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

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

Jose Ferrer sings the song, "The Lord's Prayer", which was not written by Albert Hay Malotte until 1935, even though the film was set much earlier.

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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
Courtesy of CBS Records

User Reviews

Light and Sensual Smile

Woody Allen's "Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" that was made in 1982 between "Stardust Memory" (1980) and "Zelig"(1983) is considered by many as a lesser Allen's work or even failure. It was even nominated for a Razzie (Mia Farrow) for crying out loud. Well, failure or not, I'd take this silly, funny, humorous, beautifully photographed with Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, Violin Concerto in E Minor, Piano Concerto No. 2 and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" suite for the soundtrack little treasure over the majority of Hollywood comedies any day or night including midsummer night. Spoofing Shakespeare's classic comedy and highly successful Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night", Woody made a light comedy about six very different people - three couples in a turn-of-the-century who gathered together in a country during the weekend party in search for love, understanding and meaning of life and death which has his own unique style. Allen does not take things too seriously and laughs at and with his characters providing the best comical scenes in the movie as an inventor. One scene is his first appearance with the wings on his back when he tries to fly and another when he pedals his flying bicycle in a very ET - manner. Funny and memorable.

7.5/10