Woody Allen is equal parts Marx Brother and America’s one man answer to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, as Fielding Mellish, a neurotic man who loves political activist Nancy (Louise Lasser) almost as much as he values his own self-preservation. After Mellish is dumped by Nancy for being immature – “emotionally, sexually and intellectually” – he travels to San Marcos to learn first-hand the political revolution that his ex-girlfriend was so passionate about. In hilarious skit-like storytelling, Mellish is saved by revolutionaries from a fascist government’s assassination plot, installed as their President (complete with a Fidel Castro style fake beard and mustache) and put on trial back in the U.S. for political fraud and “using the word ‘thighs’ in mixed company.” Released in 1971, Bananas successfully skewered the media’s coverage of the Vietnam war, with the film’s opening assassination coup scene, covered by Howard Cosell and the Wide World of Sports.
