Woody Allen is more of a schlemiel than usual in Broadway Danny Rose and it's not as hilarious as some of his comedies. However, there are some very funny throw-way lines delivered more or less as a side-dish rather than as the main course. The premise -- Woody as a talent agent with the worst acts imaginable as his clients and one half-way good has-been (Nick Apollo Forte) whose career is revived by a nostalgia craze for singers of yesteryear. Broadway Danny who gives very personal service to his clients wangles an audition for the singer, Lou Canova, with Milton Berle and must bring Canova's mistress to the performance to keep his client in working order. Danny is a "beard" in Damon Runyon terms (a pretend boyfriend to disguise the mistress from the wife). Canova's mistress (Mia Farrow) is also the beloved of a guy who belongs to a crime family and when Danny takes her away, his two-hit man brothers vow to murder this interloper. The mistress, meanwhile, has convinced Lou Canova to abandon Danny for an agent with better connections. Other complications that needn't be recounted ensue, but eventually the mistress regrets what she's done and visits Danny to apologize. The implication at the end is that she and Danny will fall in love. During most of the movie, Mia Farrow wears large sun glasses and a blonde wig in her role as a brassy broad with few morals and no conscience. Only at the end, as she feels sorry for what she's done, do the sun glasses disappear and Farrow emerges as the delicate beauty she was when this movie was made. A typical Allen gesture frames the movie. A number of relatively obscure comedians, playing themselves, are gathered at the famed Carnegie Deli exchanging jokes and comic tales. The movie is launched as an extended anecdote told by one of the comedians about Broadway Danny. This is not among Woody's best but it's still worth seeing if you're a fan of his work.
Review of Broadway Danny Rose
