Manhattan Murder Mystery Reviews

Woody Allen's first film following the tabloid scandals that emerged during the breakup of his relationship with Mia Farrow, MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY is a light confection, whipped up from bits of old movies and toothless domestic banter. Larry and Carol Lipton (Allen, Diane Keaton) are middle-aged New Yorkers whose lives are too good to be true and too dull to be fiction. He's a book editor and she's thinking about opening a restaurant. Larry is deflecting the advances of exotic writer Marcia Fox (Anjelica Huston), while Carol flirts half-heartedly with longtime friend Ted (Alan Alda). The death of an elderly neighbor, Lillian House (Lynn Cohen), provides the excitement Carol has been yearning for: she suspects Paul House (Jerry Adler) of murder, drawing Ted, Marcia, and even the skeptical Larry into her clumsy snooping. The mystery is resolved in a climax lifted straight from Orson Welles' THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. Though MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY seems intended as a straightforward comedy, a frothy homage to old movies featuring amateur sleuths and clever repartee, its tone is surprisingly curdled; when Larry mutters that there's nothing wrong with Carol that Prozac and a whack with a polo mallet wouldn't cure, the remark feels too sour for the situation. The film's nervous, gritty style is woefully out of sync with its broadly whimsical tone. Woody Allen is an acquired taste, and MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY is a movie for his steadfast fans only.