Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

(On Cable TV, January 2020) As a reviewer, I often have issues in discussing Woody Allen movies from the 1980s. They often fall into a good-enough zone that escapes sustained critical discussion. They’re (canonically) not as funny as his earlier 1960s movies, not quite the specific genre or character exercise that his later 1990s+ movies would become, and certainly not (at a few exceptions) as groundbreaking as the 1970s ones. There is, in other words, an evenness to them, even in their quality, that makes it difficult to dissect. (My review of Bullets over Broadway is one of the shortest on this site.) In that context, Broadway Danny Rose, is an ironic story gently told, offering just enough space for Allen to play his usual persona and for Mia Farrow to grab a striking mafia moll role. The framing device has to do with comedians at a New York deli (the New York deli, some argue) telling themselves tales about Danny Rose, and one of them taking up the most defining tale of them all—how perennial loser impresario Danny Rose went through hell for one of his clients and his mistress, only to be dumped by the client. In the grand scheme of Allen movies, Broadway Danny Rose is at once comforting—here’s Allen playing his utmost persona and doing it perfectly—and somewhat atypical, as the heroine is about as far from Allen’s usual intellectuals as it’s possible to be. Shot in black-and-white for artistic reasons that I find uninteresting, the film is also a look at the Manhattan impresario milieu and the incredible length at which they will go to for their clients. Broadway Danny Rose is a bit sad even despite the jokes and it does wrap up to an intriguing whole… a bit like most of Allen’s 1980s films.