Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask

Plot synopsis:
The credits at the start and close of the film are played over a backdrop of a large mass of white rabbits, to the tune of "Let's Misbehave" by Cole Porter.The film is divided into seven vignettes, as follows:"Do Aphrodisiacs Work?"Set in the Middle Ages of England, a court jester (Woody Allen) gives a love potion to the Queen (Lynn Redgrave) but is foiled by her chastity belt. He tries to score with her, but gets discovered by the king (Anthony Quayle) and is sent to the execution block. (Note: There are references to Shakespeare's Hamlet throughout.)"What Is Sodomy?"
Dr. Ross (Gene Wilder) is an American medical doctor who falls in love with the partner of an Armenian patient, a sheep named Daisy. Then Ross' wife (Elaine Giftos) finds out and after a messy divorce, he ends up with nothing and the sheep is sent away back to Armenia, leaving Ross to end up a homeless derelict."Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm?"Allen's homage to Italian film-making in general and Casanova 70, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Federico Fellini in particular (filmed in Italian), about Gina (Louise Lasser), a woman who can only reach orgasm in public which puts a strain on her husband Fabrizo (Woody Allen)."Are Transvestites Homosexuals?"Sam Musgrave (Lou Jacobi) is a middle-aged married man who experiments with women's clothes during a visit to his daughter's in-laws. But things go awry when he is stranded outside the house in full drag which draws a crowd after his purse is stolen."What Are Sex Perverts?"A parody of the television game show What's My Line? called What's My Perversion?, filmed in black and white kinescope-style and hosted by Jack Barry (playing himself). The four panelists (Regis Philbin, Robert Q. Lewis, Pamela Mason, and Toni Holt) attempt to guess the contestant's perversion. After they fail to guess that the contestant's perversion is "Likes to expose himself on subways," a second segment of the show is presented, in which a selected viewer (in this case a rabbi) gets to act out his bondage and humiliation fantasy while his wife eats pork."Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate?"Victor (Woody Allen), a researcher, and Helen Lacey (Heather MacRae), a journalist, visit a certain Dr. Bernardo (John Carradine), a researcher who formerly worked with Masters and Johnson but now has his own laboratory complete with a hunchback lab assistant named Igor (Ref Sanchez). After they see a series of bizarre sexual experiments underway at the lab and realize the researcher is insane, they escape before Helen becomes the subject of another of his experiments. The segment culminates with a scene in which the countryside is terrorized by a giant runaway breast created by the researcher. (Note: The first part of this segment is a parody of Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster, while the second part is a parody of The Blob.)"What Happens During Ejaculation?"The NASA-like mission control center in a man's brain (headed by Tony Randall and featuring Burt Reynolds as the lead switchboard operator) is seen, as he gets involved in a sexual clinch with an NYU graduate (Erin Fleming) (knowledge that she is a graduate of NYU assures coital success). As he achieves orgasm, the soldier-like, white-uniformed sperm creatures (one of them played by bespectacled Allen, coached by another sperm played by Robert Walden) are dispatched paratrooper-style into the great unknown to make babies.

Tags: pornographic, psychedelic, humor, satire

Review:
The film is entirely about sexual perversions, even though it is not technically erotic Allen has taken some of the most popular clinical treatments of sexual fetishes and has placed them into very unusual situations Gene Wilder, for example, falls in love with a sheep; Woody Allen plays a medieval court jester who gets his lance stuck in his lady's chastity belt while the king is off fighting in the Crusades; a giant breast is released upon the countryside; an Italian couple can only find happiness in public sex; and we are taken into the inner labors of a male human body as it tries to seduce a woman in a carEach individual scene is quite well done The tales are rapid filled with irony about the overly exaggerated importance of sex in our culture.
Many of the sketches are too long and "peter" out, but ALL of them have very funny jokes and insight, but two of the sketches are classics and are as funny as anything Allen ever wrote: Gene Wilder's bit where he plays a man who is destroyed after a certain "fetish" is introduced into his life and the last sketch, where they show the inside controls of a man's body as he gets ready to have sex with a date: Burt Reynolds and Tony Randall help run the master control room.
True, this 1972 collection of extremely lewd skits isn't quite as impressive and thought-provoking as some of Allen's best works, like 'Annie Hall', 'Manhattan' or for that matter even the follow-up 'Sleeper'; yet there's an energy to 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know' that Allen has not shown for at least a decade, and in that light it's still entirely classic.If anything, the film is closest in its spirit to early Allen films like 'Bananas' and 'Sleeper', but it actually feels more like a British comedy, and is clearly influenced by shows like 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and 'The Benny Hill Show', in it's chaotic and rude humor.
Even more Pythonish is the fabricated game-show 'What's Your Perversion'.The best and most memorable is the last skit, entitled 'What Happens During Ejaculation', in which Allen does a wonderful portrayal of a sperm, and we catch a glimpse of the action in the control room of a man's body during sexual intercourse.
Still, it's not without it's unforgettable moments; other than Wilder, also worthy of special praise is John Carradine who is wonderful as the ultimate parody of a mad scientist, and let's not forget Woody Allen as a fool in the Middle Ages misquoting Hamlet and getting his hand stuck up the Queen's chastity belt, and his wonderful performance as an Italian Casanova.So no, it's not quite one of Allen's best films, but it's close.
While all the early Woody Allen films are funny and worthwhile, this is probably the most uneven to my taste.Allen took the famous, serious non-fiction book about sex, and turned it into a series of short comedy pieces.
A couple segments are pure genius (inside the male body during sex, Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep), a couple are pretty good (Woody as a medieval court jester trying to have an affair with the queen, who is locked into a chastity belt, a mad scientist creates a giant milk squirting breast that goes on a rampage) and a few are real duds.
Representing something of an early high point in Woody Allen's career, this scattershot spoof of David Rueben's highly popular sex-manual has become somewhat sadly overlooked in favour of the more mature and whimsical charms of 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan', but 'Everything you always wanted to know about sex' is just as enjoyable as his later works, if not more so.Although the overt intellectualism that many of Allen's detractors criticize in his subsequent work is already beginning to take form here, not only in the concept (seriously, who'd adapt a sex-manual?) but also in execution, which owes more to the high-brow Fellini and Godard than the low-brow Mel Brooks or John Waters, includes a great deal of metaphysical surrealism, bizarre camera angles and deliberately self-indulgent dialog.
The reason it all comes together without succumbing to self-importance is down to the simplicity and stupidity of most of the set pieces.The more interesting segments come at the beginning of the film, and if seeing Woody trying hopelessly to unlock Lynn Redgrave's chastity belt and miss-quoting Shakespeare to form a condemnation of T.B. doesn't bring a smile to your face, then the sight of Gene Wilder in the throws of foreplay with a sheep will probably do little to convert you.
And even if he is less confident when trying to be socio-satirical, as in the molestation game show, Woody still manages to inject a wit and ingenuity to the proceedings, always carrying off the gags to his trademark self-deprecating style.However, despite technical assuredness, the finished product borders on the same hit and miss territory that befalls most anthology films, however, it has to be handed to Allen for making a genuinely intelligent movie that basically celebrates boob-gags and outbursts of rampant misogyny.
Amazing to think that in just two years time he was writing himself as a lothario who was exceptionally good in bed.In conclusion, then, a worthwhile view if you're a student of film or a fan of Woody's, but if you're watching this one for the comedy then it's purely hit-and-miss..
Dividing the movie in 7 different segments (with some not including himself in the leading role) was the best Woody Allen could do, and this movie works better than his previous attempt (Bananas) and his posterior `Sleeper'.In a way, it's less ambitious and targets all audiences.
But in terms of experimenting with form, it is one of the very best that Woody has come up with, at a time when he was making his "early, funny movies".The highlights for me include the climactic (err, maybe pun intended) end sequence showing the inner workings (with Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds present in the control room) of intercourse; the faux game show involving sexual questions (and yes, that is Regis Philbin) with a truly belly-laugh of a finale involving a Jewish mother; best is the Gene Wilder sheep scene, which was my favorite when I first saw the film as a kid.
Forever unwilling to go with the flow of conventional movie making, Woody Allen went to the "off limits" topic of sex with his 1972 feature Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask. Bringing together an all-star cast including Gene Wilder, Burt Reynolds, and Tony Randall, in a way only Woody Allen can, in a series of vignettes to explore the book by David Reuben of the same title.
Seven separate episodes make one movie, and the only thing they all have in common is their subject matter and the fact that they were excerpts from Reuben's book.In the first episode, Woody Allen acts as a jester trying to seduce the queen in an effort to find out if aphrodisiacs work.
This is quite funny, but far too brief, as the concept could have been stretched out a bit more."Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate?" is a Frankenstein parody where Allen and Heather MacRae play recently acquainted sex researchers who meet a great sexologist (John Carradine), only to discover that he's a diabolical madman.
All in all, however, I find this quite dated as well.While my overall impressions is that EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX is quite dated, it's funny enough, and the portions with Allen as an Italian lover and Wilder as a befuddled doctor make it worth seeing at least once..
What the book and the movie do have in common however is that they are products of their time (post-sexual revolution, pre-politically correctness) and as such their outlook on their common topic is a bit dated.SEX, the movie, is best thought of as being seven individual short films; a few that are hilarious or at least clever, and a couple that just fall flat.
Faces like Lynn Redgrave, Carradine, Tony Randall, Burt Reynolds, Barry etc are all good but only really serve to distract.Overall fans will enjoy this example of his `earlier funnier work' but for others they may find that too many of the jokes don't hit as hard as you'd want and some just plain misfire.
Whether it's the nerdy court jester (Allen) who wants to do it with the queen, Dr. Doug Ross (Gene Wilder) having an affair with a sheep, the most unusual game show, a man's experiences in transvestitism, the attack of the giant breast, or the epic tale of an ejaculation, the whole movie is a laugh riot.
As you might imagine, there are some great lines, particularly in the medieval sequence.One thing that I've always wondered about is what in Woody Allen's life prompted to make so many movies like this.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask is a sketch-based sex comedy from Woody Allen's so-called 'funny period'.
But when you watch a slut whipping a rabbi while his wife eats pork to fulfill one of his pervert fantasies, you know it's a Woody Allen film and the tone is less innocent than what it seems, 'rising above vulgarity' if I might use this quote from Mel Brooks.The movie is a kaleidoscopes of many issues involving sex: aphrodisiacs, transvestites, frigidity, one hilarious spoof of "What's my Line" transformed into "What's My Perversion", science, bestiality etc.
and the film reaches its paroxysm of hilarity through the final segment: a sexual act recounted from the perspective of a NASA mission where everything is operated from the brain, a la "Fantastic Voyage" with a nice teamwork between Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds, this is one of the highlights of Woody Allen's zany period and the sight of all the little sperms waiting like paratroopers for the orgasm and wondering what awaits him on the other side, makes me laugh just thinking about them.You got it; gags are the film's reason to be, while sex is only the set-up of Allen's sketches.
The part is a great homage to 50's B-movies, with a giant tit as a blob-like monster, like a clever satire on the feminist revolution in march swallowing everyone attempting to block its path.The segments aren't equally hilarious, a nice parody of Italian movies lacked a punch-line, but this never hurts the film as the main purpose is to us about the taboo-ness of sex through laughs.
It's not the best of Woody Allen, but it's fantastically creative and entertaining and constitutes a summit of his crazy period, and I'm pretty sure the last segment carries half the film's classic status.Now, do I know better or not about sex?
Woody Allen wrote, directed and co-stars in this groovy comedy, an in-name-only movie version of Dr. David Reuben's best-selling sex encyclopedia, with episodes spotlighting aphrodisiacs, sodomy (or rather, bestiality), orgasms, transvestism, et al.
This format's visual realization results in what could best be described as series of disparate comedy shorts that only are bound together by their subject matter (S-E-X!!) and the film's writer/director/performer, Woody Allen.BEING ONE OF Mr. Allen's true fans of his earlier work, we rank this very high on the list of his movies.
Not really.Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) from 1972 isn't exactly an educational film about sex.No, it shows seven zany stories about sex and matters related to that.The first sequence, where Woody the court jester wants to make love to the queen, is funny.In the second, another funny one we see a doctor, played by the hilarious Gene Wilder, falling in love with a sheep.A sexual relationship between a man and a sheep is a taboo that Woody Allen wasn't afraid to use in this movie.Also, seeing Lou Jacobi in drag is, not really a taboo but funny all the same.What's My Perversion, hosted by Jack Barry with panelists such as Regis Philbin, could find a wide audience today.Let's mention a few other actors I haven't mentioned in this review.There's John Carradine playing Dr. Bernardo (in the one with the giant tit).Louise Lasser is Gina, who can reach orgasm only in public places.Anthony Quayle is The King while Lynn Redgrave plays The Queen.Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds are The Operator and Switchboard inside a man's brain.Sidney Lumet's father, Baruch Lumet, plays Rabbi Baumel with a perversion.The movie starts and ends with Cole Porter's "Let's Misbehave".The movie is based on Dr. David Reuben's book of the same name (1969), that I have been afraid to read.This movie is often hilarious, sometimes mildly amusing, but nevertheless classic Woody Allen..
Because in this film Sodomy is synonymous with Beastiality and either Allen is telling some kind of joke about how people know nothing about sodomy and incorrectly identify it, or somebody needs to buy him an anatomy book...actually the scene in question with Gene Wilder (that's Willy Wonka to most) and the sheep he's come to love is priceless.
The director himself appears in four of the stories, allowing him to further develop the famous neurotic, ashamedly-Jewish persona that would bring him such success in later years.It goes without saying that, had a respected name like Woody Allen not been attached to the project, I would never have bothered watching 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972).' Comedies concerning such a topic often have a tendency to be vulgar and disgusting, and, though it has its occasional moments, Allen's film generally exhibits a respectability that tastefully explores material that would ordinarily be deemed distasteful.
However it is full of laugh out loud moments, especially What is Sodomy and the second last sketch, and stand out performances from Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Gene Wilder and John Carradine.
Four episodes out of the seven in this collections of skits stand out for me: Lynn Redgrave as a horny Queen with a chastity belt, and Woody Allen as the Fool trying to remove it; Gene Wilder and his affair with a sheep; the 'What's My Perversion?' TV programme; and, best of all, the final sketch where Woody is a sperm about to be fired into a woman on a first date.
That's what i felt about the first segment, where Woody plays a court jester who seduces a queen.2) Gene Wilder is great - but his segment, of a man in love with a sheep, was just too twisted for me.3) The segment sending up tacky italian movies is pretty good - maybe the best thing here.4) The segment with the giant boob is many people's favourite.
This struck me as a bit of a gimmick, although those who are more familiar than I with the back catalogues of Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini might find something to enjoy.And finally the bad:- "Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate?" This was obviously intended as a parody of cheap fifties horror films, but Woody clearly had difficulty integrating this particular concept into his overall scheme of making a series of sketches on the theme of sex.
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX isn't really based upon the best selling book , the movie just uses the format for a series of sketches involving sex with captions like ...Do Aphrodisiacs Work ?
3 etc etc etc Some of the sketches work very well like the idea of a body being ruled by lots of other little beings , or the bad taste love story involving Gene Wilder's Doctor , some work okay like a mad scientist creating a giant breast or a court jester having an affair with a princess and only one really fails namely the Italian art house movie As a sex comedy it may seem rather tame now but by the same logic it's rather inoffensive which isn't actually a criticism The answers to he questions are 1 - Yes as long as the aphrodisiac is green and has a $ on it2 - It's when a living creature has a guilty conscience and their partner is unable to sit down because of it 3 - When's the last time you saw a road map with the town of Orgasm on it ?.
I particularly liked the episode with Gene Wilder and the sheep and the last one, where Woody Allen himself (who appears in four episodes in different roles) plays a neurotic sperm.
There is no question that when funny the film is at Allen's most memorably zany and inspired: his homage to Italian film-making, dealing with exhibitionism is hilarious and effortlessly stylish, a send up of campy science fiction showing a giant breast rampaging the countryside is gleefully hysterical madness, and his legendary final sketch, detailing the inner workings of the brain and sperm during sexual intercourse is a masterpiece of comedic cunning and genius.
The segment involving Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep is one such miss - on one hand, it's surreal and the idea is sort of funny; but it's only an idea and the lack of gags means that it fails to generate any real laughs (and that's what the film is going for - laughs).
"Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)" (is this a long title for a movie or is this a long title for a movie?) is the most ambitious and expensive film that Woody Allen had made up to that point (1972) in his career.
SPOILERS Before "Sleeper", long before "Annie Hall" and prior to any of his other major films, comedy genius Woody Allen adapted, directed and starred in this series of sketches about sexual taboos.
Whether it's Woody himself as a sperm or as a court jester, or Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" takes it's characters on one long ride of jokes and humiliation.