“Besides being one of Woody’s most consistently witty films, “Love and Death” marks a couple of other advances for Mr. Allen as a film maker and for Miss Keaton as a wickedly funny comedienne. ”
Following on from Preston Sturges’s 1941 screwball classic, The Lady Eve, our next Film Club at Home choice is another film that contains many elements of the screwball genre: Woody Allen’s hilarious 1975 hit comedy, Love and Death.
Set in Czarist Russia, Allen plays Boris Grushenko, the neurotic and cowardly son of a landowner (just) whose love for his disinterested cousin Sonja (a brilliant Diane Keaton) is further complicated by his conscription into the Russian army to battle Napoleon. As well as riffing on all the great names in Russian literature, Love and Death also lovingly parodies Allen’s heroes of European cinema (Bergman, Eisenstein, etc) as well as his comedic touchstones (Chaplin, Bob Hope and Groucho Marx) resulting in a film that is packed with great lines and set-pieces from start to finish. Top Tier Woody sez we! Here’s the trailer.
Watch Wayne enthuse about the film to Nigel…
Where can you watch Love and Death?
The film is streaming on Netflix. You can also rent it on Amazon, Apple, Google Play and YouTube.
