Serfs up laffs

Rating: 8/10 (30 March 2019)

Probably my favourite of Woody Allen's early comedies is this riotous send-up of Russian history and culture. Relating the life and times of a lowly Russian serf, at least, that it is, before the final reduction of expenses at the end, Allen is in full flow throughout with a non-stop barrage of scattergun gags most of which work and are laugh-out-loud funny.
Helping out as she usually did at this stage in his career is Diane Keaton as his unrequited, later quited love-interest, distant cousin Sonja and the whole is a colourful romp with plenty of humour both low-brow and high-brow, as Allen lampoons, in no particular order, Napoleon, philosophy, Russian literature, Bergman and Eisenstein as well as the order of village idiots.
Peppered with any number of hilarious comic scenes, from the seduction of a Spanish duke, to the duel with a cuckolded Russian general, the Napoleon assassination attempt and more, with the usual stop-by's for Allen's soliloquies to camera, it's beautifully shot and scored to a sparkling Prokofiev soundtrack.
Detractors of Allen's latter-day conduct will find ammunition here in in an off-colour reference to the age-gap in relationships and especially a highly distasteful reference to twelve-year-old blonde schoolgirls but for the rest of the movie I must admit I was laughing long and hard.