The 1970s was a heyday for kooky New York characters name-checked in long-winded movie titles: Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basel E. Frankweiler. Surprisingly, Woody Allen didn’t take advantage of this trend; his only long-winded title was this anthology inspired by Dr. David Reuben’s book of the same title. Allen’s version is far less educational than Reuben’s; it takes the form of several unrelated sketches, each of which purports to answer a question posed in Reuben’s book. The funniest bits are the first and last. The opener, “Do Aphrodisiacs Work?,” is a medieval farce featuring Allen as a court jester and Lynn Redgrave as a queen trapped in a chastity belt. The climactic sketch, “What Happens During Ejaculation?,” stars Allen as a sperm. The rest are hit-and-miss and awfully dated but still pretty hilarious. Allen’s $2 million picture scored $18 million at the box office, proving that, when it comes to titles, size doesn’t matter.
