and howl at the sight of Woody fighting a giant breast ("Don't worry, I know how to handle tits"). Nevertheless, if your idea of sophisticated humour doesn't include bestiality, orgasms, transvestism, homosexuality, ejaculation, perversion or Burt Reynolds, then feel free to give it a miss.

The film is entirely about sexual perversions, even though it is not technically erotic… Allen has taken some of the most popular clinical treatments of sexual fetishes and has placed them into very unusual situations…

Gene Wilder, for example, falls in love with a sheep; Woody Allen plays a medieval court jester who gets his lance stuck in his lady's chastity belt while the king is off fighting in the Crusades; a giant breast is released upon the countryside; an Italian couple can only find happiness in public sex; and we are taken into the inner labors of a male human body as it tries to seduce a woman in a car…

Each individual scene is quite well done… The tales are rapid filled with irony about the overly exaggerated importance of sex in our culture