Sleeper (1973)

Director:

Woody Allen

Writers:

Woody Allen (written by) and
Marshall Brickman (written by)

Release Date:

17 December 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A love story about two people who hate each other. 200 years in the future.

Plot:

A nerdish store owner is revived out of cryostasis into a future world to fight an oppressive government.

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Love | Police | Health Food | Future

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Woody Allen	...	Miles Monroe
Diane Keaton	...	Luna Schlosser
John Beck	...	Erno Windt
Mary Gregory	...	Dr. Melik
Don Keefer	...	Dr. Tryon
John McLiam	...	Dr. Agon
Bartlett Robinson	...	Dr. Orva
Chris Forbes	...	Rainer Krebs
Mews Small	...	Dr. Nero (as Marya Small)
Peter Hobbs	...	Dr. Dean
Susan Miller	...	Ellen Pogrebin
Lou Picetti	...	M.C.
Jessica Rains	...	Woman in the Mirror
Brian Avery	...	Herald Cohen
Spencer Milligan	...	Jeb Hrmthmg
Stanley Ross	...	Sears Swiggles
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
John Cannon	...	Various Voice-Overs (voice)
Regis Cordic	...	Party Guest (uncredited)
Howard Cosell	...	Himself - on Wide World of Sports (archive footage) (uncredited)
George Furth	...	Guest at Luna's Party (uncredited)
Laurence Kirchmar	...	McDonald's Kid (uncredited)
Jackie Mason	...	Robot Tailor (voice) (uncredited)
Richard Nixon	...	Himself - Checkers Speech, Discloses His Personal Finances (archive footage) (uncredited)
Albert Popwell	...	Reprogramming Scientist (uncredited)
Douglas Rain	...	Evil Computer / Various Robot Butlers (voice) (uncredited)
Whitney Rydbeck	...	Janus (uncredited)

Directed by
Woody Allen

Writing credits
Woody Allen		(written by) and
Marshall Brickman		(written by)

Produced by
Marshall Brickman	....	associate producer
Jack Grossberg	....	producer
Charles H. Joffe	....	executive producer
Ralph Rosenblum	....	associate producer
Jack Rollins	....	executive producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Woody Allen

Cinematography by
David M. Walsh		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
O. Nicholas Brown		(film editor)
Ron Kalish		(film editor)
Ralph Rosenblum		(edited by)

Casting by
Lynn Stalmaster

Production Design by
Dale Hennesy

Set Decoration by
Gary Moreno
Robert De Vestel		(uncredited)

Costume Design by
Joel Schumacher

Makeup Department
Del Acevedo	....	makeup
Janice Brunson	....	hair stylist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Fred T. Gallo	....	first assistant director
Henry J. Lange Jr.	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Barry Bedig	....	property master
Charles Deaton	....	architect: Doctor Melik's house
Jack M. Marino	....	assistant property master
Gary Martin	....	set coordinator (as Gary O. Martin)
Dianne Wager	....	set designer
Gary Martin	....	construction (uncredited)
James T. Woods	....	set painter (uncredited)
Robert L. Zilliox	....	lead man (uncredited)

Sound Department
Al Gramaglia	....	rerecording: Magno Sound Recording Inc.
Norman Kasow	....	sound effects editor: Filmsounds, Inc.
Jack Solomon	....	sound mixer
Jess Soraci	....	sound effects editor: Filmsounds, Inc.
Joe Kenworthy	....	swing (uncredited)
Al Yaylian	....	boom operator (uncredited)

Special Effects by
A.D. Flowers	....	special effects
Gerald Endler	....	location special effects (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Bill Hansard	....	background projection
Harvey Plastrik	....	opticals
Ralph Rosenblum	....	visual effects editor (uncredited)

Stunts
M. James Arnett	....	stunt coordinator
James M. Halty	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Joseph Edesa	....	gaffer
Norman Harris	....	best boy (as Norman L. Harris)
Clyde Hart	....	key grip (as Clyde W. Hart)
Roger Shearman	....	camera operator
Bill Avery	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Richard N. Hannah	....	camera technician (uncredited)
Victor King	....	second assistant camera (uncredited)
Don Whipple	....	dolly grip (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Arnie Lipin	....	wardrobe supervisor (as Arnold M. Lipin)
G. Fern Weber	....	wardrobe supervisor

Editorial Department
Trudy Ship	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Felix Giglio	....	music supervisor
The New Orleans Funeral Ragtime Orchestra	....	music
Preservation Hall Jazz Band	....	music (as The Preservation Hall Jazz Band)
Phil Ramone	....	music recordist

Transportation Department
Joe Sawyers	....	transportation captain (as Joe R. Sawyers)
Richard Enoch	....	driver (uncredited)
Donald H. Lewis	....	driver (uncredited)
Russell McEntyre	....	driver (uncredited)
Bill Van Hoek	....	driver: cine II (uncredited)

Other crew
Antonio Encarnacion	....	assistant to the producer (as Tony Encamacion)
Jean Gingerich	....	production accountant
Norman Gorbaty	....	title designer
Doris Grau	....	script supervisor
Lori Imbler	....	production secretary
R.J. Louis	....	location coordinator
Joel Marrow	....	assistant to the producer
Peter J. Silbermann	....	unit publicist
Ben Bova	....	science consultant (uncredited)
Elizabeth Claman	....	secretary to director (uncredited)
Peter Herald	....	representative: United Artists (uncredited)
Johnny Jensen	....	technician: Cinemobile (uncredited)
Teresa Stokovic	....	production secretary (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Rollins-Joffe Productions (as A Jack Rollins-Charles H. Joffe Production)

Distributors

• United Artists (1973) (USA) (theatrical) (An MGM Company)
• United Artists (1974) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• United Artists (1974) (France) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1975) (USA) (TV)
• United Artists Films (1977) (Finland) (theatrical)
• United International Pictures (UIP) (1977) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Chapel Distribution (1997) (Australia) (theatrical)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• New Star (2008) (Greece) (theatrical)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (200?) (Brazil) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (USA) (DVD)
• Warner Home Video (1990) (Germany) (VHS)

Other Companies

• C.V.D.  Italian dubbing by (uncredited)
• Cinemobile System  locations by
• Filmsounds  sound effects editing
• Magno Sound  rerecording
• Michael's Pub, New York City  music recorded live at
• Neiman-Tillar Associates  editorial (uncredited)
• Panavision  cameras and lenses
• Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans  score performed by (uncredited)
• Preservation Hall, New Orleans  music recordied live at

Also Known As:

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Yiddish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Finland:K-12 | France:U | Iceland:Unrated | Ireland:12 | Sweden:11 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:16 (nf) | Singapore:PG | Canada:PG | Netherlands:6 | Finland:K-11 (new rating: 2001) | Brazil:12 | Portugal:M/12 | USA:TV-G (National Board of Review) | USA:TV-14 (TV rating) | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Boulder, Colorado, USA

Company:

Rollins-Joffe Productions

Trivia:

Director Trademark: [Woody Allen] [writer]Luna is a poet.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The "AIRES" project is apparently misspelled on the visible screens during the scientific briefing. If, in fact, it refers to the astrological sign or constellation, it would be spelled "Aries." If it refers to the god of war, it should be spelled "Ares."

Quotes:

Luna:You're biting my nails.
Miles Monroe:It's because you're tense.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 100 Years of Comedy (1997) (V)

Successful Combination of Physical and Verbal Humour

In this early comedy, Woody Allen plays Miles Monroe, a twentieth century healthfood restaurant owner and jazz clarinettist who is cryogenically frozen after surgery and awoken two centuries later. The America of 2173 is a totalitarian state ruled by an oppressive dictator, and Miles has been reanimated by a group of rebels fighting to overthrow the government. For reasons too complex to set out here, Miles is forced to go on the run disguised as a robot and finds himself falling in love with his new owner, an attractive but intellectually vacant young woman named Luna. The film recounts how Miles wins Luna over to the rebel cause and tells the story of their fight against the regime.

Unlike some of Woody's later films, this is a pure comedy. It does not try to explore philosophical issues or to analyse the human condition in the same way as, say, "Hannah and her Sisters" or "Crimes and Misdemeanours". Although I normally think of Woody as a master of verbal wit, much of the humour in "Sleeper" is physical slapstick, based upon (and no doubt deliberate homage to) the comedians of the silent era such as Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. (I particularly liked the scenes where Woody is disguised as a robot and those where the villains are attempting to clone the dictator, killed in a bomb explosion, from his nose). The links with that era are reinforced by the musical score, composed by Woody himself, in a jazz/ragtime style reminiscent of the 1910s and 1920s. The sets, by contrast, are very futuristic, with the clinical glass-and-chromium look of many science-fiction films. The combination of a futuristic theme with a traditional style of comedy is doubtless why the film was advertised under the slogan "Woody Allen takes a nostalgic look at the future".

This is not, however, simply a pastiche of silent humour like the one Mel Brooks was to attempt a few years later in "Silent Movie". This being a Woody Allen film, there is also a good deal of verbal humour, particularly one-liners along the lines of "I haven't seen my analyst in 200 years. He was a strict Freudian. If I'd been going all this time, I'd probably almost be cured by now". (As that line suggests, Miles is the typical, neurotically insecure Woody Allen character). As is often the case with humorous science-fiction (such as Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker" books), the humour is frequently used to make satirical points about twentieth-century society as seen from the viewpoint of an imagined future. Contemporary worries about our diet are neatly satirised by a joke about how the science of two hundred years hence has proved that fatty foods and smoking are actually beneficial to health whereas what we now think of as healthfoods are regarded as unhealthy. This joke has remained topical because anxiety about what we eat is, if anything,even greater today than it was in 1973. There is perhaps also a dig at seventies "radical chic" as the vacuous conformist Luna becomes an equally vacuous revolutionary. (The plot of "Sleeper" seems to owe something to another tongue-in-cheek science-fiction film from a few years earlier, "Barbarella", which also dealt with rebellion against a dictator and even featured similar "orgasmatron" machines; the star of that film, Jane Fonda, had by 1973 become Hollywood's most famous radical chic actress).

The humour of "Sleeper" is often directed against figures from the sixties and seventies- perhaps too much so, as this type of humour tends to date very quickly. Some of it is still funny (such as Diane Keaton's Marlon Brando impersonation), but some can now be difficult to understand, particularly for non-Americans. (I had no idea, for example, who Howard Cosell was- apparently he was a sports commentator). That is, however, a minor quibble. Overall, this is an entertaining film and, in places, very funny, combining successfully two very different styles of humour. 7/10