Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask

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

In the late 1960's Dr. David Reuben had written a self-help question and answer manual concerning sex called "Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask." The film version of the book was to star Elliot Gould, but the project never got past the screenwriting phase. Woody Allen had seen the author on Johnny Carson one night and figured the book might make a good comedy. Allen obtained the screen rights to the book and designed skits centering around questions.

There is a cast of dozen or more well known actors and actresses who act out these skits. Everyone from the likes of Gene Wilder to Lynn Redgrave to Burt Reynolds act out comedy sketches and answer questions such as "What Is Sodomy?" and "What Are Sex Perverts?" The film gave Woody a chance to work on his technical skills as a director, as he only appears in half of the skits. The film is far more technically advanced then his first two directing efforts. There does not seem to be as much improvisation going on, and the the scenes don't rely strictly on visual gags.

There are seven skits in the film in which Woody is taking a simple question and twisting the answer all around. The film opens with Cole Porter's "Let's Misbehave" playing while the credits role over a room full of bunny rabbits. The first skit is "Do Aphrodisiacs Work?" Woody plays the court jester who does standup routines for the king and his guests. The King calls him 'the fool.' "Isn't that plague something? Everything looks black." The fool has the hots for the queen, and a apparition of his dead father talks him into seducing her. Seeking out the sorcerer, the fool obtains an aphrodisiac to give her. She becomes attracted to the fool after drinking the potion, but she has a padlock on her chastity belt. "I must think of something quickly before the Renaissance will be here and we will all be painting." The fool is caught and beheaded.

"What Is Sodomy" is one of the funnier skits in the film. Gene Wilder plays a doctor who falls for another man's sheep. "I know it must all seem strange to you. Me from Jackson Heights and you from the hills of Armenia. And yet, I think it could work if we gave it a chance." The sheep, Daisy, is dressed in diamonds by the doctor and they have quite an affair until the doctor's wife founds out. The doctor learns the hard way that you do not steal another man's sheep as the previous lover of the sheep kidnaps Daisy back. Wilder is fantastic in the role, and plays along great with the gag. The doctor ends up on skid row, sipping from a bottle of Woolite.

In a spoof on Italian cinema, "Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching Orgasm?" showcases Woody with silver wire rimmed glasses (a first!!) and a very, very bad accent. The situation is that the only way Woody's wife, played by Louise Lasser, can have an orgasm is by having sex in public. The skit pays a homage to Antonioni's Blowup and other Italian films in scenes, and is rather unfunny. There is no climax to this sketch, and it just ends with no climax. John Cassavetes and Raquel Welch were asked to act in this skit, but both turned it down. Foresight or foreplay?

Another skit that just isn't very funny and seems just thrown into the film is "Are Transvestites Homosexuals?" This skit involves a middle aged man caught trying on women's clothes at someone elses house. He escapes through a window only to be noticed by one too many people in a residential neighborhood. Was this supposed to be funny? Perhaps it is just time that has made this skit rather dull.

The next skit stars Regis Philbin way before the days of "Millionare" who is part of a panel on a game show called "What's My Perversion?" in which they must guess the perversion of the contestant. The humor is dry, but its "pre-Zelig" experiment in which Allen recreates a black and white game show shot in kinescope is wonderful to look at.

The second to last skit is the worst. The title of it is "Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate?" Let's just say it involves Igor, cub scouts, a man having intercourse with a giant rye bread loaf, and a giant breast. The skit is almost unbearable to watch and verges on the level of a very poorly made sexploitation film.

Woody saved the best for last with "What Happens During Ejaculation?" The male body is transformed into a mission control station in which thousands of workers regulate the body. Sweaty manual laborers crank up the erection while 100s of sperm soldiers prepare for the launch. Woody plays one of the sperm who questions the meaning of being a lonely sperm cell. The sketch is brilliant and makes up for the lack of entertainment of the few previous skits. Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds make great cameos, and the sets are a pre-cursor to the sets of Sleeper. In a great line, Woody the sperm cell says, "What if he's masturbating? I'll end up on the wall!!!" Another sperm cell reminds him, "You took an oath when you entered sperm training school: to fertilize an ovum, or die trying."

The film is a disapointment, and very often is not funny at all. The first few and the last sketch work out perfect, but everything in the middle is hardly worth the effort of watching. Woody seems to have hit a low with this film. It attempts satire, and at times succeeds while the rest seems as goofy as the book it is based on. Technically, the film is a step forward for Woody Allen. Content wise, the film is nothing new and probably should have gone through much more pre-production.

One sketch that was shot but was not included in the film. "What Makes a Man a Homosexual?" featured Woody Allen as a spider devoured after making love to another spider played by Louise Lasser. The answer to the question seems self-explanatory, but perhaps this was the missing link to making the film more complete. The reason the scene was not in the film was that it was having difficulty being finished, and Woody was supposedly on the verge of a mental breakdown trying to finish the scene.

Gene Wilder later said on working with Woody is what it must be like to work with Ingmar Bergman. Woody himself would later admit to the film being unfunny and a career failure. In good nature, he told Playboy magazine: "I had a choice of filming this or the Old Testament and chose the former because it made more sense. There are probably a lot of people who will think this is a dirty movie, and it's those people I'm counting on."

Back to main

Back To Archive