A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)

A wacky inventor and his wife invite two other couples for a weekend party at a romantic summer house in the 1900s countryside.

Director:

Woody Allen

Writer:

Woody Allen

Stars:

Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, José Ferrer

1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Woody Allen	...	Andrew
Mia Farrow	...	Ariel
José Ferrer	...	Leopold (as Jose Ferrer)
Julie Hagerty	...	Dulcy
Tony Roberts	...	Maxwell
Mary Steenburgen	...	Adrian
Adam Redfield	...	Student Foxx
Moishe Rosenfeld	...	Mr. Hayes
Timothy Jenkins	...	Mr. Thomson
Michael Higgins	...	Reynolds
Sol Frieder	...	Carstairs
Boris Zoubok	...	Purvis
Thomas Barbour	...	Blint
Kate McGregor-Stewart	...	Mrs. Baker

Storyline

Centred around a weekend party at the home of inventor Andrew Hobbs and his wife Adrian, attended by randy doctor Maxwell Jordan, his nurse Dulcy, renowned philosopher Dr.Leopold Sturgis and his fiancée, this is a light comedy concerning their various emotional, intellectual and sexual entanglements, loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's 'Smiles of a Summer Night' .

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Plot Keywords:

flirting | man wearing glasses | attempted suicide | punctuation in title | summer | 

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Taglines:

Six characters in search of love [Video]

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English German

Release Date:

16 July 1982 (USA)

Also Known As:

Eine Sommernachts-Sexkomödie

Filming Locations:

Columbia University - Broadway & 116th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$2,514,478, 18 July 1982, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$9,077,269

Company Credits

Production Co:

Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions,Orion Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Actor-writer-director Woody Allen has said of the public reaction to this movie: "Nobody came to see A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982). One of the critics who likes my work very much said that it was the only trivial picture that I ever made. Richard Schickel from Time Magazine. But I wanted it to be light. I just wanted it to be a small intermezzo with a few laughs. I don't say this was any great picture at all, but in general this atmosphere is something that nobody cares about here in the United States. For me it was fine. I had a great time doing it. I wanted to do for the country what I'd done for New York in Manhattan (1979). I wanted to show it in all its beauty . . . I thought it was good when I wrote it, and I thought it was good when I made it. But it was not appreciated at all. This one and September (1987) are my two biggest financial disasters".

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Goofs

About thirteen minutes into the movie, a crew member is visible crouched by a tree, as a deer runs through the woods.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Leopold: Ghosts or little spirits or pixies, I don't believe in them. Do you Mr. Foxx?
Student Foxx: No, sir.
Leopold: You sounded, with all your metaphysical gibberish.
Student Foxx: Well, I didn't mean ghosts or spirits, professor.
Leopold: Nothing is real, but experience. That which can be touched, tasted felt, or in some scientific fashion proved. We must never substitute qualitative events that are marked by similar properties and reoccurrences for fixed substances.

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Connections

References Rashômon (1950)

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Soundtracks

Violin Concerto in E Minor, Opus 64
(1844)
Written by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (as Mendelssohn)
Performed by Vasil Stefanov (as Vassil Stefanov) and the TVR Symphony Orchestra
Soloist Stoika Milanova
Courtesy of Monitor Records

User Reviews

Manhattan in the woods

When I saw this film I thought it was from Allen's early period and I thought of it as a prototype Manhattan but when I checked the chronology I discovered that it belongs to his middle period and postdates both Annie Hall and Manhattan. It really is like Manhattan set in the woods of New England. As far as I can see, it is his first film with Mia Farrow and his camera is besotted with her as are all the male characters in the film. Mary Steeburgen also looks good although I can never work out whether she really can act or whether she is just having trouble with her contact lenses. The scenes of New England are beautifully shot and are ravishing to look at. I thought the element of mysticism sat uneasily with the rest of the film.

This film is said to be Allen's take on the Bergman film Three Smiles of a Summer Night although I cannot comment on this because I last saw the Bergman film 35 years ago at a student film society. Maybe the mystical element in Allen's film is lifted from Bergman. There are also obvious parallels with A Midsummer Night's Dream with the mortals swapping partners and with spirits flitting about in the woods. In keeping with the subject matter, Allen uses Mendelssohn for the incidental music rather that his usual classic jazz numbers.