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

Woody Allen's most scattered and strangest film. The source is a bestselling sex advice book of the period; Allen took its chapter headings and turned each into a parody of a different genre. There are seven episodes with no connection to each other. One is a medieval jester's tale, one an imitation Italian art film, one a melodrama about a doctor in love with a sheep, one a television quiz show. The last is the best remembered: a control room inside the human body during intercourse, technicians in white coats, and sperm waiting to be launched. One episode concerns a giant escaped breast terrorising the countryside, which shows how far the film is prepared to go. Gene Wilder plays the doctor in love with the sheep and carries the whole episode by performing it entirely straight. Who it is for: viewers who like 1970s absurdity and sketch structure. Who it is not for: anyone wanting coherence. The episodes vary wildly in quality, some fail outright, and several of the jokes about sex are both dated and uncomfortable now.