'' (
1973 ) is a futuristic
Science Fiction Comedy Film , written by, directed by, and starring
Woody Allen .
In the movie, The Happy Carrot health food store owner Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) is hospitalized in Saint Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan for an
Ulcer operation (having gone into the hospital for a check of a
Peptic Ulcer ), but ends up in the
Liquid Nitrogen tanks of an immortality institution. He is revived 200 years later in the year 2173 by a subversive organization, as he is the only member of this society without a known
Biometric identity. The authorities question a power surge at the institute and Monroe is arrested and escapes and lives on the run. Monroe joins the rebels as an action commando with the idle Luna Schlosser (
Diane Keaton , in a role similar to the one she played in ''
Manhattan '').
The
Dictator ial leader of the society has been killed by a rebel bomb, but this has not been revealed publicly. The only surviving body part is the leader's
Nose . It is the intent of the administration to
Clone the leader from this single remaining part (The Aries Project). A rebel group led by the charismatic Erno Windt (
John Beck ) intends to disrupt this attempt by stealing and "assassinating" the nose. The unidentifiable Miles Monroe, the only man with no identity in this future age, is essential to accomplishing this task.
This early Allen movie features some memorable concepts, such as ''
Orgasmatron '' booths and a related ''Intoxication orb'' (passed around at parties),
Confessional Robot s,
Bioengineered Hydroponic vegetables (without any other part of the plant) such as hose-fed
Carrot s as large as a
Canoe , and the cloning of vital organs and entire persons. Many things thought unhealthy in Monroe's time (including deep fried fatty foods and smoking) are known by future scientists to be extremely good for you.
Sometime between Monroe's time in the late
20th Century and 2173 there was
Nuclear Warfare , caused "when a man named
Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear device", and due to which much history is obscure or lost. 2173 historians show Monroe some surviving 20th century artifacts (such as a set of novelty wind-up chattering teeth and a crumpled photograph of
Joseph Stalin ) and ask for explanations. The historians have developed mistaken theories about
Howard Cosell and
Richard Nixon , which Miles doesn't have the heart to refute.
Jokes include: Robots programmed to behave like
Jewish Tailor s and
Gay butlers; PhDs in
Oral Sex ; a
McDonald's restaurant with the sign "Over 795,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Served" (a total of fifty-one 0's, or 795
Sexdecillion - see photo); and an abandoned 200-year old
Volkswagen Beetle that starts up instantly.
- According to his book ''Woody Allen on Woody Allen'', he originally wanted to do a 3 hour film, Part 1 of it being a New York comedy, the second half taking place in the future. The project was actually greenlit, however Allen decided to abandon the first half and just do the second.
- In 2000 , readers of '' Total Film '' magazine voted ''Sleeper'' the 30th greatest comedy film of all time.
- The Internet Movie Database lists . Rain provided the voice of the computer HAL 9000 .
''Sleeper'' was a box office hit in North America, grossing $18,344,729 in its theatrical run.
Critic
Pauline Kael reviewed the film positively but warily in the
December 31 ,
1973 issue of
The New Yorker . She wrote:
- The Woody Allen character suffers, in all his films, from sex in the head which he figures his body can't get for him. It's the comedy of sexual inadequacy; what makes it hip rather than masochistic and awful is that he thinks women want the media macho ideal, and we in the audience are cued to suspect, as he secretly does, that that's the real inadequacy (social even more than sexual). Woody Allen is a closet case of potency; he knows he's potent, but he's afraid to tell the world-- and adolescents and post-adolescents can certainly identify with that.... Maybe the reason he doesn't invest others with comic character (or even villainous character) is that he's so hung up that he has no interest in other people's hangups; that could be why his stories never really build to the big climactic finish one expects from a comedy.... It's likely that he sees his function as being all of us, and since he's all of us, nobody else can be anything.
In addition, ''Sleeper'' won the
Hugo Award at the Washington, D.C. World Science Fiction Convention in 1974.
- Miles: "Don't you see? Political solutions never work! That's what I've been trying to tell you! In six months, we'll be stealing Erno's nose!"
- Historian (showing Miles a tape of Howard Cosell ): "We have a theory, that whenever a citizen committed a crime against the state, they were forced to watch this."
:Miles: "Yes, that's exactly what that was."
- Miles: "I bought Polaroid stock at seven, it must be up ''millions'' by now!"
:(''N.B.'' At the time of the film's release in 1973, Polaroid was a high-flier but the company eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2001.)
- Miles: "My Brain...that's my second favorite organ!"
- Miles (when asked by Luna what the phrase "register commies, not guns" meant): "Oh, he was probably a member of the National Rifle Association . It was a group that helped criminals get guns so they could shoot citizens. It was a public service."
- Miles "It's a 200-year-old Volkswagen! (''car starts instantly'') Wow, they really built these things, didn't they?"
- In the film's German dub, the above Volkswagen scene provided for a special in-joke particularly for German audiences as after the car starts, it is Miles's chance to satisfiedly utter Volkswagen's original German slogan for the bug that they used for decades and that remains one of the most popular commercial slogans in Germany of all: ''"Tja...'Läuft und läuft und läuft!'!"'' (lit. "(It) runs and runs and runs.") The irony lies in that Volkswagen's German slogan was actually meant to claim thereby that their cars were truly built "for all eternity".
- Dr. Melik: (listing items Miles had requested for breakfast) "... wheat germ, organic honey, and... Tiger's Milk."
:Dr. Aragon: "Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties."
:Dr. Melik: "You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?"
:Dr. Aragon: "Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."
:Dr. Melik: "Incredible!"
