Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

No one plays neurotic like Dianne Wiest

A work of genius. Woody's best movie IMHO.

R2 I personally think Crimes and Misdemeanors is his best film, but Hannah is pretty close

"I'm glad you've changed."

"I'm glad you've changed, too."

I'd never heard "I've Heard That Song Before" before I saw this movie. Wonderful soundtrack.

"Hannah" is one of my favorite movies of all time, possibly b/c Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

R3, I think "Bullets Over Broadway" would be my second favorite.

If Jesus ever came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.

CLUMPY Michall Caine ruined it for me. He has zero comic timing and giving him Woody dialogue just sounded queer!

'nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands'

(Spoilers) A really good movie that seemed for a while that it would end horribly for the characters, but a happy ending was pulled off, which was actually believable.

[quote] but a happy ending was pulled off

She ended up with that GEM Woody?

What a lucky gurl!

Can you imagine the level of mind that watches wrestling?

I always imagined that this script was a pretty accurated depiction of Mia's relationship with her sisters and her mother.

Max Von Sydow was another miscast.

I think I'm alone in disliking this movie. When I saw it originally (when it came out) I was a big fan of Woody's, but it seemed like a rehash of jokes and themes I'd seen him do better with Diane Keaton. It was more conventional and sentimental than most of his previous films.

I did a thread about this a few years ago

R17 Thanks, good review.

I really am ashamed to say that I am a massive Woody Allen film fan.

Hannah

Interiors

Manhattan

Another Woman

September

Annie Hall

I love these films. There are no other films like this and Woody was an original.

Even if he is a scumbag freak..

The scene with Maureen, Mia and Lloyd Nolan with Hannah called in to play peacemaker yet again is so moving. At one point Nolan says he's not sure if Hannah is even his child and Hannah just ignores him like she's just so immune to the fighting and nasty comments that they don't even mean anything anymore. And the scene ends with the parents acting like nothing happened. Anyone who grew up with nasty drunks for parents can relate. I know I can.

Frederick on the Holocaust:

“The reason they can never answer the question "How could it possibly happen?" is that it's the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is "Why doesn't it happen more often?"”

Nailed it.

[quote] Given what people are, the question is "Why doesn't it happen more often?"”

Well obviously people aren't as bad as he likes to think.

Woody trying to be intellectual is just annoying, because he's not.

Frederick is *supposed* to be a morose, touchy blowhard and, despite his cultivated taste, not as original and intellectual as he thinks. He has no mental openness. There's a reason he has to be with younger women he can "teach."

But he does get off some great lines.

That was a good thread, R17. Alas, it's now closed. I wanted to add something there, but I'll add it here.

[quote] In real life, Woody dated Diane Keaton and had a long term relationship with Mia Farrow. So why should he write himself roles where he can’t get a beautiful woman? [quote from the old thread]

Because, in his movies, he's not playing the role of a famous director.

Dianne Wiest always elevated Woody's films. I love her in this and also in Radio Days. And she was just about the only thing I liked about Bullets Over Broadway (an unpopular opinion, I'm sure).

It's been ages since I've seen it and maybe I'll watch it again. It's easy for me to forget that Diane Wiest wasn't always terrible. She's unbearably bad for me now, every quirk and affectation that walked a knife edge before now falls flat, but her she's intriguingly imperfect. Even Mía Farrow is better than usual, having previously been good only in Rosemary's Baby -- another director showing off by using bad actors to advantage.

Hannah was the last Woody Allen film I enjoyed overall, not just in fragments.

1. Annie Hall 2. Crimes and Misdemeanors 3. Hannah and Her Sisters

bottom: Shadows and Fog

I love Woody Allen’s movies. I have watched Hannah and her sisters more times than I can say. It’s just such a great movie. Carrie Fisher singing in it, the little trip looking at the beautiful architectural buildings in the city, Bobby Short doing Cole Porter’s I’m in love again, Harry James I’ve heard that song before, well that was the first time I ever heard that and I fell in love with that and for months I would play it. The music alone is enough to watch the movie but the cast is incredible and to top it all off I happen to have made a turkey with stuffing for dinner tonight.

R9- I NEVER liked Michael Caine.

[quote]And she was just about the only thing I liked about Bullets Over Broadway

Don.t speak, r25...

I wanted Sam Waterston to end up with Dianne Wiest.

I loved his character in this

Barbara Hershey pre lip injections was gorgeous.

Loved the movie, but—in retrospective viewing, it was so 1980s yuppie-angst, well-off white!

That's the way I remember it, r33, and while I enjoyed it when I saw it (opening day in NYC), I never really revisit it.

Brooke Shields was originally supposed to play Carrie Fisher’s part.

She was also in ANNIE HALL until she was cut out.

No other living director besides Almodovar gave actresses such attention.

He actually likes women and listens to them and thinks they're funny (in real life) - most men don't see them that way. A lot ofmen don't think women are at all funny.

I've just been listening to an interesting interview with him (which I'll link) and he also makes the point of how people always seem to value humor when they list qualities they're looking for in a mate. That it's always top of the list (though, strangely this does not relate to the gays - who often have it and don't value it in themselves or others - we all know what they value, those gurls).

sorry forgot the link

I disagree about gays, r37. My husband and I have been together for almost 45 years, haven't had sex in decades, but continue to make each other laugh every day (often while cuddling). I think lots of old gay couples are like us. Can't speak for the younger ones.

I very much like most of Woody Allen's output up to Deconstructing Harry, which is where he lost me. Radio Days is probably my favorite of his and Dianne Wiest is heart-breakingly wonderful in it. I've seen Hannah many times and the more I watch it, the more I've become fascinated by Hannah and how she manipulates everyone and served as a precursor in a way to Farrow's character in Husbands and Wives where you become more clearly aware that the nice, helpful 'Mia' proxy actually manipulates everyone in her universe and then gets upset when they get angry with her when all she is trying to do is 'help.;

I'm not a big fan of Mia Farrow. I don't hate her, just not much of a fan. Allen starring her in his movies is another reason I tuned out on his films around the time of Hannah And Her Sisters. Her later career wouldn't have been much without her Woody Alen films. For a reason - there were younger, better, better-looking, more likeable and popular actresses around. I was watching her in Death On The Nile the other night, as usual she was playing someone younger than her age, and she wasn't particularly good, or good looking.

[quote]as usual she was playing someone younger than her age, and she wasn't particularly good, or good looking.

she was fucking excellent in most of his films

she's a very talented actress -even he says so, even today

but she was very passive about her career - she took what came to her and at great cost later on

she was also sharp and witty - see this for proof - probably the only talk show appearance she ever did

(OMG I'm sounding likea real Mia fangay)

I, too, love "Radio Days", R40

R42 Well, you're entitled to your opinion. I remember she had some bad reviews for The Great Gatsby, and a few years later, "the worst film of 1979" according to a few critics, The Hurricane, where she played the ingenue at 39 (and the daughter of Jason Robards, who was only about a decade older than her). I don't think the Peter Pan she did on TV held a candle to Mary Martin's. Her career was in the tank. Then she started working with Woody.

Allen wanted Jack Nicholson for the role that went to Michael Caine, and Nicholson would’ve been phenomenal.

I saw Mia on Broadway opposite Tony Perkins in Romantic Comedy. This was around the time she met Woody and I believe she was late 30s. She looked about 18 on stage and you couldn't take your eyes off her. It wasn't much of a role but I remember her being very funny and the audience loved her. Shame she didn't do more theatre.

[quote]R41 I was watching her in Death On The Nile the other night, as usual she was playing someone younger than her age, and she wasn't particularly good, or good looking.

Are you serious? She’s perfect in that.

Even after their breakup Allen continued to acknowledge her acting skills. “She can actually become different people,” he said.

She’s very special. She does have a certain gentle waif persona that’s used most often (most stars have a stock image) but she can go further, too.

I thought Farrow was brilliant in "Death on the Nile." The crazy intensity of her performance took her stock mystery character to another level and almost made the convoluted plot believable. I thought she looked great in the gorgeous period costumes too, as she did in Gatsby.

They always tell you they love you, and then they cum.

I love Reckless...

[quote]Well, you're entitled to your opinion. I remember she had some bad reviews for The Great Gatsby, and a few years later, "the worst film of 1979" according to a few critics, The Hurricane, where she played the ingenue at 39 (and the daughter of Jason Robards, who was only about a decade older than her). I don't think the Peter Pan she did on TV held a candle to Mary Martin's. Her career was in the tank. Then she started working with Woody.

Her 70s career was very stifled because she was living in England and the movie industry there was totally in the doldrums. She said she'd just take things that were made in studios near to where she lived so she could be with her children at the end of each working day. I thought she was fine in Gatsby and if she wasn't, it wasn't her fault.

I do think Mia Farrow is a good actress. Can she play a tough broad? No. But she can convey emotions.

R48 Well, she doesn't look great in that photo, if that's supposed to be proof she looked great.

It's too bad she never starred with Richard Chamberlain because they kind of talk alike. Maybe because they're both from Beverly Hills. If there's such a thing as a Beverly Hills accent.

Her Tina in "Broadway Danny Rose" was tough as nails.

[quote]Can she play a tough broad? No.

A lot of people thought she was excellent as the tough broad in Broadway Danny Rose - but she a waif, clearly tough broad is going to be a stretch for her.

[quote]If there's such a thing as a Beverly Hills accent.

I think there sort of is. My mother's cousin grew up in B. Hills and she (same age) talks just like Nancy Sinatra.

She's a fascinating person. Maybe that's too strong a word but if it's anything to go by, there used to be at least one Mia thread on DL all the time. For years!

But a few negative things came out about her personality and how she was as a mother and DL dropped her. That's very American to blow to people out in a flash.

Similar thing happened when Shirley MacLaine's daughter wrote an exposé (that many on here read/devoured and discussed at great length) and that was it for Shirley on DL.

[quote]R51 Her 70s career was very stifled because she was living in England and the movie industry there was totally in the doldrums.

She did a lot of stage work while in England. Mostly classics by Chekhov, etc.

Mia was married to Sinatra, Andre Previn, and Woody.

Damm.

I saw an interview of Mia on David Letterman. They were talking about some man (I forgot who) who had done Mia a favor and she said, "I was grateful like a dog!" It was really odd and she was serious. My take: she's a damsel in distress in her life.

[quote]She did a lot of stage work while in England. Mostly classics by Chekhov, etc.

I didn't know that.

what I never got about her - she says in her book that after school she wanted to go to India and do volunteer work, but her father died suddenly and the family needed money, so she became and actress. No training, no drama school, just straight in. A very succesful play and then Peyton Place. I guess she's just a natural.

She and Woody weren't married, r58.

[quote]I guess she's just a natural. To a degree, r60, but don't forget her parents' professions. She would have picked some of it up by osmosis.

[quote]I guess she's just a natural.

To a degree, [R60], but don't forget her parents' professions. She would have picked some of it up by osmosis.

She always seemed very cool and reticent about her fame, yet now she has Instagram and she totally plays to her audience and their fascination with her fame.

R60 You could also say she's a nepo baby.

I remember (at the time I was around 15) reading in the newspaper how her audition or test for Daisy Buchanan was compared to Vivien Leigh's for Scarlett in GWTW. (By the director or producer.) I read she had a fever at the time, and was very compelling, apparently with her temperature adding to it. Most people at the time thought of the role as a comeback of sorts, for her, as she was not a major star at the time, or "box office draw".

OK, R61.

She was married Sinatra, Andre Previn, and had a 12-year romantic relationship with Woody Allen.

damm

R66 And apparently continued to fuck Frank on the side.

The first thing that pops into my mind, whenever I see this movie mentioned:

In 1986, I worked part-time at a little hole-in-wall video store near my college campus. One day, a few months after its theatrical release (while it was still in theaters), the store owner handed me box with several new "Adult" titles to process/enter into the system. When I opened the box, the first title staring me in the face was HANNAH DOES HER SISTERS.

I just about died laughing -- "Well, OF COURSE she does!!" and "Holy shit, that was FAST!!". And I couldn't stop laughing the rest of the my shift. I'm not sure why that tickled my funny bone so much (there were many spoofy-titles), but it did.

Farrow said she "got all the best parts in the plays" in high school, and before her Broadway debut in 1963 attended many acting classes in New York, including Uta Hagen and the Actors Studio, but she didn't commit to one teacher. She felt she learned stage acting on the job and through summer stock appearances. Then she got Peyton Place.

None of that was in her book, R69.

Mai's mom was in this film - she wasn't very good in it, for whatever reason - how many years was it since she did anything on film?

R71, Mia's mom was very good in "Hannah," IMO. As posted above, O'Sullivan and the actor who played Hannah's father, were perfect as a co-dependent, alcoholic couple, dreaming of glory days past.

She's talked about it in interviews over the years R70

R9, R29 His voice and money-grubbing are unattractive.

Ad the fact that he deceives us by refusing to reveal his heritage makes him more unattractive.

Maureen O'Sullivan was in Morning's At Seven on Boradway around that time, I think. Could be wrong about the time.

*Broadway

I love this movie and I love a lot of Woody Allen’s films. He captures NY in a way no other filmmaker can. I don’t believe in the whole separating the artist from the art bullshit. That’s nonsense. But I will make an exception in his case. I worked with him once and he was really terrific.

I’m sorry for his daughter if he what he did to her is true, I don’t think we’ll ever truly know. But I’m not willing to give up his films because of it.

Nobody's making you.

[quote]Mia's mom was very good in "Hannah," IMO.

Apparently she wasn't in September.

[quote]r67 And apparently continued to fuck Frank on the side.

Wouldn’t you?

R80 Can't say I would, no. But I like his music.

Sam Waterston always comes across as a classy and intelligent man. Which has made me have the hots for him for a long time.

The actor who played the sperm donor was hilarious. After Woody's character asks for his sperm, he contemplates, out loud: "Well, I've given blood, before ..."

R83 It was Tony Roberts

I thought the subplot of him taking instruction in Catholicism was unfunny.

Woody fired Maureen from SEPTEMBER and replaced her with Elaine Stitch. That must have hurt.

Well, R86, he actually shot and cut the entire movie with Maureen, Charles Durning and Sam Shepard, all of whom he replaced when he decided to reshoot the whole thing. Not sure whether that makes the hurt more or less.

RE: Mia's acting chops -- while I remain Team Woody in the ongoing debate about that nightmarish relationship, I agree with the many who have posted in praise of her skills. I caught her in the recent Broadway LOVE LETTERS, in which she not only held her own opposite Brian Dennehy but, in the end, was even more impressive than he. (She was also meant to be wonderful in the legendary 1-night-only WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? reading with Uta Hagen, Jonathan Pryce and Matthew Broderick.)

I'm sure, r86. But he certainly went in a different direction with his second choice.

Is Interiors good?

Great cast- Geraldine Page, Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt, Kristin Griffith, Richard Jordan, Sam Waterston, Maureen Stapleton, and the great E.G. Marshall.

I don't think I've seen it since it came out, r89. I remember it being ever so somber.

Interiors is better now, than when it was new.

Interiors is fantastic. Some critics shat on it when it was released.

If nothing else Interiors is worth watching for Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and EG Marshall who are all magnificent.

Oh yeah Interiors is good. I saw it when it came out and loved it- as an angsty artsy teenager.

Saw it again a few years ago and loved it even more.

I guess it’s unintentionally funny?

Is Interiors better than Hannah and Her Sisters

I remember Maureen and I remember Geraldine and the tape...and that's it.

All I remember about Manhattan is feeling the Woody/Mariel thing was creepy and Meryl's hair.

I wish Woody would still act in his films. I always liked him in them.

Went to Carnegie deli before it closed because of Broadway Danny Rose. Potato pancakes, A Ruben. Yum. Had to wait on a line that went out and down the street.

I think I should make the point that it was the '70s and we always were stoned when we went to the movies...always.

That Maureen O'Sullivan interview at r71 is absolute gold. Thanks for posting!

She's utterly charming and hilarious and takes down Clark Gable, Groucho Marx, Norma Shearer, Will Rogers, Mr. Kenneth and of course that little homosexual Cheetah. And Dave Letterman was so cute back then.

If you don't love Interiors ..

INTERIORS is a treasure trove of pretentious Woody Allen lines -- clearly designed to impress with their intellectual content, but just as clearly puffed-up nonsense. Some favorites:

• Suddenly, 1 day, out of nowhere, an enormous abyss opened beneath our feet, and I was staring into a face I didn’t recognize.

• My impotence set in a year ago — my paralysis.

• I can’t seem to shake the real implication of dying. It’s terrifying. The intimacy of it embarrasses me.

• I’m sick of your needs! I’m tired of your idiosyncrasy and pettiness!

• I just experienced the strangest sensation. It was as if I had a sudden clear vision, where everything seems so awful and predatory. It was like I was here and the world was out there, and I couldn’t bring us together.

• You’re capable of being extraordinary, and you stop for spite! You throw everything away to spite me!

• Tell him that my work is flourishing again and that my mood swings are no longer rapid.

• Well, I can't argue it succinctly, but if you read Socrates or Buddha or Schopenhauer or even Ecclesiastes, they're very convincing.

• I look in the mirror every day, and I feel discouraged.

• It’s been such a long time since I made love to a woman that I didn’t feel inferior to! Or am I being tactless?

• You’re not just a sick woman. That would be too easy. The truth is, there’s been perverseness and wilfulness of attitude in many of the things you’ve done. At the center of a sick psyche there is a sick spirit.

I actually think that film is both overblown and dry at the same time.

It’s pretentious.

Mary Beth Hurt is the best thing about Interiors. Her every line is a howler. "We knew about your affairs when mother was in the hospital but your choices were just a little more DISCREET. "

Which film, R103? Interiors or Hannah?

Less well-known, but almost as stuffed with this sort of nonsense, is MELINDA AND MELINDA.

* Wow -- you really know your Stravinsky!

* I saw you the other night -- listening to Mahler and crying.

* I’m going back to my mother’s name. It’s French. She was Parisian.

* It’s a mostly all-female cast, and it’s called The Castration Sonata.

* If you’ve never been in a state mental hospital languishing in a straitjacket, I wouldn’t recommend one . . . especially not the one I was in -- in the Midwest.

* I brought it on myself, because I was bored . . . I was bored being a doctor’s wife, just as my mother was bored being a doctor’s wife. Like Madame Bovary.

* See, that’s why my film -- The Castration Sonata -- puts male sexuality in perspective.

* I’m a very passionate person, so sex is very important to me. I need a lot of physical intimacy, very often and creatively.

* Maybe sex is too predatory a message to send and elegance is a better opening gambit.

* Nobody does the classics like Lee. They still rave about the Strindberg series he did.

* So are they tears of sorrow or tears of joy? -- Aren’t they the same thing?

* I don’t write operas, but my life is one.

* It may seem lightly to you, but it was nothing but Hell. And if you’ve never been arrested and put on trial, well, that alone is sentence enough. The horror, the tension, the police, the journalists.

* I remember just lying in my cell at night and thinking, "My God, you are Melinda Nash, from Park Avenue. What the Hell are you doing in a women’s prison in Illinois?”

* Congratulate me: I just got canned. Well, my version differs from theirs. They would have you believe that I couldn’t hold my liquor, which anyone who knows me knows is a baseless canard.

* You have a lovely touch of the keys. I can always see straight to a person’s soul by their intonation on an instrument.

* Melinda had a reputation for being postmodern in bed.”

* I was determined not to ask you what you saw when you looked straight through to my soul, but I have to know. [the reply-->] Something very clouded -- and protective, with lots of longing -- it was, wow, there was a great longing in the notes you played.

* I’m a good lecturer. I just hope I’m not a better lecturer than a composer.

The dreadful INTERIORS

Mention must go to...

[quote]He actually likes women and listens to them and thinks they're funny (in real life) - most men don't see them that way. A lot of men don't think women are at all funny.

Does he, though? It appears from his relationships that what he likes is to get a young (or in Mia's case, blank) woman and mold her into what he thinks a woman should be, then once she's learned enough to have her own opinions he drops her. Save us from men who "like" women in that way.

I agree with R40 that (with the possible exception of The Purple Rose of Cairo) you can tell in all of the Mia films that he is not, at all, madly in love with her. In fact, in most of them there is another character, more like Diane Keaton (usually portrayed as slightly to totally batshit), who is the one the writer is really drawn to. Maybe it was because Keaton was the only one of his partners who moved on from their relationship (and with someone very much more attractive and powerful) before he did, breaking his cycle of total control. Is it too mean to suggest Mia (the ex of sex symbol Sinatra and of intellectuals' darling Andre Previn) might have been a face-saver?

R86, R87 You just say Maureen - do you mean O'Sullivan, or Stapleton? (Or O'Hara?)

Maureen O’Sullivan was the Maureen originally cast in September.

I remember seeing Interiors at the State Theater, downtown Ithaca, NY, on a Saturday night, when it came out. People generally stayed quiet for it but occasionally screamed with laughter at some of the serious lines/performances, especially Mary Beth Hurt. It wasn't particularly a college crowd, either, it was all ages.

Mary Beth Hurt in this movie is the archetypal Little Miss Prisspot.

I haven't seen it in years but I seem to remember people laughing when the cast was placing roses on something - the mother's coffin? I don't know.

Just the name “Mary Beth Hurt” is very prisspot and Mary!

Why did Mary Beth Hurt’s career go straight down the shitter?

She was great in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (a criminally underrated film).

So I bought this film last night due to this thread. I'm one of the "thumbs down" people of this thread - but I wanted to see it again after all this talk.

It starts with Michael Caine's dreadful flat voice saying something like "God she's beautiful!" and what we see is ordinary looking Barbara Hershey's pale face and the worst shaggy '80s perm in the history of cinema.

here it is

R44, I love your selection. It is sort of like saying Olivier was not a great actor based on his performances in The Betsy and Clash of the Titans.

I have seen Hannah and Her Sisters probably 25 times although I agree that Crimes and Misdemeanors is the better film. Crimes is Woody Allen's masterpiece. Hannah gets in your soul. The scene in the restaurant with the three sisters having lunch. Hannah taking care of her parents and listening to her father playing piano. The scene where Fredrick finds out about Lee's affair. Soho was so gritty and unpretentious. I don't know, maybe it's just me. But it takes me back to a time when life was a bit simpler.

Regarding Mia being a limited actress. Watch Broadway Danny Rose. She transforms herself into a mob princess. Hilarious.

That interview @ R38 - the interviewer is clearly tremendously impressed by Woody, he starts to ask him about "the meaning of life" or rather Woody's favorite theme "the meaningless of life" and Woody is so embarrassingly out of his depth, he starts droning on like one of his own off-screen characters, Rabbi Blitstein.

Is there a meaning ? No Rabbi knows. Least of all Rabbi Blitstein. Just enjoy what you can while you are here (ok, that doesn't mean 'go crazy' or you will be gone before you know it).

Yes, David.

I feel that way too, David.

What a marvelous space, David.

The catering subplot is one of my favorites - especially as I worked for caterers in NYC back then and it perfectly captures it.

I wonder if April went home first then Holly and Sam would work out

I never understood Lee's falling into bed with her big fat jerk of a brother in law Elliot. It just didn't seem plausible to me. He's an asshole, he's her brother in law, he's much older (although it appears she might have a thing for older men) and he's physically rather gross. So why does she begin a clandestine sexual relationship with him? It is just because she's weak? A weak recovering alcoholic? At any rate, the affair, which was a focal point of the movie, seems to not make very much sense. But maybe that's the point; it was an act of craziness on both their parts.

Life's like that, r127. Stranger than fiction.

As someone noted on the other thread - ALL the men in this film are unattractive.

And the clothes they put on Michael Caine and those glasses while he clumps around SoHo chasing after whatshername like an idiot.

There was a documentary about Lindsay Anderson the film director - he was casting and someone suggested Michael Caine and he said I hate his hair.

I mean who'd cast this guy in a sexed-up role?

She's not the worst actress in the world. Her best work was in Rosemary's Baby and in the films she did for Woody Allen. She gave some terrific performances.

She is, unfortunately, one of the worst people in the world. What she did to her daughter Dylan and to all of her children was totally unforgivable.

[quote]I never understood Lee's falling into bed with her big fat jerk of a brother in law Elliot.

Do they actually go to bed? I don't remember that. I guess I put it out of my mind.

[quote]She is, unfortunately, one of the worst people in the world. What she did to her daughter Dylan and to all of her children was totally unforgivable.

By allowing Woody in her house for so long?

Oh, Jesus - what was this fucking outfit? I guess they wanted it to coordinate with the drapes.

And they permed Mia's hair to match his.

No, R134, by making up abuse charges in the first place then brainwashing and coaching Dylan into saying (and believing) that her father had molested her when it never happened. That poor child was destroyed by Mia's lies and the rest of the children were heavily damaged by Mia's insane desire for revenge against her ex-boyfriend.

Mia's a crazy, destructive bitch who doesn't care who she hurts.

[quote]No, [R134], by making up abuse charges in the first place then brainwashing and coaching Dylan into saying (and believing) that her father had molested her when it never happened.

You don't fucking know it never happened - that documentary they released there was so much footage of him being totally inappropriate with Dylan it was VERY VERY creepy and inappropriate - even if he never actually did the actual deed (which I think he did).

And he fucked her other teenage daughter - out of all the women in whole of New York he had to fuck his girlfriend's teenage daughter? But hey he's great and Mia's the wicked one.

And talking of sisters - you know he fucked Diane Keaton's sisters? Both of them? All three sisters had him. Lucky girls!

[quote] by making up abuse charges in the first place then brainwashing and coaching Dylan into saying (and believing) that her father had molested her when it never happened. That poor child was destroyed by Mia's lies and the rest of the children were heavily damaged by Mia's insane desire for revenge against her ex-boyfriend.

{quote} Mia's a crazy, destructive bitch who doesn't care who she hurts.

Shut up Woody, you pervy little creep.

[quote] Do they actually go to bed? I don't remember that. I guess I put it out of my mind.

They did have an affair but I think their lovemaking was mercifully offscreen.

That restaurant scene makes me want to do cocaine.

Maybe then it would make sense!

And you know how he let Mia know he was fucking her teenage daughter? By placing pornographic photos of her in his apartment when he knew she'd be there. Or is that a lie? No, he even admits it. She was his girlfriend of 12 years and he wanted to destroy her. It was disgusting what he did to Mia and her family.

[quote]They did have an affair but I think their lovemaking was mercifully offscreen.

So no naked ass pics of Michael? Yes, an act of mercy.

I know that it never happened. End of.

Yep, he fucked his girlfriend's 21 year old daughter and he's now been married to her for 26 years. They have two children. That happened.

If she had just stuck with the fact that Woody had an affair with Soon-Yi, Mia would have had all the sympathy she had ever wanted. It was perfectly legal and completely distasteful. She'd have hung Allen out to dry for Soon-Yi but that wasn't enough for Mia.

After the Soon-Yi affair, Mia thought she'd go to therapy with Allen and "work it out" together. He said no. When he also said no to Mia starring in his next film (as she had been planning to do) that's when she went ballistic and invented the child molestation charges. When she did that then everyone knew she was lying, crazy and a truly terrible person.

[quote]I know that it never happened.

No you don't

[quote] End of.

End of what. Your vocabulary?

And Soon-Yi was 17 when he first fucked her. he shouldn't have gone near her EVER.

He only married her to dignify what he'd done.

He's been "dignifying" it for 26 years now and Soon-Yi was 21.

Funny how Mia never came up with the fake molestation charges until AFTER Woody told her that Diane Keaton was going to star in his next film, not Mia. Then all of a sudden - magical molestation accusations! Wheeee!

Anyway, I just loved all the brooches and pins on Dianne Wiest's character's jackets. So 1986, as were all the perms on everybody but Max von Sydow.

Have always loved ge movie but, gotta admit, it’s all just so 1980s yuppie white.

[quote]Anyway, I just loved all the brooches and pins on Dianne Wiest's character's jackets. So 1986

yes the oversized jackets with the sleeves rolled up were very of the time - she was the only one with style in this flick.

[quote]it’s all just so 1980s yuppie white.

and never a gay in sight. trust me these types always had at least one gay about, but this is Woody's New York.

R147, that's not quite right in terms of the timeline. Manhattan Murder Mystery was in pre-production when Mia accused Woody, and Mia actually thought she was going to continue to star in the movie. After the accusation, Woody fired her from the project and replaced her with Diane Keaton.

[quote]and replaced her with Diane Keaton.

and she was awful in it.

[quote][R147], that's not quite right in terms of the timeline.

R147 is a lot not quite right. He gets it ALL wrong.

[quote]R152 Manhattan Murder Mystery

I think that’s my favorite of his films.

I like Manhattan Murder Mystery

I remember in Mia's book she talked about coming across the movie on television late one night after she and Woody had broken up, and that it was surreal to be watching a movie that took place in the apartment she was watching from (and still living in). Here's a description of filming in that apartment:

Shooting began on Hannah and Her Sisters in the Fall of 1984 in New York City. Woody Allen used Mia Farrow’s real-life apartment on Central Park West as Hannah’s home in the film. Farrow’s real-life children were also used in the big family Thanksgiving scenes that bookend the film. With those details–along with having Farrow’s real-life mother Maureen O’Sullivan playing Hannah’s mother–it made the film something of a family affair, bringing a warmth and familiarity to the set. Since Farrow and her extensive brood were actually living in Hannah’s fictional apartment during filming, they had to do their best to go about the usual daily routine in a way that fit into the shooting schedule. “The place was pandemonium,” said Farrow in her 1997 memoir What Falls Away. “The rooms were clogged with equipment. Forty people arrived at dawn crowding into any available space, our personal treasures were spirited away to who-knew-where. The kitchen was an active set for weeks…Some nights I literally couldn’t find my bed…It was strange to be shooting scenes in my own rooms – my kitchen, my pots, my own kids saying lines, Michael Caine in my bathroom, wearing a robe, rummaging through my medicine cabinet. Or me lying in my own bed kissing Michael, with Woody watching…The commotion, and not being able to find anything, sometimes got me a little crazy. But the kids loved it.”

And here's Michael Caine's description:

At times co-star Michael Caine felt like he was in the middle of an intimate home movie. “It got so domestic that when we were shooting the sequence [in Mia’s apartment], I would often see Mia serving up food to her numerous offspring,” said Caine in his 1992 autobiography What’s It All About?. “The assistant director would come into the kitchen and say, ÔYou are wanted on set, Miss Farrow.’ Mia would stop ladling out food, take off her apron and go into the other room and start acting and at the end of the scene she would rush back into the kitchen.” Sometimes, according to Caine, things could get surreal under such circumstances. “When we got to the bedroom scenes, which were shot in Mia’s real bedroom (although for propriety’s sake I think we had a different bed), things became even more cozy until one day I wound up doing a love scene in bed with Mia in her own bedroom, and being directed by her lover!” said Caine. “This was nerve-racking enough but got even worse when I looked up during the rehearsal to find her ex-husband Andre Previn watching us from the other side of the bedroom. He had come to visit the children and found us all there. It took all my concentration to get through that scene!”

It's been quite a while since I read Mia's book, but I remember she said someone had told her that Woody was getting close to an actress in the film (maybe an affair, I don't remember exactly) and Mia speculated in the book that it was Dianne Wiest.

Mea Culpa!

[quote] The day after she allegedly learned of her child’s molestation, Mia Farrow made a date with the costume designer of Manhattan Murder Mystery.

[quote] “She accused me of child molestation on August 4th, right?” Allen told “60 Minutes” that November. “And August 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th — you know, the week after, she’s fully saying, ‘When do we begin our new movie? I’m going for my costume fitting next week’ . . . And I said, ‘Are you kidding? You’re accusing me of child molestation, and you think we’re just going to go on with the movie? . . . This is insane.’ ”

I was wrong. She falsely accused him of molesting Dylan and then the next day thought she would waltz into costume fittings and go ahead with the film. Because she's fucking crazy.

Some of Mia's best work even if MIA IS BITCH!

If the TVM Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story can be taken as a reliable source, Mia heard about Woody having an affair with Dianne Weist and confronted him about it.

Diane Weist doesn’t seem like the homewrecker type.

Woody and Mia didn't have a home together.

^^ Fuck you, Diane!

Interesting that in this movie Hannah's husband and sister's behavior (sleeping together) isn't really considered immoral and neither of them seem to have much of a conscience about it. Woody seemed to rationalize that storyline. Also, there wasn't a problem with his character marrying his ex-wife's sister and having a child with her, a child which would technically be his twins' sibling - whose mother is their mother's sister. Kind of like the tangled web Woody created among his and Mia's children except, instead of marrying the mother of his children's sister, he married her daughter and had children with her.

Mia wrote that in the first film she made with him she was very nervous and apprehensive and that this was exacerbated by his heavy flirtations with her sister.

He has NO BOUNDARIES.

Maureen Stapelton's dancing scene at her wedding reception in Interiors is worth the whole movie. Mary Beth Hurt's retort is pure camp. I think Woody was trying to do a soap opera, and he had grim characters, with only Stapelton providing a lighter touch. Diane Keaton's perm was great, too. Oh, and Dr, David Stewart from As The World Turns played the judge who marries Stapelton and E.G. Marshall.

I should clarify part of what I said at R166...In the movie, Woody's character marries and is going to have a kid with Hannah's sister, but long after he and Hannah were divorced, which is very different, of course, from Woody having an affair and then marrying Soon Yi while he was still with Mia. My point was that certain themes run through this film which ended up being similar to events in Woody's real life.

What this thread has told me:

Woody is a creep

Mia is a bitch

Michael is ugly

Barbara looked better before her surgery

Dianne is a homewrecker

Sam is sex on legs

Carrie is a cocaine addict

Max should have had a perm

R120 Really? I thought The Great Gatsby was probably the film Mia Farrow was most remembered for, other than Rosemary's Baby. Which pre-Woody films should I have chosen? Guns At Batasi, Avalanche, Secret Ceremony?

[quote]I think Woody was trying to do a soap opera,

He was trying to do Bergman, r168.

I remember reading that Hannah originally had a much darker ending that the studio wasn't happy with so they went back and shot a happy ending with Woody and Wiest.

Woody Allen is a creep, pretty clear.

But he would not have molested Dylan in her home that one time, after he has already been accused of ultimate creeposity by Mia, the media are on high alert, and police are everywhere, and he’s not even alone in the house with her.

Mia got an idea from something Dylan said about a quiet hug or something. Boom!

[quote]But he would not have molested Dylan in her home that one time, after he has already been accused of ultimate creeposity by Mia, the media are on high alert, and police are everywhere, and he’s not even alone in the house with her.

oh, shut up! - you can hardly even express yourself properly.

Eh?

I don't think Hershey's character having an affair with Caine's character rests on his attractiveness, but rather the fact that he's Hannah's husband. She sleeps with him BECAUSE he is married to Hannah, the star of the family AND he wants to rescue her. Caine's character was 'rescued' by Hannah and he resents her for it and gets back at her by having an affair with her sister, who he can 'rescue.' When Hannah breaks down in front of him and says she 'needs him' he becomes attracted to her again. The whole affair between Hershey's character and Caine is about getting back at Hannah, not the other one. Again, Farrow's character is portrayed as someone who enjoys 'taking care' of people and subtly lets them know it, which makes them resentful of her.

R156 "You're such a fuddy-duddy".

R124 You totally could kill her.

R131 For many of the day Caine is still 'Alfie' and what it was 'all about' for 'Alfie' was getting laid.

R172 Right! Wonder if he ever gave some input on it.

I loved Julie Kavner (Gail) in it. She's always good anyway but that voice of hers! I just adore it :) Funny lines with her and Woody.

Gail : Eventually, it is going to happen to all of us.

Mickey : Yes, but doesn't that ruin everything for you? That makes everything, you know, it takes the pleasure out of everything. I mean, you're gonna die, I'm gonna die, the audience is gonna die, the network's gonna, the sponsor, everything.

Gail : I know, I know, and your hamster.

Mickey : Yes!

[quote] Because she's fucking crazy.

Actually you're the one who sounds fucking crazy. Get some help.

R166 well in the movie both the characters of Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey felt very guilty about their affair. I’m condoling it, but there are a few scenes where that is the dialog.

Woody did not share the children that Mia adopted. He felt she just was unstoppable in regards to that, and said he did not consider himself their father. Mia and Woody never married and they kept separate dwellings, his idea possibly since he made references to that in his movies.

They had one child together, Dylan, whom Mia had previous to their relationship adopted and Woody wanted to co-adopt her. Mia has poisoned this girl to believe and say things against him because of Mia’s own vindictive nature. Woody and Soon-yi have adopted two children together, “nobody just lets you adopt kids” (Woody) he’s right.

If you look at the troubles Mia has had with her own adopted kids there are many.

Oh brother, that is to read, ‘I’m not condoning it’.

Also, Soon-yi was never Woody’s daughter, she was adopted by Mia and not by Woody.

[quote]Woody did not share the children that Mia adopted. He felt she just was unstoppable in regards to that, and said he did not consider himself their father.

I'm pretty sure Mia said in her book that Woody adopted Moses. And when I referred to "their" kids, I meant Moses, Dylan and Ronan. So yeah, they did have kids together. And all the kids considered Soon Yi their sister, so Woody had an affair with and eventually married Mia's daughter and her and Woody's kids' sister.

Satchel aka Ronan was Woody's biological son unless you believe that story about Mia and Frank. Mia said at the time she specifically wanted a child from Woody. Sinatra's daughter Nancy dismissed the suggestion that her father was Farrow's biological father, calling it "nonsense". She said that her father had a vasectomy years before Farrow's birth.

Sinatra's biographer James Kaplan also disputes Sinatra's potential paternity of Farrow in his book Sinatra: The Chairman He said that Sinatra was splitting his time between Hawaii and Palm Springs with his wife Barbara Marx Sinatra and was in ill health during the time when Farrow would have been conceived. Mia Farrow was living in New York.

Supposedly around the time of Interiors, Woody said something along the lines of wanting to create Long Day's Journey Into Night and having it come out like The Edge of Night.

I wonder what type of musical Holly and April were trying out for, if "I'm Old Fashioned" and "The Way You Look Tonight" were their audition pieces. For that matter, has Hannah ever appeared in anything other than a classic? (She did A Doll's House prior to the story beginning and is about to do Othello as it ends.)

R182 I see what you are saying but the adopted ones Woody did not adopt included Soon-yi, she was adopted by Mia and Andre Previn in 1978. Mia and Previn divorced in 1979. And she started dating Woody in 1980. When Farrow started dating Allen in 1980 she already had seven children.

In 1985 Farrow adopted Dylan Farrow and in 1991 Allen co-adopted Dylan and Moses.

The couple then had their own biological child Satchel Farrow, later known as Ronan, who was born in 1987 — although Farrow claimed his father could be her first husband Frank Sinatra.

Between 1992 and 1995, Farrow adopted five more children: Tam Farrow, Kaeli-Shea Farrow, later known as Quincy, Frankie-Minh, Isaiah Justus, and Gabriel Wilk Farrow, later known as Thadeus.

Even if the other kids considered her their sister he was not married to Mia, was not her adopted father and there is no law against marrying a woman who is you ex’s daughter. There is no blood relation there regardless if they considered her a sister but I see what you mean with the other kids, even though he is kicked out of the family.. It is kind of messed up. But the way he looked at it he prob thought of her as another adoption.

Btw, Soon-yi is in Hannah and her sisters, Thanksgiving scene.

What I love about the audition scene is Holly actually sounds pretty good even if her voice is a little thin for musical theatre. Also it was a time when auditions were held in an actual theatre and not a rehearsal studio.

Also in Mia's book, I can't remember the exact words but Woody sounded pretty dismissive of this movie and he didn't like it very much. I think he said something along the lines of it appealing to the masses. (I probably should dig out that book and re-read the parts I'm trying to quote in this thread. I can recall the essence of much of it, but I read it too long ago to be able to actually quote it.) I was disappointed to read that since I love this movie and think it's one of his best. I miss that he doesn't film in New York anymore.

Woody is a schmuck

[quote]Also in Mia's book, I can't remember the exact words but Woody sounded pretty dismissive of this movie and he didn't like it very much

and that he called Siskel and Ebert "The Chicago Morons".

I'm not from America - when I first saw them I thought "why do they move around in their seats like that?" It looked so peculiar. Who did the impersonation of them?

S&E both loved Interiors.

Woody seemed to have more respect for Pauline Kael who hated Interiors.

The porn version should have been called Hannah and her Blisters.

It comes back to that "I wouldn't want to be accepted by a club that would have me" mentality. With Groucho Marx, it was endearing. With Woody, it's grating.

Woody was looking too old for Mia and Dianne.

I don't buy the Sinatra paternity story of all, if for no other reason than Ronan has gone out of his way to physically transform himself to look like Sinatra (though, all the ways he 'resembles' Sinatra, are traits that his mother has), including the colored contacts.

Farrow never seemed very ambitious about her career. She wanted to do THE GREAT GATSBY because she (along with everyone else) revered the book. But aside from that I don’t think she ever campaigned for a role.

Movies were mostly just a paycheck to her, to support her family. And Woody Allen never even paid his actors much. But he didn’t want her to work for anyone else during their years together, so her schedule would be open for his.

If Frank Sinatra were really Ronan's father, I am 100% sure that Mia and Ronan would let the world know. Ronan already changed his name from Satchel (seems like a name that Woody chose). I could see him changing his name again: Ronan Farrow-Sinatra.

Nancy and Tina are still close to Mia and the kids and they were not happy about the Frank/Ronan rumors.

Where and when did Mia ever claim that Sinatra was Ronan's father?

And Ronan? Did he ever actually claim this to be true?

Here is Mia Farrow suggesting to Vanity Fair that Frank Sinatra is Ronan Farrow's father (October 2013):

Farrow discusses her relationship with Frank Sinatra, telling Orth that Sinatra was the great love of her life, and says, “We never really split up.” When asked point-blank if her biological son with Woody Allen, Ronan Farrow, may actually be the son of Frank Sinatra, Farrow answers, “Possibly.”

I was listening to Siriusly Sinatra when Nancy was on and it was at this time that statement was made by Mia. Nancy was doing a show with a co-host guest, I forget who, and she pointedly suggested that Woody Allen's movies had some great old songs. Maybe they should play the ones he's used in his movies.

Said with a bit of venom and a bit of sarcasm, mentioning Woody in a positive way.

Surprised by all the grousing about Michael Caine's looks.

Does anyone remember "Educating Rita"? It was played over and over in the early days of HBO. It made me want to take college literature classes & analyze the stories w/teachers & classmates. Caine played the drunken professor who polishes up Rita (Julie Walters), a diamond-in-the-rough, intellectually.

[quote] Surprised by all the grousing about Michael Caine's looks.

Why is that? He looked gross. And he had an awful personality; selfish, immature, a real asshole. And he flung himself at his sister in law. Such a creep. Lee must have been totally brainless to get involved with such a clod.

I guess they all looked gross (all the men, including, of course, Woody Allen). That's part of a Woody Allen movie. Lee had low self-esteem, hence, holing up in a gray apartment (compared to Mia's) with a geriatric, non-committal, has-been type. Mia's character was the golden child and, as another poster stated, bedding down with Caine was partially further low self-esteem plus sticking a knife into Mia.

Why is Mia's character with Caine, the clod?

[quote]Even if the other kids considered her their sister he was not married to Mia, was not her adopted father and there is no law against marrying a woman who is you ex’s daughter. There is no blood relation there regardless if they considered her a sister

No, there's no law against it but she was his long-time lover's daughter. Allen and Farrow began their relationship when Soon-Yi was 9 and Woody was 44. Andre Previn was her adoptive father but since Woody was always around and was the father of two other children of Farrow's, he was a father figure. Soon-Yi was 21 when she and Woody got together. I find it gross.

[quote]Farrow discusses her relationship with Frank Sinatra, telling Orth that Sinatra was the great love of her life, and says, “We never really split up.” When asked point-blank if her biological son with Woody Allen, Ronan Farrow, may actually be the son of Frank Sinatra, Farrow answers, “Possibly.”

I made the point upthread that certain themes in this movie seem to run through Woody's own life. Maybe, as in the scene with Tony Roberts and Joanna Gleason where Mickey and Hannah ask them to donate sperm, Woody and Mia asked Frank. Or just Mia asked him? It's a stretch, but the idea of Mia (in her 40's) and Woody (in his 50's and never having fathered a child before) could just get pregnant the moment she decided she wanted to have a child with him seems a stretch too, now that I think about it. Personally, I think Ronan has Woody's genetics body-wise, but who knows?

(I just looked it up and Frank was only 5'7, so that could also explain Ronan's small stature. Interesting.)

^the idea THAT Mia

Maybe Mia saved Frank's sperm?

[quote](I just looked it up and Frank was only 5'7, so that could also explain Ronan's small stature. Interesting.)

Woody only being 5' 5" could also explain Ronan's small stature. But Ronan looks like Frank. To me. In an odd way, because he also looks like Mia a lot. But he doesn't look anything like Woody. Every once in a while I will come across a picture of Ronan while flipping through a magazine or something, and without my mind even registering that it's Ronan, yet, Sinatra comes into my mind when I see the image. If that makes any sense. He doesn't look exactly like Frank, but something about him looks like Frank.

Ronan Farrow looks like his grandfather, John Farrow.

You do have to wonder why Hannah would have ever married either Mickey or Elliott. At the very least, Elliott does call her out for being so damn perfect all the time.

Mia's a horrible person, but she's a wonderful actress. When she was going through their infamous break-up with Woody, Woody's sister Letty Aronson dissed her to the press as a mediocre actress, and Woody called Letty up and corrected her: no, even though we're going through a horrible break-up, she is still objectively a first-rate l actress.

I think he's right. She's not perfect in everything she did with him, but she gave superb performances in "Broadway Danny Rose" and "Radio Days," and her performance in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" is to my mind one of the finest performances on film by anyone.

R212 Because Mia looks like John Farrow. But Ronan also looks like Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra continued to sleep with Ava Gardner after they were divorced, even years later. He probably still slept with his ex-wife, too, sometimes. No reason to think he didn't also get together with Mia sexually, since they were still close and kept in touch. He had long-tern affairs with other women, like Dinah Shore. Not unusual at all for him.

*Ex-wife Nancy

I never thought Ronan Farrow looked like Sinatra but I know others do. He has Mia’s coloring. He sure doesn’t look like Woody though.

I find it hypocritical of Mia to suggest it IS Frank’s child when she was at the time with Woody and Frank was married, Sinatra’s wife was not happy with her suggestion and made some comment about it and who can blame her? Mia plays the wounded woman who was cheated on but makes an offhanded reference that she cheated on both Woody and Frank’s wife and to boot had a kid by him and hid it from both? Where is her consideration for Sinatra’s wife or Sinatra being unable to speak about this being he has passed on when all that was said.

Mia’s whole beef really is he cheated on her. She makes out she’s upset that it is because he was with her adopted daughter, who was so young and that is presented as the scandal and coupled with the claim she makes he was with ‘his’ daughter and to cement her whole story threw in he molested Dylan. I really think it’s a case of ego. Where were the tears, the broken heart of a man she loved betraying her? I never saw them. Supposedly she is so Catholic to boot on all this.

Ronan's eyes are mainly where I see the Sinatra resemblance.

Not only Mia said that Ronan may be Frank Sinatra's son. (She also said Sinatra was the "love of her life" and that their relationship never really ended. They were only married for 18 months.)

[quote] Allen later responded to Farrow's claims saying it was possible that Ronan was not his son. Allen wrote that mother Mia Farrow may have been lying about it for decades. The Annie Hall director said Ronan, his only biological child with Farrow, ‘looks a lot like Frank’ thanks to his blue eyes and similar facial features.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Even Woody thinks Ronan may be Frank's son!

Ronan wears blue contact lenses. I'm not sure what you'd call his natural eye color.

I actually think Mis saying Frank could be the father was a dig at Woody because she knew the idea would enrage him. In Love and Bretrayal The Mia Farrow Story the Woody character has a thing about the idea that she lost her virginity to Frank.

If Ronan bore any resemblance to Woody Allen at all if would be more plausible that he was his son.

[quote]I actually think Mia saying Frank could be the father was a dig at Woody because she knew the idea would enrage him.

I don't know anything about her but if she would publicly state the paternity of her son is in question, then she must not care very much about the effect that would have on her son. If all she was doing it for was spite, wouldn't that be a stupid thing to do to your own son?

Ronan only looks like Sinatra because he goes out of his way to, wearing colored contacts.

I thought it had been confirmed that Frank was in Hawaii with his wife recovering from very invasive bowel surgery during the window of time that little Satchel could have been conceived. Not that it would definitively rule it out.

Jon Lovett should reveal whether Ronan has inherited Sinatra's 10-pounder.

[quote]I thought it had been confirmed that Frank was in Hawaii with his wife recovering from very invasive bowel surgery during the window of time that little Satchel could have been conceived.

Modern medicine wouldn't require Frank and Mia to actually make whoopee to create a future Satchel. As speculated above, maybe Woody got that particular storyline idea in Hannah and her Sisters from his and Mia's real-life conversation that a close friend be their sperm donor when Mia (incredibly) wanted to have a baby with (a possibly infertile) Woody. Seems unlikely Woody would have gone that far to fulfill Mia's desire to raise a child with him, but who knows. They've all three (Woody, Mia and Ronan) dropped hints about it at this point

In thinking about this, I guess it doesn't make sense they went the sperm-donor route. I can't imagine Frank Sinatra donating. Never mind...I didn't think the idea through. (Maybe Mia and Woody did have a conversation about it, though, and that's where the storyline came from in the movie. Or, maybe they did get a sperm donor, but it wasn't Frank.)

I always loved Tony Robert's in Woody's movies. He delivered a straight line perfectly and really made the joke funny. I wish he were in more. I read they really were friends.

If Ronan was Sinatra's child, they'd be screaming it from the rooftops! If only to get some of the estate.

Also, Ronan and Mia both hate Woody, now. Both Ronan and Mia would love to say, definitively, that Woody was not the bio father.

They should do a live broadcast of Ronan taking a 23 and Me test, with a short prelude of Mia singing "My Way": the "Who's My Daddy?" thread accompanying it would be DL gold.

[quote] Mia's a horrible person, but she's a wonderful actress

She adopted a slew of children, many of them with phycical and mental disabilities. I don't think a "horrible person" would do something like that.

R232 As a couple have reported, she treated them like chattel, used them to enhance her public image, and wage her campaign of vengeance against Allen. And she's been very successful at that.

[quote] As a couple have reported, she treated them like chattel, used them to enhance her public image, and wage her campaign of vengeance against Allen

So says Woody lovers, who are not of sound mind.

The 24/7 time it took to care for and raise all those kids would not seem to denote a mother who wasn't very loving and serious of the responsibilities she was taking on. Mia was never some Hollywood mom living on an estate with fleets of nannies.

[quote] Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia will live forever.

This isn't a thread about Carrie Fisher, you dumb cluck.

I forgot Carrie Fisher was in Hannah. The catering side plot is funny.

Weist's interior monologue while sitting in the back seat of Waterston's car with Fisther beside him is my favorite part of the film.

I wonder how Joan Collins felt about being referenced in the film.

I hate April. She's pushy.

Of course, she went to Brandeis.

Dianne winning the Oscar.

For you, R238.

Wiest is brilliant in the voiceover. I also have to give Woody Allen credit because the writing is fantastic.

Thank you, R243! I love it.

'take an extra secanol'

Cut Woody Allen out of his films and he's ok.

Even if they are anti feminist, women are only existing to please him vibe.

R240

She has eyes in the back of her head.

Pass me the extra Seconal!

R230 But why would they say the father was Frank Sinatra?

The contacts have nothing to do with it, it's the shape of the eyes, btw.

Mia Farrow said that the romantic side of their relationship never fully ended.

“He came back, over and over and over and over,” she told Vanity Fair. “I mean, we never really split up.”

I feel stupid for asking, but what does an "Icabod Crane" type of guy (like "Daisy's teacher," the one Hannah's trying to fix up Lee, Holly or April with) mean?

R250 In the original story The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow he was a tall, skinny, homely guy. This was a story from the 1800s by Washington Irving that takes place in upstate NY I think (?)

And you'll note, nobody named their baby boys Ichabod after that story appeared.

Jeff Goldblum played Ichabod in a version of the story in the early 1980s/late 1970s and he was very much physically the type at the time. He's gotten a bit 'thicker' as he's aged but he used to be very long and lanky.

I really feel that Allen was particularly thinking of the Disney animated cartoon, ‘The legend of Sleepy Hollow” that did Washington Irvings story. The Disney ‘Ichabod’ character in it is what he was had in mind, mentally. I think all the actresses in HAHS would be more familiar with that than having actually read Irving’s story.

From the Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

“ The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield”. ~ Washington Irving

He's always creeped me out in his "love scenes" with women. There's something no right about that guy. No, I'm not Mia.

If it's any consolation Icabod is always portrayed as having BDF.

Mia is a PHENOMENAL actress. I watched GOODBYE, RAGGEDY ANN the other day, and she was fantastic as the manipulative, child-abused borderline waifish starlet who uses older men to get ahead in Hollywood

She was also much better than Julie Christie's "away from her" very chic alzheimer victim in a TV movie called FORGET ME NOT or something to that effect. really terrific

"Farrow" is a litter of pigs.

"Mia Farrow" means "my litter of pigs".

How could that escape Mr. Intellectual Humorist?

"It was the first time I criticized one of his scripts. To me, the characters seemed self-indulgent and dissolute in predictable ways. The script was wordy, but it said nothing. Woody didn't disagree, and tried to switch over to an alternative idea, but pre-production was already in progress, and we had to proceed. It was my mother's stunned, chilled reaction to the script that enabled me to see how he had taken many of the personal circumstances and themes of our lives and, it seemed, had distorted them into cartoonish characterizations. At the same time he was my partner. I loved him. I could trust him with my life, and he was a writer, this is what writers do. All grist for the mill. Relatives have always grumbled. He had taken the ordinary stuff of our lives and lifted it into art. We were honored and outraged."

Mia's thoughts on the film. From "What Falls Away".

Mia was the first ever american actress to be included in the RSC. I say that's pretty cool in a resume

I made this thread a few months ago to discuss Woody & Mia's work together without it turning into yet another fight about their off-screen relationship. In case you might want to read/bump that thread as well.

Goodbye Raggedy Ann is on YouTube btw. And she's terrific in it.

R260

I always wondered how she did not see those things, it seems so obvious. Of course not knowing personally what really she felt I’ve always been torn by different ideas of her direction. But if that is truly how she felt it’s a very heartbreaking thing.

R263 she so rarey plays a bitch, and she's really very good at it

She stole GUNS AT BATASI from a splendid, seasoned cast, and that was a stunning debut, that won her a major award IIRC

r42 Yes, you watch that and you totally get why all these "Great" men were drawn to her. There was also Philip Roth (which is what Deconstructing Harry is really about) and Daniel Day-Lewis, whom she was spotted with a few times around the time of that interview.

Mia charming Howard Stern. She says Woody was not good in bed.

Daniel looks like Mia's "Romantic Comedy" co-star Anthony Perkins from that angle.

[quote]Mia is a PHENOMENAL actress. I watched GOODBYE, RAGGEDY ANN the other day, and she was fantastic as the manipulative, child-abused borderline waifish starlet who uses older men to get ahead in Hollywood

A triumph of illusion!

Mia and DDL ? is there ONE abuser in this business that she didn't fuck ???

R270, Dory, I served you that one on a silver plate, what took you so long ?

I have to say, if you haven't already taken in Mia's interview with David Letterman upthread at r42, which seems to be not long after she broke up with Woody, you must have a look.

She is so utterly natural and beautiful, so effortlessly charming and sweet, any man, straight or even gay, would fall for her. There's no mystery why she enthralled the likes of Sinatra, Previn, Roth, Day-Lewis, Allen or anyone. Maybe you'll say it's an act, but I just don't think so.

r42 - watch it.

I read Mia's book "What Falls Away" a long time ago. There were red flags everywhere, before Soon Yi and before she claimed Woody molested Dylan. Mia only snapped into action when Woody stopped putting her in his movies. She treated Soon Yi like "the other woman," not a daughter.

Sad.

The "molestation" of Dylan, if it did happen, pales in comparison to the victimization abuse Farrow subjected her to in the ensuing years.

[quote]I mean who'd cast this guy (Caine) in a sexed-up role?

A balding guy with big glasses?

Regarding the 1997 interview at R268, I'm surprised Mia went on Howard Stern, let alone told the producers how much she loved the show (and thought Howard would be the perfect mate for her if he wasn't married). Anyway, I was struck by how twee she sounds. I like her, or at least what I thought she was like, but I've never heard her talk in a long interview and I wasn't very impressed. Two things came to mind when watching it: 1) she had to have had a ghost writer on What Falls Away and 2) man, was she an easy mark for Woody. Unless it's an act, I've never heard a 50-something woman sound so childlike. Also, I kept thinking that Howard and Robin's constant name-calling and unfiltered opinions about Woody must have stung at least a little since this was the guy she was with for so long and with whom she pushed to adopt a child and have a biological kid, long after she was quite familiar with his "quirks", and his dislike of children.

Again, surprised she chose that venue to help sell her book. She doesn't seem the "raunchy" type, and I doubt if Stern's radio-show demographic was her publisher's target audience.

R277 Mia was BORN into show-business, she the godchild of louella Parson, she understands fame better than anyone. She knows everything is about publicity. The Howard Stern interview is an act, as is everything public for her. She's immensely different in private. Ever since the early 60's, everyone has called out her bluff, the 'helpless waif who was born yesterday" . Even Richard Burton in his memoir , tells how tiresome he finds her "innocent" act, and that was from when she was only dating Sinatra. She was one of Dali's ingenues (=fake virgins at his orgies) when she was only a teenager, after having grown up in what K.Hepburn called a degenerate household, she lived with and married SINATRA, was a major 60's icon,participated in Woody's thressomes with underraged whores, she's more seasoned than Messalina. Mia is a charming butterfly, a man-eater , a very dangerous still-water, that's occupied the media for 6 decades now, and is still carving her legacy. She's only "twee" when she wants to be.

Mia is BITCH

Impressive R278

Nepo baby!!!

R281 she has a RIGHT to exist

[quote] The "molestation" of Dylan, if it did happen, pales in comparison to the victimization abuse Farrow subjected her to in the ensuing years.

Oh shut up, you retarded Woody lover. You're pitiful.

[quote] Mia only snapped into action when Woody stopped putting her in his movies.

Actually, she "nsapped into action" when she found split beaver nude photos of Soon-Yi, taken by Woody Allen, ostensibly for a "modeling portfolio."

[quote] Oh shut up, you retarded Woody lover. You're pitiful.

What are you afraid of?

Why did Kate say that, r278?

R286 Because Maureen O'Sullivan did not respond to her repeated advances.

you're welcome R286. Gems like "“I never really cared for Frank,” Kate later told me, “and you must never ask me about the girl.” I later learned that she considered Mia Farrow’s father, an Australian-born writer-director named John, so “depraved” that there was “no way that girl could have any moral structure to her life”)." or "John Farrow and Frank Sinatra had a bitter dislike of each other and Meade tells this story about John and Mia bumping into Sinatra one day when Mia was like 13, and Sinatra making this pointed comment to John about how his daughter was 'turning into a beautiful young woman' with this clear subtext of 'I'm going to get revenge on you by fucking your daughter one day' " and "Robert Mitchum, a drinking friend of Farrow, nevertheless thought "John Farrow was sadistic. I mean, he was a sadist." In his biography Only Make Believe: My Life in Show Business, Howard Keel " said Farrow was "one sadistic son of a bitch and started on me first" . As the Meade biography points out, he often beat his children to an excessive extent."...the delightful Farrows

Kate telling Mia, at the Ethel barrymore theatre " I always said your family was so depraved you couldn't possibly have any moral structure, but of course, all the while I only wanted to get into your mother's panty"

r267 Forgot to mention Peter Sellers. He and Mia dated after Sinatra and before Previn.

Didn't Liza date Peter Sellers, maybe the only straight man she was ever with.

[quote]To me, the characters seemed self-indulgent and dissolute in predictable ways. The script was wordy, but it said nothing.

R260 I totally agree with her.

Mia probably wasn't having threesomes with Woody or if she was, she was doing orgies way before Woody. She called herself a free spirit in the 60s and 70s. It was rumored back then that she was into free love and orgies. She was known to be really wild during that time.

She is a big hypocrite. She was sleeping with Andre Previn while pretending to be friends with his wife Dory.

[quote] Let's discuss the American comedy

OP Are you sure this is supposed to be a comedy?

Only R112 and R114 mention laughter.

R295 Interiors was a drama. The laughter was derisive laughter.

R295 We were talking about Interiors, not Hannah And Her Sisters, which was a comedy-drama.

Woody Allen's biggest crime is being ugly. And the thing with Soon Yi was pretty fucked up.

And all his underage costars. No way would they ever.

R298 And yet Soon-Yi did.

[quote]We were talking about Interiors, not Hannah And Her Sisters, which was a comedy-drama.

I don't remember any laughs

R293 we all know she did threesomes with Woody, and baby angie whatever the teenage model (whore).

R300 I told about what happened when I saw it, unless you also were there, you probably had a different experience somewhere else.

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Mia's sisters are such sluts as well, both Tisa and Steffi fucked Woody. Dear prudence is the only one who didn't , apparently. "Hannah' "s story is based on Woody's reallife experience with the farrow family. Disgusting.

[quote]CLUMPY Michall Caine ruined it for me. He has zero comic timing and giving him Woody dialogue just sounded queer!

Whenever people discuss undeserved Oscars, why don't they ever mention Caine and his two wins?

When he won for HANNAH, the other nominee were Tom Berenger in PLATOON, Willem Dafoe in PLATOON,, Denholm Elliott in A ROOM WITH A VIEW, and Dennis Hopper in HOOSIERS.

When he won for THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, the other nominees were Tom Cruise in MAGNOLIA, Michael Clark Duncan in THE GREEN MILE, Jude Law in THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, and Haley Joel Osment in THE SIXTH SENSE.

R305 Michael Caine's career is certainly worthy of recognition, but both feel like "consolation" Oscars (see Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby, Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8, and Paul Newman in The Color of Money). There's also Marty Scorsese, who won for The Departed after being absolutely robbed for Goodfellas.

Had Caine's earlier Oscar gone to Dennis Hopper or Denholm Elliott, it would've also been a consolation Oscar for those old pros.

And his latter Oscar is one that will dim in hindsight, as people continue to cherish Cruise and Duncan's performances in those two films. No one really remembers The Cider House Rules, but Magnolia is still a film-school classic and The Green Mile is nearly Shawshank-ian in its timelessness.

Michael Caine is a horrible actor, literally and figuratively. He looks like he smells something awful, like fried lamb . He's disgusting. His sagging undereyelids, his skin, everything about him is yucky. I wonder why Natalie Wood fucked him. She had horrible tastes in men

The Green Mile was terrible.

R307 Bite your tongue!

On second thought, how'd you like to go sailing with me? Take a quick dip after dark?

[quote]participated in Woody's thressomes with underraged whores

receipts on this one, pls

Michael Caine is a good actor. I always liked him. I really liked him in Jack the Ripper as Inspector Abberline, who was a real guy but this JTR movie is outdated as far as figuring out the killer.

Still, it's very good if you have not seen it I recommend it. It has all the element of the day really, but they pinned it on someone whom it was not.

Unless you know who JTR was...

Caine was hailed as a HUGE sex symbol and the It Boy of his day when he starred in ALFIE. Some of you ancient bitches have very short memories.

^^ more like dementia

Brian Cox on Michael Caine:

""I wouldn’t describe Michael as my favourite, but he’s Michael Caine. An institution. And being an institution will always beat having range. Caine was, and probably still is, very dismissive of the drunken-actor brigade, and one of his targets, of course, was Richard Harris, another famous drunk who became a friend. Harris used to say, 'Jesus fucking Christ. Michael fucking Caine. This thing with the eye—the eye doesn’t move. What fucking bollocks,' which was a reference to something Caine did in an acting video, the idea being that in close-ups you should always focus on just one eye of the other actor, so that your own eyes don’t move around. I won’t give my own view on this technique, but put it this way, Harris was right."

The only good Woody doppelgänger was Jesse Eisenberg in Café Society (2016).

In the trailer for "Hannah" there's a scene with Carrie Fisher and Sam W. in an art museum that was unfortunately cut from the film -- Carrie mentioned this in a later TV interview. Her drug overdose, the big one that she details in "Postcards from the Edge," delayed the movie's re-shoots.

In 1994 Mia had to give up the apartment in the Langham, which she more or less took from her mother after arriving in NYC with her brood following the split from André Previn, after authorities realized she was in violation of rent-control laws. I think she was paying under $3k a month for that 11-room palace and the rent was going to rise to $8k.

[quote]R301 we all know she did threesomes with Woody, and baby angie whatever the teenage model (whore).

I didn't know that. It certainly wasn't in Mia's book. Wow.

[quote] I didn't know that. It certainly wasn't in Mia's book. Wow.

Neither did I. The Sun article was an eye-opener - this Hollywood Reporter piece has the receipts.

Wow, indeed.

This is the best Mia Farrow thread we had in WEEKS, I tell you.

I'm a Mia newbie, pardon if my posts are duplicates.

[QUOTE] I'm a Mia newbie,

Don't worry, I've been at it since PEYTON PLACE. the gift keeps on giving. The girl NEVER disappoints

Howard Stern didn't take any acting classes prior to 'Private Parts'. He just read Michael Caine's book on film acting. He said it helped him a lot but left him with a Cockney accent.

R317's link from 2018, is from a former 'model' who also asserts that she was raped, repeatedly, as a child.

The assertions may be true, but nothing has been proved. I'm not sure I'd take The Hollywood Reporter and The Daily Mail to the bank.

R322 Ronan Farrow was tweeting Christina Engelhardt’s name as another Woody “victim” in 2016-17, but her interview proves their relationship was consensual and Mia not only knew about it but participated.

R232 when most of those children die by suicide, it’s clear that Mia’s intentions were hardly pure…

I didn't know Mia was so...exploratory. Did she wonder why the girls she and Woody partook of were always so young? Wonder if it bothered her. I'm kind of taken aback that she and Woody did things like that. Mia would have had six kids by then.

[quote] I didn't know Mia was so...exploratory

Good lord people, don't you know WHO Mia Farrow is ??? she was Hollywood's flower power poster girl FFS, she was the "it" girl of the 60's. Scandal after scandal . When were you born , yesterday ???

[quote] I didn't know Mia was so...exploratory

Good lord people, don't you know WHO Mia Farrow is ??? she was Hollywood's flower power poster girl FFS, she was the "it" girl of the 60's. Scandal after scandal . When were you born , yesterday ???

[quote] I didn't know Mia was so...exploratory

Good lord people, don't you know WHO Mia Farrow is ??? she was Hollywood's flower power poster girl FFS, she was the "it" girl of the 60's. Scandal after scandal . When were you born , yesterday ???

there was nothing "flower power" about Mia, she was just a slut. Hippie chicks didn't marry rich old men like Sinatra and protest against abortion rights.

yet she was sold as such by Hollywood

She looks exactly like Ronan in R328.

R330, he has his father's eyes.

Focusing on one eye in close-ups go s back way before Michael Caine. I guess it's not always appropriate but in some close ups in a scene with another actor, there are actors whose eyes move around and shift distractingly.

I saw Maggie Smith once on The Tonight Show (I think), she talked about how anyone can say dialogue like Michael Caine, just pause after every three words. It was funny and mostly true.

Nancy Sinatra said something like Ronan is a big part of their family and they feel blessed to have him in their lives.

Mia has been charming Barry Jenkins on Twitter this week. Maybe he can get her an overdue first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress ala Jamie Lee Curtis? Probably not. No way the Industry would vote for her now.

She'll rather probably get a Jean Hersholt

R335 For what? Chaining herself to trees?

Her screeching queen of a son scares the hell out of Hollywood, and it's only a matter of time before he's exposed as the half-a-fraud he is. Here's hoping Mia doesn't collect any awards for Ronan's "bravery."

[quote]Her screeching queen of a son scares the hell out of Hollywood.

How so?

R337 They're all afraid they're going to be next on his list. And if he can't get 100% of a case against them, he'll fill in the gaps with rumor and vague suggestions that'd never hold up in court but would still be enough to kill a career.

He learned it from his whackjob mother: "Reality is whatever your shattered mind thinks it is, and it's totally acceptable to invent accusations if it gets you on camera and punishes the family members who did you wrong!"

Apparently she's done a lot of humanitarian work in Africa

R337, Ronan specializes in journalism exposing sex predators of the Harvey Weinstein type.

Mia and Liza are best friends.

My friend used to be one of Ronan’s fuck buddies circa 2016. After he topped Ronan, Ronan basically was like “Get out - our fuck is over and now you need to leave.” For some reason, my friend fucked him numerous times and the treatment was always that of a master of the house dismissing his servant.

We told him to stop but he kept going back for more!

strange to hear that Liza and Mia crashed Tab hunter"s party back in the day , when Tab despised and loathed John Farrow

Michael Caine is a mostly good, sometimes great actor, but he did not deserve either of his two Oscars.

I'd have either picked Willem Dafoe for Platoon (the movie itself doesn't hold up that well but he is incredible, that image of him being deserted remains iconic, and it's criminal he doesn't have an Oscar still) or Dennis Hopper as a sort of dual prize for Blue Velvet that same year, another iconic performance.

R344 In a truly just world, Hopper would've won for Blue Velvet. It's one of the most menacing, unforgettable characters in film history, and a perfect example of the value of the supporting role in a film. Hopper stole the movie, and a performance like that is worth Oscar Gold.

17 is not underage in New York. It was also the 70s. It's weird this random slut comes forward about thirty years after it happened....I'd have NEVER let people know I fucked Woody Allen at any point in my life, I can't imagine fifteen minutes of victim primetime is worth people forever knowing that.

[quote] he has his father's eyes.

What are you talking about, Guy's eyes are normal.

Going back to R315, it's funny to pretend that Gene Hackman's character in Postcards From the Edge, the movie, is a *very* veiled Woody analogue.

[quote] Did she wonder why the girls she and Woody partook of were always so young?

It's well known that Woody Allen lusted after very young girls. But Mia Farrow having threesomes with him and that teenage tart? That's pretty hard to believe.

I dunno, R349, she adopted a white child because thought it would make woody happy, not such a stretch to think she’d do a few threeways when they first started dating. She cheated on Previn and Sinatra.

R347

That was GREAT!

Mia's outfit in that Hollywood Reporter article at R317 is just tragic.

R352 Yeah ultimately, but wasn't that just Annie Hall chic? I guess Diane could pull it off.

R338 I'm sure one doesn't need to make up accusations about Hollywood.

R340 the only “journalism” in which Ronan specializes is profiles of unhinged women: Rose McGowan, Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Mia/Dylan…

HBD MIA!!! 78 yo but still younger than springtime and twice as exciting.

Baby englehart whatever the teenage model/whore is not just some kind of rando slut, at the time she published her Woody/mia Threesome stories, she was working as an assistant for Bob Evans, yes the Bob Evans who produced Rosemary's baby and Gatsby...connect the dots. Also miss mystery, a good friend of Mia's , organised a dinner party for 4 shortly after the Woody-Soon-Yi debacle to introduce Mia to Vaclav Havel and Philip Roth. Mia arrived all clad in black leather, and had a decade long affair with...both. Amazon Woman.

Shirley Knight talked about filming Dark at the Top of the Stairs which was her first movie. After a take, Angie, who was on the set pulled her aside. She told her that in an over the shoulder shot to look into the one eye closest to the camera to keep your eyes from moving around.

Clad in black leather

Shirley Knight was the most boring actress who ever acted, and one of the most pretentious. hate her.

[quote] The 24/7 time it took to care for and raise all those kids would not seem to denote a mother who wasn't very loving and serious of the responsibilities she was taking on. Mia was never some Hollywood mom living on an estate with fleets of nannies.

Neither was Ethel Kennedy. but that doesn't mean she was a good mother.

Soon-Yi and Moses have both said that Mia expected them to wait hand and foot on the biological children and so take the place of nannies.

R360 How dare you say that about the sixth-billed actor in "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure!"

She was transcendent as the weepy mother in "As Good as It Gets," "Stuart Saves His Family," and about 400 trashy TV movies.

[QUOTE] Shirley Knight was the most boring actress who ever acted, and one of the most pretentious. hate her.

Is that you, Meryl? Still bitter that I won a Tony over you?

R358 Who's Angie?

[quote] But Mia Farrow having threesomes with him and that teenage tart? That's pretty hard to believe.

I would believe it. Looks can be deceiving. The frumpiest women can be swingers, etc. Mia seems like she'd do a 3-way and then say she was forced into it.

Lansbury, Arden and McGuire all went mousy brown for William Inge, R364.

R366 I never thought of Lansbury as "Angie", later on I figured out who you meant! Sorry.

I don't think that film was altogether well cast, btw. The play had Teresa Wright and Pat Hingle in the leads (Dorothy McGuire and Robert Preston, in the film), with Eileen Heckert - later, Audrey Christie - in the Eve Arden role. The daughter was played by Julie Robinson - later, Sandy Dennis. Timmy Everett (of The Music Man film, 1962) played Sammy Goldnenbaum ("Sammy Golden", in the film - played by L:ee Kinsolving). The Angela Lansbury part was created for the film , did not exist in the play.

"Eve Arden's performance rated among the five best of the year by supporting actresses, according to The Film Daily's poll of over 1,800 critics." (Says Wikipedia.) I thought Eve Arden was a little bit miscast. Shirley Knight really gave the outstanding performance in the film, for me.

*Goldenbaum

Well I love Woody Allen's films and they always make me feel good, the music, the photography, sometimes there is an actor I find in them I really like. I loved the actors in Hannah and her sisters but it's a ways into the future now from those days and new actors are in them. It's hard to get used to that sometimes but still, for eg; I really liked Rainy day in New York.

So he did a new one, Coup de Chance and it's done in Paris. I like that idea. It's Woody's 50th film. I hope we get to see it over here.

R351 so , R347 is great huh ? where is MY praise ? He caught that ball nicely, but who threw it huh ? I'm seriously a bit hurt here.

R331, R347

That was really GREAT!!

And now R330 wants credit.

Why, thank you R371, you'll make me blush ! glad that you enjoyed our little sparkle of wit.

Has Woody lived in France long enough so he would have enough of an intimate and intricate knowledge of the French People to be able write a good movie about them? In French yet! I admire Allen a lot but there is a limit to even his genius and I'm afraid the French critics may soon explain it to him in not so friendly terms.

Haven't foreign writers and directors done some great films about America?Americans, in English?

Difficult People did a great job with Woody’s recent work.

Many people refuse to work for him anymore, and his process and films are now so laughably outdated. He still has cigarette girls, hand-written scripts, loud jazz scores, and young women chasing after gross old men who kvetch about “drugs! She’s on drugs!”

They smartly declare that his movies have all been shit since Crimes and Misdemeanors.

It’s young women throwing their pussies at Allenesque men that is repulsive. The jazz, the cigarette girls, no biggie.

What do you mean, "he still has cigarette girls?" Where? On the screen, or on the set?

Cigars...cigarettes...nuts!

He's a generation behind. The John Cusack character in "Midnight In Paris" was all into Lost Generation writers from the 20s, when a guy of his age would have been nostalgic for the Beats or whoever thirty or forty years later. The movie treated him like it was in 1970 rather than 2010.

You might really know this but the guy in Midnight in Paris was not John Cusak but was played by Owen Wilson.

Oh, you're right, R381! Did John Cusack play the Woody Allen surrogate in a different movie around that time? I could have sworn it was him—at least I didn't misremember Jason Biggs in the role.

[quote]He's a generation behind.

"Write what you know." -Mark Twain

[quote]The John Cusack [sic] character in "Midnight In Paris" was all into Lost Generation writers from the 20s, when a guy of his age would have been nostalgic for the Beats or whoever thirty or forty years later.

Why couldn 't he be into whatever he was into? There are probably guys today who are into Flaubert and Proust. It doesn't matter when he was born, or his age, he could be into writers of the 20s.

John Cusack played the Woody Allen surrogate in BULLETS OVER BROADWAY.

Everybody criticizes Mia for seducing that troll from under the God forsaken bridge, and taking over saint Diane, but the truth of the matter is, Woody's oeuvre has improved immensely during the time he was with her with her. His films had zero heart, zero sensuality, zero compassion. Watch a midsummer night sex comedy again. It's Woody discovering love. The purple rose of cairo, Radio days, Hannah, September, Another woman, are wonderful. Mia was hilarious as Alice too. and the list goes on. Yes she should have gor a nod for Broadway Danny Rose at least, but it's far from being her only great performance in a Woody movie. She's absolutely iconic as Cecilia , the clumsy little waitress in the frumpy hat. Downright Chaplinesque.

Fuck you, R386!

For straight men who work in film, do women like Mia, Natasha Richardson, even Kate Hudson (I know, I know), represent a great prize as the closest "aristocratic lineage" in the industry because of their parents long history in film?

Woody's films went down after the Mia period. Until then, every new film of his that opened at the Beekman was a must for New Yorkers.

Lying about the Soon Yi affair did him in. The films he had to make in Europe as producers in the US shied away from him don't hold a candle to films like Hannah and Her Sisters.

R386 Great, if you liked her. Not so great, if you didn't like her or weren't interested in her. If you were excited about seeing Mia Farrow showcased in a lot of films, I guess it was a wonderful period. By the way, her period starring for Woody didn't seem to make other filmmakers clamor to work with her. Leading me to conclude people went to those movies because they like Woody Allen movies, and were probably indifferent to whether they starred Mia or someone else.

R382 John Cusack was in Bullets Over Broadway.

Something that has annoyed me about Woody as a director, since he became more successful or well known to mainstream audiences (around the time of Annie Hall) is how he so often cast(s) actors who are very popular at that particular moment - either leads or supporting people. If you look back on his films you can see this - there are many actors in them who were very hot at the time, and then you never see them in his films again - you see a lot of new, current, hot actors. I guess there's nothing wrong with it. Not sure why it bothers me.

R390 But Woody didn't want Mia to work for other directors. He always wanted her on call for him.

R393 Mia didn't want to work any more than her yearly film with Woody. She was a single mother with an endlessly-growing brood in the '80s and early '90s; she couldn't have gone off on location for months at a time, even going to LA was out of the question. She threw herself at Mike Nichols for a small part in that Jack Nicholson movie "Wolf" after she went nuclear on Woody, but Nichols cast Kate Nelligan instead. Any director has been free to cast her since then, lord knows she needs the money, but nobody has been interested...

Not the only reason certainly, but the appearance of Mia in Ryan Murphy's The Watcher, definitely contributed to me ditching it after episode one.

Woody also resurrected Mia’s prestige career. After a strong 60s start, she really lost a lot of high profile years after moving to London. She was in Avalanche the year before taking up with Woody, it was that dire.

Ironically, Michael Caine was the one who introduced them.

Disturbing. Ronin had to deal with his father and and sister marrying.

[quote]r390 Mia’s period starring for Woody didn't seem to make other filmmakers clamor to work with her.

Allen didn’t want her working on outside projects, so that she’d be on hand fir his (as well as available for their personal relationship, travel , etc.)

R396 Shut your filthy mouth! Avalanche(!) was a gem of a film! And it still holds the record for most Baked Alaskas in a single scene!

^ you can tell Soon Yi is a very emotionally disturbed person in that pic. It's not just her age, or the familial relations, but Woody took advantage of a mentally unstable person. Or perhaps he gave her a new life, a new out.

Who's the man in the background?

I loved Interiors. I think that's my favorite WA film.

Soon-Yi looks and seems normal to me. People only think she's damaged because Mia had a mass publicity campaign to paint her as such. If anything, Mia is the cause of a lot of her damage, from the way it seems like treated Soon-Yi like shit all her life.

Mia was actually signed for WOLF. (And she and Mike Nichols were an item back in the day). The studio opposed her, because of the scandal, which sounds like blacklisting to me. She took a pay cut to accomodate them. But the shooting was delayed and she had other schedule conflicts. She was forced out of the movie. She had a big critical success with WIDOW'S PEAK aroud that time, and had prominent parts in several other movies. She was clearly punished in Hollywood for attacking Woody.

I don't think she acted only sporadically after 1992 because of a wall of pro-Woody sentiment. Besides the fact that actresses approaching or departing 50 who are in great demand are always the exception rather than the rule, Farrow had to be selective in what she took on. She had multiple children, some of them with serious physical challenges, and while much of their care was done by paid caregivers, she still had a difficult schedule.

One thing Farrow always claimed when things were going well with Woody Allen and she was singing his praises, was that he provided an ideal working situation for her. He shot mostly in New York City, and when it wasn't NYC, it was only a short car trip away. His shooting hours were regular and short, as he liked to be done at a certain time so he could watch the Knicks. Actors knew they'd never be asked to stay longer.

[quote]It's been quite a while since I read Mia's book, but I remember she said someone had told her that Woody was getting close to an actress in the film (maybe an affair, I don't remember exactly) and Mia speculated in the book that it was Dianne Wiest.

She didn't supply a name. What she wrote was that one of her sons came to her upset that he had seen an actress on the Radio Days set being overly friendly with Allen. Mia dismissed it as the boy misunderstanding or making something of nothing, because she had worked with this actress on Hannah and Her Sisters and she couldn't have been nicer, and she trusted Allen implicitly at that point.

Besides Farrow herself, actresses who are in both Hannah and Radio Days are Wiest and Julie Kavner. Of those two, Wiest seems more likely, for several reasons.

But, honestly, while I often liked Mia Farrow in movies (both Woody Allen's and other people's), I don't consider her a reliable source on much, least of all her years with Woody Allen. She would have sufficient reason to resent Dianne Wiest and put an easily decoded "blind item" in her book to hurt her reputation, as Wiest was someone from that period who remained loyal to Allen and has spoken up for him.

Thanks, R405...that sounds familiar now. And that's a good point about why Mia may have added that part in her book.

The first time I saw or heard of Dianne Wiest was in this movie and I liked her a lot. She was so well cast and was (to me) a perfect actress for a Woody Allen movie, especially this one. I really miss movies like this.

In future years 'Hannah' will be considered by film historians to be in Woody's late-middle period. His early middle period will be films like Manhattan, Annie Hall, Interiors. His early period, the comedies. His late period probably from Melinda Melinda to the present. I thought that would be all but it has recently been reported Woody said he will still be making movies after his 50th so there might be a late-late period. Take that, Picasso!

R403 it's hardly "blacklisting" to reject an actress who is unable to show up for filming in LA because of her incessant court obligations back in Connecticut. And I'm not sure what "prominent parts" in other movies you're talking about--unless you mean the 2006 documentary on Roman Polanski, in which she appeared and supported him?

R397 The only reason Woody and Soon-Yi stayed together and got married was because of the fake child molestation charge that Mia cooked up. Mia also rejected Soon-Yi by beating her and throwing her out of the house when she found out about their affair.

very sweet film, and filled with silly gaffs, but I love it

r401, You're A VULGARIAN

R410, You said "mother," and I said "yes."

I really liked Crimes and Misdemeanors. I wish they'd make it available on Amazon for Prime video but although it is listed on Amazon under the prime videos when I try to watch it, it says, 'This video is currently unavailable to watch in your location'. I don't get it.

[quote] it's hardly "blacklisting" to reject an actress who is unable to show up for filming in LA because of her incessant court obligations back in Connecticut.

it's not what happened, the studio thought she was too"controversial" (= she attacked one of us) . But you knew that, as well as you knew that she had big parts in Miami Rhapsody and Widow's peak at the time. You're just a hater. knock yourself over, keep on hating , and spreading venom and false information, you dear twisted, sad one

Just in case anyone wants to see the Michael Caine acting class that R314 and R322 were discussing here 'tis

R413 what do you mean "attacked one of us"? Woody was not part of the Hollywood establishment; he never worked in LA, never made a movie for Columbia Pictures aside from appearing in Casino Royale in 1967. His movies did not make enough money for any studio executive care about offending him. Miami Rhapsody was a knock-off Woody Allen movie, it didn't make any money and people only remember it for Sarah Jessica Parker. And Widow's Peak? an independent Irish movie that NOBODY remembers? Move over Emma and Sense and Sensibility...

Mia Farrow's always the one who comes to mind first for me when anyone asks about famous actors who have never been nominated for an Oscar. Given how frequently the Academy has nominated Woody Allen's performers over the years, it's fascinating that they never nominated her even during their peak years together -- and has always suggested to me that there wasn't much Mia love in Hollywood even before the Woody scandal.

Soon-Yi was living on the streets until she was six years old. Those kids are feral and don't learn to bond with anyone during their formative years. She was never innocent and she was 21 when she hooked up with Woody. I think she knew exactly what she was doing. He didn't have a choice but to marry her and I bet he regrets it. I think she figured that Woody would be her best bet for an easy life. She certainly didn't bond with Mia or she wouldn't have had the affair with woody.

R415 you know EXACTLY what I mean

I really don't, R418, unless by "one of us" you intended some kind of hideous anti-Semitic conspiracy theory...

Both Mia Farrow and Carly Simon had huge rent regulated apartments at the Langham, a prewar building in Manhattan, NYC on Central Park West. Mia Farrow inherited her apartment from the mother or grandmother IIRC. It was featured in the Thanksgiving dinner scene from "Hannah and Her Sisters".

Sadly changes in rent control laws brought it all to an end far as cheap digs were concerned. Carly Simon agreed to a substantial increase in rent, while Mia Farrow moved out.

Thanksgiving scene from film "Hannah and Her Sisters".

Other Thanksgiving scene also shot on location at the Langham.

You can see just how huge that apartment is or was as have no idea what it looks like today.

I love these tidbits

Not surprisingly giving numbers of actors, film stars, musicians and others in or connected to entertainment business who reside in the pre-war buildings of UWS in Manhattan were more accommodating to film crews on location. IIRC the Dakota changed rules after Rosemary's Baby about use of that property in any part or way used for filming.

OTOH across Central Park that sort of thing is just not on. The stately white glove co-ops lining Fifth, Madison and Park Avenues want no part of filming within their walls.

R420 Mia didn’t “inherit” the apartment from her mother, she commandeered it when she returned to NYC after splitting from Previn with a mess of kids, no job, and nowhere to go. Maureen O’Sullivan eventually moved to Arizona after she remarried in 1983.

R425 Grifter bitch.

Nepo babys

Exactly, Mia moved in with Maureen after she ran out of money in Martha's Vineyard, where she lived for a couple of years with her brood, and decided to go back to work on broadway (Romantic Comedy). She didn't "inherit it from her grandmother " if FFS, at least if you need to trash Mia, bring your A game. Oh, and they didn't film Rosemary's baby at the Dakota, you fucktard, it was all recreated on a set, after Betty Bacall provided with all the measurements. ANYONE knows that

One of Mia's grandmother was Irish, living in Ireland, and the other was dumped in some mental asylum in Oz when John was a little boy. Mia didn't inherit shit from her apart from her mental disease

Another of Maureen's Irish properties

Listed recently

Maureen and Vivian at the convent of the sacred heart in Roehampton n the 1920's.

don't listen to R420 and R424, these stupid cumdumps don't know anything about Mia

Rare footage of Mia and dear Prudence travelling with Rev. Maharish

Mia Farrow and her rent controlled apartment were covered extensively by NYC and other news media at the time. Anyone who was around then who could read or otherwise be informed knew.

"a list of New York City celebrities living high on the high rise. Topping Tucker's roster is Mayor Edward Koch, who pays $351.60 a month for a one-bedroom unit with a wraparound terrace in Greenwich Village. He has held the lease for 21 years. Comparable apartments in his neighborhood go for $1,700 a month. Actress Lauren Hutton lives in a 900-square-foot chalet-style unit on the lower West Side that costs $468.81 a month. An unusual apartment like hers could go for as much as $1,600 a month. Masterpiece Theater's Alistair Cooke puts down $975.38 a month for eight rooms overlooking Central Park. Comparable: $4,000 to $5,000 a month. Abbie Hoffman, a founder of the 1960s-era yippie movement, pays a scant $95.15 a month for a place on Manhattan's 34th Street -- an unheard-of rent in a town where the lowest-priced apartments are generally advertised for $500 to $700 a month. Not to dwell on other high livers paying low rents, such as Shelley Winters, Mia Farrow and Carly Simon. But who said life is fair -- especially in New York."

Faye Dunaway tried holding to a tenement apartment in Yorkville/UES area of NYC. She was eventually busted and hauled, hauled into housing court and subsequently gave the unit up.

It wouldn't be the DL without some made for tv movie.

R437, must you always focus on the negative? What about the film I did with Kusturica which everyone loved me in and did so well at Cannes?

R434 That Maharishi guy always gave me the creeps.

The Love and Betrayal TVM is hilarious especially in the casting of Soon-Yi. Perhaps to justify Woody's claim that he took the Polaroids for her to be a model, the actress is model-worthy. In real life Soon-Yi is as plain as a brown paper bag.

I rewatched it thanks to this thread. Very enjoyable. I love how there’s comedy mixed in with the drama. I loved how Barbara Hershey could look stylish in jeans and boots and a plaid shirt or a pea coat. I also laughed at the scene where Diane Wiest and Carrie Fisher are walking around in the most outlandish getups.

I loved the little peeks into other relationship dynamics: the elderly couple in their habitual sexual jealousy long after they had any sex appeal. The two friends, April and Holly, competing and falling out (Allen *does* pay attention to women). The particular Frederick refusing to sell his art, on principle, and the rock star not comprehending. The relationship between Allen’s character and his partner, played by Julie Kavner. The terrible auditions.

Love all of it.

Mia's career on DL mirrors her career in films. She's all the rage for years, then flops for a decade or so, then suddenly has a resurgence and a hit thread like this one out of nowhere. She goes around the block a lot, but she always sho up at the front door eventually.

Hannah and Her Sisters is a wonderful movie, but Annie Hall is pure poetry. One of the great love stories. And the fact that it's a love story where the couple doesn't end up together makes it wholly original.

Second hand vintage clothing was all the rage back then. I remember buying a vintage 1940s wool coat and sports jacket at Cheap Jacks in the EV. Very stylish.

[quote]r425 Mia didn’t “inherit” the apartment from her mother, she commandeered it when she returned to NYC after splitting from Previn with a mess of kids, no job, and nowhere to go. Maureen O’Sullivan eventually moved to Arizona after she remarried in 1983.

Mia was living there when she was discovered in her first play, The Importance of Being Ernest. Her mother was acting in a Broadway play at the same time and they enjoyed their life as roommates. The apartment was always Mia’s east coast residence and she spent more time there than in Hollywood.

[quote]r437 Faye Dunaway tried holding to a tenement apartment in Yorkville/UES area of NYC. She was eventually busted and hauled, hauled into housing court and subsequently gave the unit up.

Faye was out… ON HER ASS!

[quote]She was never innocent and she was 21 when she hooked up with Woody. I think she knew exactly what she was doing. He didn't have a choice but to marry her and I bet he regrets it.

You realize people can get divorced, right?

[quote]Mia Farrow and her rent controlled apartment were covered extensively by NYC and other news media at the time. Anyone who was around then who could read or otherwise be informed knew.

R435 Sure, Mia Farrow's rent controlled apartment was one of the big news stories of our time.

Most people don't share the New York obsession with rent-controlled apartments, and couldn't care less about them, or Mia Farrow for that matter.

[quote] it seems like treated Soon-Yi like shit all her life.

Oh shut the fuck up, Woody lover. If it wasn't for Mia Farrow poor dimwitted Soon-Yi would still be eating out of garbage cans in Korea, that is if she had somehow managed to survive.

When I first saw Hannah and Her Sisters back in 1986 I thought Woody's camera lingered on the children longer than necessary.

In 1992 I and the rest of the world found out why.

[quote] Second hand vintage clothing was all the rage back then. I remember buying a vintage 1940s wool coat and sports jacket at Cheap Jacks in the EV. Very stylish.

Indeed, I remember those days (“Pretty In Pink”, too!) I’m still thrifting in a decimated Manhattan landscape. So little left. Holly’s wardrobe was great. It’s just when they were BOTH piled high with it, it looked ridiculous. Perhaps it was intentional.

The Dakota never looked so good

This seems so distant, but it's music from Allen's childhood, just as the '70s rock in Paul Thomas Anderson's movies is for him. Anyway, I can't listen to the beginning without expecting Michael Caine voiceover to break in.

R450 Mia's estranged son Moses claims she would frequently say exactly that to her adopted children when she was upset with them.

Mommie Dearest loved to remind the entire brood of just how much she sacrificed to care for these fourteen little freaks, only a few of which baked in her own oven.

" I’m still thrifting in a decimated Manhattan landscape. "

Spaces where flea markets once were had are either now largely gone (such as parking lots developed into buildings), and or rents went up for retail or commercial space to that thrift/antique places couldn't afford.

Then you have rise of Internet such as eBay. Esty and other places where sellers can go direct.

Will agree that long gone are days when one could wander UWS, UES, Tribeca, WV, EV, Soho, etc.. and go to various thrift or antique stores. Third and Second avenues on UES once had many thrift or antique stores, they're all largely gone except for Goodwill. Goodwill stores also now have an online presence as well.

City Opera thrift is still around. Housing Works on UWS is very hit or miss, most of the rest seemed to have closed. Last one heard HW was getting into legal marihuana sales.

R454 Thank you for that. I just love love love that song and that music. So great. My mother would bring up Harry James. So nice that era, those people were wonderful. That girls voice, Helen Forest, is liquid.

I'm watching an interview with Woody Allen that is really interesting, posting.

[quote] I thought Woody's camera lingered on the children longer than necessary.

When observing children playing and engaged in family life, what for you constitutes "longer than necessary"?

I can imagine what people would say if Allen had ever made a movie with a child really at the center of it, something like Paper Moon, Little Miss Sunshine, or C'mon C'mon. The kids in Hannah and most of his other films are pretty incidental. We see them in crowds at big family holiday gatherings (where one would expect to see children) and popping in and out of scenes that are about the adults, as when Hannah is showing some of her kids how a camera works and then they run off and she talks to Elliot. The son in Manhattan was similar.

What's the largest role he's ever given to a very young performer? (17-year-old Mariel Hemingway doesn't count.) Seth Green as his author avatar in Radio Days? Natasha Lyonne as the narrator character in Everyone Says I Love You? Even with those films, most viewers remember the adults: Dianne Wiest, Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner; Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda, Edward Norton, Drew Barrymore, etc.

R459 Do we know if Allen has made home movies?

R460 = Bryan Singer

Oh please, R450, Mia was the original white savior with a martyr complex to boot. She testified in court that she thought Woody was a homosexual and would molest Satchel and admitted to kicking the shit out of Soon-Yi when she discovered her affair with Woody.

R459 I don't understand the point. You ask us to "imagine" if WA had directed a film with a child in a large or starring role, which some other directors did (so what? There's nothng wrong with that). Then you proceed to disprove that WA ever did that, even though no one -other than you - ever brought it up.

Someone said his camera lingered too long on the kids in Hannah, I think that was it. Which is either true or not.

I was sitting next to Irene Worth at a movie. So I struck up a conversation with her, which came to her opinions about actors. She said “Michael Caine is the best film actor we have right now. He’s miles ahead of Olivier.”

She was specific about “film” acting, but I got her point. Olivier was a more old-fashioned talent, given to punching up his expression to have impact in a theater. And it showed in his film roles too.

Caine was made for the movies.

Well - in the 70s and 80s, when you could still see him on the screen and I was young, I was not that crazy about Olivier. I did think both he and Caine were great in Sleuth. Olivier was not primarily a screen actor, and in those days, people still held the theater, and theater acting, in very high regard. (Average people did go to non-musical theater a lot more then). Nowadays people can only judge Olivier on his films. I've seen a lot more of them since then, and he's very enjoyable and never dull. Henry V, Richard III, The Entertainer, Pride And Prejudice, Spartacus, Carrie (the Jennifer Jones-William Wyler film), Term Of Trial, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, 49th Parallel, etc. Lots to enjoy there and Caine could never have matched the variety.

Olivier was great in Marathon Man, too.

The Trip movie franchise showcases two aging comic actors driving around the countrysides of England, Italy, Spain and Greece, stopping to eat regional cuisine, and engaging in a personal competition over who does the best Michael Caine impression.

Toward the end of the series, even they finally realize Caine has been done to death. Though it's probably what their audience, such as it is, comes back for.

R458 Of course "Stand By Me" was clearly just a grooming opportunity for Rob Reiner.

[quote]I don't understand the point. You ask us to "imagine" if WA had directed a film with a child in a large or starring role, which some other directors did (so what? There's nothng wrong with that). Then you proceed to disprove that WA ever did that, even though no one -other than you - ever brought it up.

The point is that whatever one's position is on Mia Farrow's molestation claims (reiterated by the adult Dylan Farrow, who had Mia as her sole parental influence for most of her life), going back through old Allen movies for evidence to support a prurient interest in small children will not yield much. Children tend to be fleeting presences in his films when they're there at all. More so than with most filmmakers.

[quote]Someone said his camera lingered too long on the kids in Hannah, I think that was it. Which is either true or not.

Not. They're only in the movie enough to establish that they exist.

R466 no he wasn't.

Could Diane Keaton do this scene? Could she play Tina in Broadway Danny Rose or Sally in Radio Days?

R470 So bad he got an Academy Award nomination.

It was a very hammy oscar bait performance by a ham who only ever hammed it up. Also, oscar wins don't mean shit, so oscar noms aren't exactly the measure of everything. Oh, and there is more talent in 2 minutes of Vivien Leigh's performance of streetcar than in his entire career .

R471 Rhea Perlman could have done a better Tina in BDR. I did like Mia's reading of her memoir, she should do more audio books,.

Woody Allen would never had a child as the lead character in one of his movies. By all accounts, he doesn't even like children. Yet he had one with Mia Farrow. And adopted one with Mia Farrow. And adopted in his marriage to Soon-Yi. But I can't imagine him being a father to any of them. The ones with Farrow were no doubt raised by her and other helpers. The ones with Soon-Yi (who seems like the most non-maternal female on the planet) were of course raised by nannies. My guess is that Mia wanted children with him but he told her she would have to be totally responsible for them and their needs. The ones with Soon-Yi were just for show: "Look at us! Aren't we just the most normal, happy family you've ever seen?" IT was supposed to make him look good after all the child abuse allegations. Actually photos of Allen and the adopted girls are chilling; in all pictures with him they look very ill at ease and uncomfortable..

R473, Vivien Leigh's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire is dubiously invoked as an antithesis to hammy acting.

r474 Rhea Perlman? Aren't mob molls supposed to be attractive?

And it is at this moment you begin to wonder about R474’s eyesight…

R473 Too bad her Oscar for it didn't mean shit.

R473 His entire career. I doubt you're qualified to judge his entire career, unless you saw all his stage performances going back to the 1920s. Maybe Werner Klemperer would have been better in Marathon Man, I guess we'll never know.

[quote] I can't imagine him being a father to any of them

Neither can I

R476 = Joan plowright

[quote]The ones with Soon-Yi were just for show: "Look at us! Aren't we just the most normal, happy family you've ever seen?" IT was supposed to make him look good after all the child abuse allegations.

Adopting two small children you're going to be responsible for until at least college age is a pretty long game to play just for caring deeply about your public image. Also, when they adopted the girls in 1999-2000, the scandal had died down and no one was talking about it much.

So, isn't it just as likely or more so that Soon-Yi is telling the truth when she says they adopted children because she wanted to be a mother?

I suspect Allen himself has fertility issues, given that his only biological child with three wives and numerous girlfriends has been Ronan, and even Ronan's paternity is under a cloud of suspicion. Plus, he gave his character in Hannah the infertility subplot (albeit with a surprise ending).

[quote]Actually photos of Allen and the adopted girls are chilling; in all pictures with him they look very ill at ease and uncomfortable..

Many if not most of the photos of Allen out in public with Manzie and/or Bechet are paparazzi photos. If the girls don't look thrilled in them, isn't it just as likely that it's because they're not public figures and it isn't a pleasant thing for them to be photographed by strangers?

Some internet "body language expert" a few years ago did a column on how uncomfortable one of the girls looked in Allen's presence in a photo, and she got a pretty fierce rebuttal from the girl herself. Both daughters write very fondly of him and say he's a great dead. But I know, only time will tell. I hope both of them thrive, as did not happen for some of Mia's unfortunate adoptees.

[quote]Both daughters write very fondly of him and say he's a great dead.

Ha. There's a morbid slip.

R5 Agree, possibly one of the best soundtracks ever. I love the rendition of Concerto for Two Harpsichords by Bach. I believe it is No.4 or No.5 for those not familiar with the film, or its soundtrack.

it's " AUNT VIVIEN " actually, suck it, Jamie-Lee !

His adopted son Moses Farrow also speaks highly of him (at least) on social media R483

I love big band music but I don't like Harry James doing I've Heard That Song Before. I'm not really a fan of the song or his trumpet playing. Another reason this movie annoyed me.

R487 Moses has cerebral palsy and is retarded. Woody's team is writing his stuff

Cerebral palsy is a movement disorder not a mental disorder, ignorant fuckwit R489. Mia was the one who wrote a letter under his name to try and curry favor with the judge during the custody trial.

"Moses is retarded," "Soon-Yi is retarded"...it seems any of Mia's children who say negative things about her (and those tend to be the ones who look least like her) are labeled retarded. There might be more of them saying negative things about her if three of them weren't dead, two by suicide.

Moses is a family therapist. I don't think he's a retard. Soon Yi seems well spoken and smart to me.

R489= Ronan Farrow

[quote]Woody Allen would never had a child as the lead character in one of his movies.

Isaac in "Manhattan" has a son. Willie.

R494, was R475 rather saying that a Woody Allen movie would never have a child for one of its main characters? They're always supporting players at best, as in Manhattan.

I hate April. She's pushy.

R494 that whole bit is great. Meryl Streep all bitter and strident with a lesbian lover who tried to run Woody over. Hahaha.

[quote][R494], was [R475] rather saying that a Woody Allen movie would never have a child for one of its main characters?

Yes, I misunderstood that comment. Thanks.

all of Mia's adopted children are tards, and some of the bios are too.

Mia is the very definition of Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Soon-Yi, while not exactly "retarded" is no great shakes intellectually. Her tested IQ was 90. She has college degrees but with money and connections you can buy college degrees. She does look like someone who doens't have much intelligence; that perpetually blank, expressionless look that's usually on her face is unsettling.

R501 Bullshit. I've seen her speak. Her IQ is way above 90.

I couldn't find the clip I was looking for from Wild Man Blues, but there's a scene where she advises Woody on how to handle the politics within his jazz band. Suggesting he acknowledge them more on stage, thank them, things of that nature. It was very astute of her, and on some level shows she can teach Woody some things.

This clip just shows her to be well spoken and articulate. This is not a person with a 90 IQ. I don't know who this person is who insists upon her having a low IQ in EVERY SINGLE WOODY ALLEN thread, but they certainly seem obsessed with the notion.

[quote] Bullshit. I've seen her speak. Her IQ is way above 90.

How would you know what her IQ is, dumbass? Her aunt Tia Farrow said "she has a double digit IQ. It's not like she's a drooling idiot, but she's very naive and very immature." That's a quote from "The Unruly LIfe of Woody Allen" by Marion Meade. It went on to say "While not the dim bulb described by her aunt, she did not seem particularly bright compared to others in the family. "She was a little slow" said a family friend, who points out that Soon-Yi received permission to take her SATS untimed, in a special test situation for learning disabled students. It took Soon-Yi twice as long, sometimes even longer, as other children to complete her homework." It also said "When she was in third grade tests revealed she had minor learning disabilities, including processing information as well as an IQ slightly b below average." So YOU are the one spouting the bullshit.

[quote]How would you know what her IQ is, dumbass? Her aunt Tia Farrow said "she has a double digit IQ. It's not like she's a drooling idiot, but she's very naive and very immature." That's a quote from "The Unruly LIfe of Woody Allen" by Marion Meade. It went on to say "While not the dim bulb described by her aunt, she did not seem particularly bright compared to others in the family.

I'm not R502, but I wouldn't look to comments made by one of Mia's sisters in 1992 as the last word on what Soon-Yi is like. Also, if Soon-Yi's reports of the way she was being treated in the Farrow household are even half-true, it isn't surprising that she wasn't testing well and seemed blunted and limited in interaction.

However, I agree with R502 that she has come off as intelligent and well spoken in extended interviews in adulthood, and she did keep up with Allen conversationally in that documentary.

R503 Get help. You are unwell.

I think it was pretty smart of Soon-Yi to plant those Polaroids exactly where she knew Mia would find them. Probably more conning than Mia and Woody put together.

I meant cunning, but conning could work just as well.

Sun-Yi is full on retard. Her IQ is not 90....it is 9. When Woody dies Mia will take full custody of her. She was already damaged when Mia took her in and goodness knows what that Woody Allen has done do her.

[quote] Get help. You are unwell.

Get help, Woody lover. You are not of sound mind.

In interviews Soon-Yi sounds eerily like Woody Allen. It's obvious she's been extensively coached and prepared whenever she's called upon to speak.

He seemed like a philanderer. He probably didn't want to be locked down with Soon-Yi forever.

He had to stay with her for life because what they did was so egregious.

Nobody decent would want Woody after that scandal.

Soon-Yi insists she's not retarded.

I AM NOT A RETARD!

People with neurological problems often get labeled "retarded" because they do not sound "normal" when they speak.

That is what appears to be happening here. I was involved in a legal case where a lawyer discredited someone with auditory processing issues by making it appear that they had low intelligence. I am sure Farrow was advised to do something similar.

I'd never call a person "retarded", or "a retard".

I've been trained by family members that it's offensive & socially incorrect.

But I do still love saying, "That's retarded". It's just so apt.

The politically correct term is "mentally challenged." It sounds nicer but it means the same thing as retarded.

“Special needs”

Was Lee or Holly the baby of those three? Wiest is a little younger than Hershey, and I always took her as the youngest, but others have said she comes off like someone with classic "middle child" problems.

I thought Lee was the youngest

[quote] I've been trained by family members that it's offensive & socially incorrect.

offensive to whom ? these fucking morons don't even understand the word. Fucking retards. retards retard retards

offensive to the fraus who couldn't even produce a decent child ?

[quote] So, isn't it just as likely or more so that Soon-Yi is telling the truth when she says they adopted children because she wanted to be a mother?

Soon-Yi doesn't seem like the mothering type. Nor does Allen seem like the fathering type. They both seem very self centered. As for the two girls, what else are they going to say except that they're great parents? I'm sure they're very well taken care of financially; maybe they think, at this point in their lives, that constitutes good parenting. Why take a lot of stock in what they say? Their Woody praise reminds me of the memorial service for Michael Jackson. Paris Jackson wept and said that her Daddy Michael Jackson was "the best father you could ever imagine!" Sure he was!

[quote]As for the two girls, what else are they going to say except that they're great parents? I'm sure they're very well taken care of financially; maybe they think, at this point in their lives, that constitutes good parenting. Why take a lot of stock in what they say?

I see. You've decided that two people you don't know are self-centered and not the parenting types. No stock should be put in what their children say to the contrary. On the other hand, you believe their expressions in photos taken by strangers on the street should be closely scrutinized as indicative of the truth. If on some future occasions (heaven forbid), one or both of them allege abuse, it would suddenly be time to listen to them, because your own beliefs would be validated.

Got it.

[quote]I'm sure they're very well taken care of financially; maybe they think, at this point in their lives, that constitutes good parenting.

Well, considering that one of Soon-Yi's sisters died of AIDS-related complications in impoverished conditions (despite having been adopted by a wealthy actress and a world-renowned composer/conductor), and another Farrow adoptee was more recently asking the public to contribute money to her living expenses, I guess it's something.

R522 They are false stories put out by Allen's people.

Lark Previn's death from AIDS at 35 on Christmas Day 2008 is not a "false story," R523, much less the fact that Mia has zero to do with Lark's twin daughters, Sara and Christine McKenzie.

[quote]As for the two girls, what else are they going to say except that they're great parents?

Hm, let's give this some thought.

I liked when this thread was about ‘clumpy’ Michael Caine.

Lol. The Woody-Mia story will never die on Datalounge though.

Soon-Yi couldn't wrap a spring roll if her life depended on it. She has the IQ of lobster

]quote] You've decided that two people you don't know are self-centered and not the parenting types.

I suppose you're warm, close, personal friends with all of them. Hah! Or maybe you're on Woody's payroll. Anyway, judging by interviews both Allen and Soon-YI come across as two shallow people who are only concerned with themselves. And by looking at photos of them anybody can see something is really NOT right there. Photos of Allen with his arms around the two girls is especially disturbing; the girls look very uncomfortable and Allen's has an expressionless look on his face. You'd think being embraced by dear old Dad would at least bring on a smile. You'd think deal old Dad might have a smile on his face, too. But his face is totally blank. No, something is very wrong with this so-called "family."

[quote]And by looking at photos of them anybody can see something is really NOT right there. Photos of Allen with his arms around the two girls is especially disturbing; the girls look very uncomfortable and Allen's has an expressionless look on his face. You'd think being embraced by dear old Dad would at least bring on a smile. You'd think deal old Dad might have a smile on his face, too.

If he had a smile on his face, you wouldn't be presenting that as evidence that he was sexually aroused?

[quote]I liked when this thread was about ‘clumpy’ Michael Caine.

Serves him right, since his playing matchmaker led to the whole mess!

Although also some great movies. No matter what I think about Mia Farrow as a parent or a person, I love her work in Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days, Alice, and Husbands and Wives. She's good in the other ones too, such as Hannah and Crimes and Misdemeanors, just in a lower key or not as focal.

R527 = Mia Farrow

R475, the photos were selected by photo editors. The photos where the girls looked comfortable would not have gotten so much attention.

[quote] The photos where the girls looked comfortable would not have gotten so much attention.

If photos of them looking "comfortable" existed Woody Allen would have made sure they were published everywhere. He would have made sure of that.

R533, how? He seems to have very little pull in how the media covers him.

There is very little positive coverage of his activities. If he could plant photos in the media, surely he could plant more positive stories.

Woody and his daughters.

In R535, if I were to read the photo straightforwardly, I'd say they're sticking close to him and looking suspiciously/resentfully at the paparazzo, while he starts huddling them in a direction away from the cameras.

[quote] if I were to read the photo straightforwardly, I'd say they're sticking close to him and looking suspiciously/resentfully at the paparazzo, while he starts huddling them in a direction away from the cameras.

You must be some kind of Pollyanna or something. Or maybe you work for Woody. In that photo they all look awkward and uncomfortable and I don't think it has a damn thing to do with the paparazzo. This is not a happy group of people.

[quote] Anyway, judging by interviews both Allen and Soon-YI come across as two shallow people who are only concerned with themselves. And by looking at photos of them anybody can see something is really NOT right there.

Agree. These are two people capable of doing what they did to Mia, and with seemingly no remorse or conscience about it. They both hurt her in the deepest way possible and they just shrug it all off as if it's nothing. "The heart wants what it wants", and that's about it.

Holding up Mia Farrow as a victim of the unscrupulous and self-serving is pretty rich.

R537, you don't think it has "a damn thing to do with the paparazzo," when that's the whole situation in the photo? And you think if I'm reading the photo *as* a photo, rather than as some kind of candid, all-knowing view into three people's everyday lives, I must be a cock-eyed optimist or paid by Woody Allen? You must be a fantasist frau.

Allen is a pretty awful person, but you cannot watch whole HBO Allen v. Farrow documentary without thinking that the pedophilia charages are bullshit and that Farrow is a monster.

And that was a documentary that was supposed to be supportive of her.

This really exists.

R541, they are both insane

The scenes of city life, like when Elliot and Lee are on the sidewalk and go into the used bookstore, make me wistful. It's as much a vanished New York now as the immediate postwar New York would have been when the movie was new.

I'd rather watch HANNAH DOES HER SISTERS.

[quote] So, isn't it just as likely or more so that Soon-Yi is telling the truth when she says they adopted children because she wanted to be a mother?

Is her womb diseased or something?

In the r535 pic you can see the (usually inscrutable) Soon-Yi literally digging her talons into Woody’s chest, determined to claw her way to the top of her heap.

Dylan looks truly uncomfortable.

No that pic is of Woody and his two adopted daughters.

Oh my god! Why does one look seductive, caressing his chest, while the other one looks assaulted??

Chilling.

This is completely normal

I knew a woman who went to Marymount with Soon-Yi. She said Soon-Yi was not stupid or retarded, but shy and reserved. They weren’t friends or anything, but it’s a small school. IIRC she said that Woody would sometimes pick her up from school and she never saw Mia. I also knew a man who sort of knew Satchel (as Ronan was called back then) and we laughed at his name (we were teenagers).

And one of the Previn kids is a teacher at Trinity now.

That’s all I’ve got. I love this movie a lot.

[quote] You must be a fantasist frau.

You must be a Woody lover, fuckhead.

[quote]she said that Woody would sometimes pick her up from school

Um, that was Mr. Simon, not me.

[quote]No that pic is of Woody and his two adopted daughters.

Soon Yi and Her Sister

Bechet Allen.

Manzie Tio Allen

You can see all the pain and hurt in their eyes. Once Woody dies Mia will take custody and give those girls a proper life.

Mia's going to take custody of women in their mid 20s?

Manzie looks like Heather Matarazzo.

Excuse me, I WENT to Marymount with Soon-Yi, briefly; because I was staying with my aunt and uncle for a while. She couldn't spell MGM backwards. Once we crossed the hall, there was a sigh "wet floor" , she did. Actually, I feel very guilty, because my uncle is the one who told Woody, "make Mia happy, get close to the children"

R560, don't quit your day job.

Ronan's hatred of Woody has been so all-consuming that I am certain he must have had a DNA test to see if there is any chance Frank Sinatra is his father. The fact he still makes complaining jokes that Woody Allen is his biological father means that he knows for certain Woody must be his dad--if there were any possibility Sinatra was his father we would have heard by now.

And Ronan's exceptionally high IQ and record of high intellectual precocity also mean he is not Sinatra's and Mia's son.

Woody can only hope that Ronan was his. With Mia as his mother, his father could be anybody in Actors' Equity!

R563 LOL! Good one!

With Mia as his mother, his father could be anybody in Actors' Equity!

That is not true. Mia also fucked the screen writers guild and most musicians in the business. and some of the cinematographers too.

Epstein, Woody & Soon-Yi!

What a shame we couldn't get this Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice spinoff.

R566 I'm available.

I've been on my best behaviour - I'm sure the warden would give me leave for a couple of months. Would love to see Woody & Soon-Yi again. Such good friends.

[quote]Epstein, Woody & Soon-Yi!

Lovely.

Wonder if Woody was being provocative at moments like that (walking down the street with Epstein), or if it's a general arrogance he enjoys displaying from time to time. Along those lines, he had no interest in marrying again after 1970, and he had no interest in having children, only consenting to do so with Mia after she promised to be their sole caretaker. Yet he wants the world to believe all that shifted when he fell in love with Soon-Yi and he just had to marry and have children with this amazing woman. It was all damage control (with occasional slips into exhibitionistic arrogance). And, on some level, he probably realizes that everyone knows this, but he doesn't really care.

Thread Closed!

Susan Sarandon spells it on briefly and to the point.

R569 She should know.

Some people shouldn't have kids.

Epstein was quite foxy. I wonder what all these silly girls had to complain about. Hot, handsome, straight, richer than God and kinky. Sounds good to me.

R572 and what about that egg-shaped penis? so hard to resist.

what egg-shaped penis ?? inquiring mind wants to know. more like chicken or ostrich egg ?

I read Carrie Fisher's role was initially a lot bigger but she was in such bad shape drug wise it got cut down drastically.

There is a scene in the film's trailer with April and David (Sam Waterston) looking at Frederick's paintings at an art gallery, and it isn't in the film. I don't know how much more there was. I've never heard about tensions between Fisher and Allen, and she always spoke well of him.

Carrie definitely won the Jerome Kern sing-off with Dianne Wiest. April's "The Way You Look Tonight," while not GREAT, was much better than Holly's "I'm Old-Fashioned."

R574 In one of the docs on Epstein, maybe the one on Netflix, there is video of him in a deposition for a case brought by some of his victims, where their attorney asks "Is it true that you have an egg-shaped penis?". He fails to answer, but it's clear he's upset by the question. Which was probably the objective, puncture his mr.cool facade.

No dick pics that I know of.

R577 wasn't it Weinstein with that problem?

R577 He doesn't look that rattled, but his attorney adjourns and he walks off.

Hannah and Her Sisters is free to watch now on Kanopy.

Anyway, I loved the Holly (Diane Wiest) character. (She won an Academy Award for supporting actress.) Max Von Sydow was excellent as Lee's much-older Svengali-type, live-in boyfriend.

I found myself looking more closely at all the kids in the house (movie filmed in Mia's real apartment, her real-life kids are in the movie). Moses Farrow was so adorable (Asian with glasses), I looked him up. He's now a therapist. He wrote his side of the story and basically sides with Woody. Moses said that Mia once hit him so hard she knocked the glasses off of his face. She also beat him on another occasion. I just do believe him.

R48 That's your idea of looking great?

R66 Three homely men.