Cinema

Manhattan Murder Mystery (PG., Selected Cinemas)

Hope and security

Mark Steyn

Awith last year's Husbands and Wives, the temptation with the new Woody Allen movie is to inspect everything for autobio- graphical sub-text. Even the certificate Parental Guidance suggested. Hey, do they mean us or him (snigger)? But Woody's working hard here. After all the scandals, it's back to basics. Lyrical opening shot of the Manhattan skyline in heightened Emerald City tints; over the titles, I happen To Like New York, written by (naturally) Cole Porter, sung by (who else?) Bobby Short. Only the title itself momentarily confuses: Manhattan Murder Mystery has echoes of movie series like Philo Vance, detective hero of The Casino Murder Case, The Scarab Murder Case and even The Gra- cie Allen Murder Case. But Woody left for- mula comedy a long time ago, so you assume initially the title must have a dou- ble edge: like The Assassination of New York and a million other recent books, Woody's decided to finger those responsi- ble for the decline of the city he adores.

But not at all. Manhattan Murder Mystery is Woody Allen trying to pass himself off as Gracie Allen. He wants to be loved again, and who can blame him? But he's never made a film where the comedy is so anx- ious not to give offence, where the jokes are so free-floating, all-purpose, with no wider significance or penetrating insights. In its way, it's a retreat to an older, more reliable kind of therapy: escapism. Instead of brooding introspectively or (as they say on Oprah) dealing with his problems, Allen's cooked up a caper, a bit of fluff about a mysterious death in the neighbour- ing apartment. There's one token shrink

joke and the odd scene of inconclusive marital squabbling, which fizzles out almost immediately — as if Allen suddenly remembered he didn't want to do anything to remind us of his off-screen persona.

The film begins with Larry (Woody) and his wife returning home and being invited in by the neighbours for a late-night coffee, much to his annoyance: there's a Bob Hope movie on TV he wants to catch. He never does catch it, of course, and I found myself wondering exactly which Hope movie it

was. My Favourite Blonde (1942: Bob as reluctant spy, dragged along by Madeleine Carroll) or My Favourite Brunette (1947:

Bob as reluctant mob-buster, dragged along by Dorothy Lamour)? No matter. What Woody (who once wrote for Hope) is attempting is a Nineties update of the Bob- plus-spunky-chick formula.

You know the routine: the lifelong cow- ard who turns accidental hero, whose reac- tion to the plot's twists and turns is either a

double-take, a 'Say! Wait a minute', an `Are you Crazy?', or, in extreme circum- stances, all three. Physically and (I figure) politically at opposite ends of the spectrum, Hope and Allen have always practised a virtually identical screen comedy. Try this

exchange from Road to Rio: Hildegarde Neff, the villainess, on Dorothy Lamour's

forthcoming wedding: 'The whole country- side will be there'; Hope: 'How about peo- ple?' It's that kind of nervous facetiousness Woody's aiming for here. The ornament fumbling when he breaks into his neigh- bour's apartment is pure Hope. Actually, even 'Nineties update' may be putting it

too ambitiously. One or two jokes could be dropped into My Favourite Blonde and feel

right at home: as he ducks out of the opera early, Woody explains, 'I can't watch that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.' Wagner gags, Benny Goodman on the soundtrack: I'm no ana- lyst, but this guy's chewing his most reliable security blankets till there's nothing left.

As a stab at resurrecting the agreeable shnook of his Seventies films, it almost

works. But the verbal twitchiness of his character seems defensive much of the time, and the jokes sound grafted on to a perfunctory plot which off-handedly re- cycles the old tricks (hiding under the bed when the bad guy suddenly returns) with- out adding to them. Still, for a literally

Hope-less case, Manhattan Murder Mystery has one hopeful sign: the return of Diane

Keaton as Woody's leading lady. In films

like Alice, Mia Farrow seemed to suck all the life out of his comedy, turning them

sour, middle-aged and joyless. Whatever the stellar casting around her (Cybill Shep- herd, Gwen Verdon, Bernadette Peters), her blank face and whining voice were the hole in the doughnut, a hole far greater than the sum of the other parts. Here, in a role written for Farrow, Keaton restores the fun: she's fizzy, goofy, game and with an abundant supply of what Woody Allen needs most at the moment: likeability.