You won't be disappointed!

Load of rubbish!!

A different way of telling a story

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Combing through Woody Allen's filmography back-to-back has revealed many gems to me that I was not expecting. The best of this undiscovered gems so far is Broadway Danny Rose. Whether it be in person or on the internet, I haven't run across too many people who cite Broadway Danny Rose as a favorite Woody Allen film, yet here I am three days after watching it for the first time and I can't get it out of my head. There is so much to like about Broadway Danny Rose that I am mesmerized I haven't heard more about it. The 1984 film written/directed by and starring Woody Allen follows Allen as a Broadway talent agent hopelessly trying to keep his best client. In what turns into a cat-and-mouse game of mistaken identity, Broadway Danny Rose is a hilarious take on philosophical ideas and one that may be among the director's best work. At the Carnegie Deli, one afternoon a table of comics are reminiscing about their professional lives. The conversation turns to someone they all know, Danny Rose (Woody Allen) and an incident involving him that took place 10 years prior. Danny is a talent agent who represents the clients that are unable to get better representation. His clients always leave him once they develop their acts, despite his desperate attempts to continue representing them. One such client, Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte) is loyal to Danny Rose until his girlfriend Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow) convinces him he can find someone better. On the night before a big performance, Tina suddenly is reluctant to go to the show, finding a conscience about dating a married man. Lou, however, is refusing to go on until Tina is there which means Danny Rose must go find her and bring her back to the venue so Lou can perform his routine. When Danny finds Tina, he also discovers that she has ties to the mafia through her ex- husband who is still involved. He is infuriated when he sees Tina with Danny Rose, who he assumes is her boyfriend. What started out as a simple pick-up and drop-off turns into Danny trying to outrun the mob and save his life. Broadway Danny Rose may sound like a silly film about mistaken identity and the mafia, but in reality, it is actually a stunning portrait of loyalty and suffering told through humor. Danny gives his all to his clients and is constantly abandoned despite his efforts. No amount of loyalty can keep anyone with him creating a lonely life for Danny. Woody Allen delivers a wonderful line in the film in which he says: "You know what my philosophy of life is? That it's important to have some laughs, but you gotta suffer a little too, because otherwise, you miss the whole point to life." This quote speaks to the way in which Woody Allen addressed his artistic trials with the meaning of life in Broadway Danny Rose, a trial which presents itself in every film I've seen of his so far, in one way or another. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I enjoy the consistent theme of Woody Allen's films; it's a testament to Woody as an artist that he grapples with such real issues, issues that he the man faces every day, through his work. The opening of Broadway Danny Rose was perfect--the comics reminiscing and talking in the deli about the same person then seeing their story played out on screen was exceptionally well done. I expect brilliant openings from Woody Allen films at this point, and Broadway Danny Rose is among my favorite openings of Allen's films. I haven't mentioned it yet, but I am greatly enjoying the use of Black and White in Allen's films. Especially in Broadway Danny Rose, the black and white photography adds to the realization that we are witnessing a memory, while also adding brilliant character to such a hapless guy that the audience can't help but love. The entire film is beautifully shot and perfectly scored culminating in one of the most beautiful endings I have ever seen in cinema. There isn't an aspect about Broadway Danny Rose that doesn't work and I'm still trying to figure out why this isn't more often regarded as one of Woody Allen's best works.

Review: The beginning of of this movie was reasonably funny, when the guys around the table was chatting about Danny Rose and his weird clients, but it goes downhill when Allen comes into play. The movie is about Allen protecting his one important client, who is a singer/comedian who can only work properly if he has his mistress in his life, but when she finds out about his womanising, Allen tries his best to get them back together so he can go back to work. I didn't really find this movie that funny, but is was good to see that Mia Farrow can play a different type of role. Woody Allen is playing his usual million words per minute type of role but the film isn't based on troubled relationships like most of his other projects. Don't get me wrong, he does have to sort out his clients troubled relationship through most of the movie, but there are other aspects to the film which take over that aspect. Personally, I didn't find the film that interesting, but it's better than some Woody Allen movies that I have seen. Average!Round-Up: This movie wasn't badly written but I just couldn't get into the scenes with Allen and Farrow. The whole mafia concept could have come into play a bit more and I would have liked to see some more scenes with his weird clients, who made me laugh at the beginning of the film, but it's obvious that Allen just wanted to concentrate on his relationship with Farrow. As I hadn't heard anything about the movie before, I wasn't totally disappointed, but it's not the type of film that I would be watching again anytime soon.Budget: $8million Worldwide Gross: $10.6millionI recommend this movie to people who are into there Woody Allen movies about an entertainment agent who tries to sort out his one important clients love life so he can work properly. 3/10

Woody Allen is Danny Rose, the fervent yet hapless manager of a bunch of desperate veterans artists who try to make their 'Broadway' in the cruel world of entertainment. There is a lousy ventriloquist with a stammer who can't even grab the attention of kids during birthday parties, one is such an expert in hypnosis that he can't even awaken his victims, there is also a balloon-toddler, a glass player , piano-playing birds, and Lou Canova, a has-been Italian lounge singer who sings an unbearably catchy tarantella called "Agita". These artists are so lousy that the premise of "Broadway Danny Rose" is already funny by itself and it does provide some of the best jokes of the film but as we get deeper in the film, we can see that Woody Allen doesn't make these jokes for pure comedic sake. There is a little heart beating within the story of Danny Rose, a tale about a man who, more than anyone, loves his job and even more, loves the people he happens to manage."Broadway Danny Rose" carries the same charm as Tim Burton's "Ed Wood", the film about the worst director of all time who fulfilled his passion of making films and loved it. This is the core of Danny Rose's story, told in flashback by a group of comedians eating in Carnegie's Deli. And the more we get into it, the better we understand their enthusiasm and their fondness toward the man. They do tell funny stories but we know they don't laugh at him, but at the crazy situations provoked by his total dedication to his job. In fact, they all respect both the artist and the man. And the 'greatest story' about Danny Rose is simply the tribute to a man who took his job so personally that he gave letters of nobility to the notion of 'personal manager', maybe the only profession where you can't hide behind the eternal "it's not personal" alibi, his business is strictly personal, and his devotion to reconcile Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte) to his mistress Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow), forces the admiration. Danny never abandons his artist, in fact, he doesn't even consider 'abandoning' as an option.But I make the film sound too serious while I was just praising its most underrated value. Overall, the film is purely and simply Woody Allen's comedic talent back on the road. After the depressing "Interiors", the dreadful "Stardust Memories" and the perplexing "A Midsummer's Night Sex Comedy", hardly are the highlights of Allen's career, "Broadway Danny Rose" seals the rebirth of a comical treasure and the starting of his greatest cinematic streak. Followed by "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Radio Days", the 80's are marked by a Woody Allen at the top of his game, able to mix between comedy, romance and life introspections with an extraordinary combination of wit and creativity. And it all starts with the adventure of Danny Rose, the man who'd struggle to be 'the beard', in agents' jargon's, to pretend to be the boyfriend of Tina, Mia Farrow barely recognizable as the typical Italian mob girl. The situation worsens when Danny fails to explain to a jealous Italian gangster in love with Tina that he's only 'the beard', which gets him in a cat-and-mouse chase with the Italian mob. Danny Rose's adventure with Tina occupies three quarters of the film, where every single Allen's line is pure comedic gold, so perfectly written it never even distract from the narrative.One of the most famous exchanges occurs when he quotes his Rabbi who used to say that "we're all guilty in the eyes of God." Tina asks him "Do you believe in God?" to which Rose retorts: "No, no. But I'm guilty over it." The line is not only hilarious but it's totally fitting the discussion about guilt, and the fact that Tina could never feel guilty, foreshadows the emotional pay-off at the ending when she would realize that 'she did something wrong'. Without having the depth of a character study, "Broadway Danny Rose" features a series of jokes that work whether you take them in or out of their context. At one part, he asks if a man who was shot in the eyes went blind, before realizing that the bullet "had to come through", this is not just hilarious, but it also highlights in a very smart way his total anti-violent nature and inoffensiveness, comparing a field of reeds to "Vietnam", or himself to "Moses" and refusing to go on the water because he's a "landlocked Hebrew". You'll have a hard time to figure if it's the adventure that carry the gags or vice-versa, and it's as impossible as thinking of the comedic effect of a shootout in a helium factory without smiling.Gangsters, streetwise Italian 'broad', tarantellas, Family, there is a strong Italian feel in the film as if Allen decided to parody the archetypes of Italian to better highlight the bizarreness of his 'Jewishness' in an ethnic mess, and it marvelously works because Woody Allen has an incredible talent to use ethnic humor every time with a lighthearted wit and the appealing wisdom of self-derision. The whole film is an exaggeration of cultural traits and stereotypes, but is it surprising when the main character is a man with an exaggerated passion for his job and a more curious exaggerated faith in his artists' talent, no matter how bad they are. Danny Rose is the last rampart to resist Broadway's unflappable money-oriented policy, an independent worker, maybe an embodiment of Woody Allen's vision of himself in the world of Cinema. And after his experimental takes on Fellini, Bergman or Shakespeare, we realize that Woody Allen is never as great as when he's being himself, a true author in the field of comedy, wit and creativity. And "Broadway Danny Rose" is one of his best.

This was an absolute delight, no way around it. Simple, hilarious and ultimately beautiful. I love the interesting ways that he structures his films and this one has one of the best techniques yet; the story is told as a story, told by a group of comics just hanging out at a restaurant shooting the breeze. It's a great way into the narrative and gives the film a very loose, vintage feeling. It truly does feel like a story that a veteran comic is telling around a table of friends. The black and white shooting helps even more in this interesting tone that he established, it all comes together beautifully.Usually Woody Allen's films benefit from their large casts of great scene-stealers but here he relies almost entirely on the chemistry between him and Mia Farrow and it was such a wise move. What we get is this delightful little adventure movie with the two of them constantly bantering with classic Woody dialogue, "I don't wanna badmouth the kid, but he's a horrible, dishonest, immoral louse. And I say that with all due respect." I feel like Allen is underrated as an actor because people feel he always "plays himself", but I think he's great and always manages to add layers to his characters. Yes, there's the neurotic cynicism in everything he does, but there's always something more (and honestly even if there wasn't I would be fine watching him ramble on forever). In Deconstructing Harry there was the brutally sad undertones of a man who had spent his life trying to find happiness only to find himself alone and lost in his work, but here was a man who had spent his life trying to find happiness for others only to find himself used and abused. As wildly fun as a film like this is, there's also an aspect of it that absolutely breaks my heart.The final act was surprisingly solemn and depressing (although there's the classic smile of an ending), but the film shined brightest when Farrow and Allen were just being wild and bouncing off each other. Farrow was unrecognizable here, for a while I wasn't even sure it was her. Behind large sunglasses and a wild wig, she totally disappears and it's the most fun I've had watching a performance in a while. She is so in control and absorbed in this character, it's a riot. The two of them are tremendous in a wickedly entertaining film that in the end has a lot of heart and something important to say about the industry. Another work of Woody genius.