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 | hot | 

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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

José Ferrer found himself the object of a practical joke while making this film. Dustin Hoffman visited the set while made up as Dorothy Michaels in the film Tootsie (1982), and proceeded to make sexual advances on Ferrer, who politely refused--but was completely unaware that Hoffman was not in fact a woman.

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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

Featured in 100 Years of Comedy (1997)

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Soundtracks

A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1826)
Written by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (as Mendelssohn)
Performed by Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra (as The Philadelphia Orchestra)
Courtesy of CBS Records

User Reviews

Woody's Comic Valentine to Ingmar Bergman and his first film with Mia Farrow

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY was Woody Allen's amusing variation on the Ingmar Bergman classic SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, which had been previously re-worked as a Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim called A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. This film is about three couples in turn of the century who gather at one of their country homes for the weekend and it is clear at the beginning of the story that these three couples are hopelessly mismatched and we see the very human foibles that split up and mix up these three couples during this memorable weekend in the country. Woody and Mary Steenburgen plays the hosts for the weekend, a seemingly happily married couple whose happiness is clearly surface deep. Tony Roberts plays a womanizing physician and Woody's best pal who arrives for the weekend with his nurse (Julia Hagerty). In her first screen pairing with Woody Allen, Mia Farrow plays a former flame of Woody's who has arrived with her much older fiancée (Jose Ferrer) who she is scheduled to marry on Monday. Watching these three couples fuss and fumble all over each other in an attempt to be with the person they really want to be with is what makes this charming period comedy work. As always in Woody's films, music is crucial in setting the mood and Woody has chosen some classic Mendelsohhn pieces that set the perfect mood for the piece. The performances are uniformly fine, with Roberts a standout. Not one of Woody's better known films, but if you'd like to see where his relationship with Mia began, take a look.