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Love And Death [1975]
from MGM Entertainment
starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Georges Adet, Frank Adu, Edmond Ardisson
directed by Woody Allen

Features:

• Anamorphic
• Dubbed
• PAL
• Widescreen

Editorial Review:

Writer-director Woody Allen's 1975 comedy finds the familiar Allen persona transposed to 19th-century Russia, as a cowardly serf drafted into the war against Napoleon, when all he'd rather do is write poetry and obsess over his beautiful but pretentious cousin (Diane Keaton). A total disaster as a soldier, Allen's cowardice serves him well when he hides in a cannon and is shot into a tent of French soldiers, suddenly making him a national hero. After his cousin agrees to marry him, thinking he'll be killed in a duel he miraculously survives, the couple must hatch a ludicrous plot to assassinate Napoleon in order to keep the coward Allen out of yet another war. Allen and Keaton show what a perfect comic team they make in this film, even predating their most celebrated pairing in Annie Hall. Working so well as the most unlikely of comedies, of all things a hilarious parody of Russian literature, Love and Death is a must-see for fans of Woody Allen films. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

• Woody Allen: The Golden Years
  "Love and Death" truly belongs in the Pantheon of comedy classics. A send-up of every Russian novel that you should have read, but probably didn't, the film, as the name implies, in particular spoofs Tolstoy's "War and Peace." Boris Gruschenko (Allen in Kulak blouse plus his customary horn-rimmed glasses) is hopelessly in love with his cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton) when the Napoleonic Wars intrude on their lives. Between gags, the characters burst into ecstasies of philosophical discourse on the nature of... more info

• Fantastic, my favourite Woody Allen film
  This is such a funny film. Some of the lines, and the slapstick, are amazingly funny. I've seen it several times and parts of it still crack me up. The film making is also brilliant, and the use of music fits astoundingly well. Most of all, though, it makes me laugh like nobody's business.

• I LOVE this film to DEATH
  Never mind the plot because it peters out into nothing in the end. It's a good setting and the plot is clear, but Napoleon isn't killed along with a lot of shananigans at the end of the film. This renders it a series of connected scenes more than a story. You will forgive this disappointment because the film is so funny and brilliant. In fact, the scene in which Boris can kill Napoleon is plain excruciating. This could be a positive excrutiation for some, but for me it's too sexist and annoying. You have to... more info

• Nice one
  If the Marx Brothers had ever done a take on `War and Peace', the result would probably have been something like this. Allen wasn't quite at his peak with `Love and Death', but it's nonetheless well worth viewing and has much to recommend it.
  Allen's character, Boris, is small and cowardly but finds himself reluctantly thrust, complete with butterfly net, into the Russian army to fight against Napoleon. He leaves behind his cousin Sonja (Keaton) with whom he's madly in love and she in turn is in love... more info

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