Play It Again, Sam

Woody Allen’s wonderful comedy was his first film with Diane Keaton, a relationship that would continue to produce great films like Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall and Manhattan. Allen plays Allan, a fanatical movie buff with an outrageous recurring hallucination: Humphrey Bogart (Jerry Lacy) offering tips on how to make it with the ladies. His married friends Dick and Linda (Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton) fix him up with several eligible young ladies, but his self-confidence is so weak that he’s a total failure with them all. Eventually Allan discovers that there is one woman he’s himself with: Linda, his best friend’s wife. The final scene is a terrific takeoff on Casablanca’s classical ending, complete with roaring plane propellers, heavy fog and Bogie-style trenchcoats. Play It Again, Sam was penned by Woody Allen, based on his own 1969 Broadway play, and directed by Herbert Ross (The Goodbye Girl, California Suite).