"Sex alleviates tension and love causes it."
— Andrew
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a 1982 sex comedy film written, directed by and starring Woody Allen. The film was produced during the post-production of Zelig, as a way to pass the time before the latter film was completed.
In the year 1900, Professor Leopold (José Ferrer), a distinguished philosopher, and his fiancée Ariel (Mia Farrow), visit Leopold's cousin Adrian (Mary Steenburgen), and her crackpot inventor husband Andrew (Allen) on the countryside. They are joined by doctor Maxwell (Tony Roberts) and his girlfriend and nurse, Dulcy (Julie Hagerty). Over the course of the weekend, a series of wacky romantic encounters results from the reunion of the three couples.
This film features examples of:
- Actual Pacifist: Leopold considers himself a civilized man and abhors violence. That ends when he finds out Andrew is off to sleep with Ariel.
- Alliterative Family: Andrew and Adrian.
- Animal Motif: When Max is courting Ariel while Leopold is singing, he sits on the swinging bench, resembling a songbird trying to sweet talk her.
- Crystal Ball: Andrew's "spirit box" is a ball that produces shadows of the past, present and future. The first time depicts a shadow of Adrian and Maxwell having an affair, though no one knows who they are save the culprits, and the second time unambiguously shows a shadow of Andrew and Ariel kissing.
- Deathbed Confession: Maxwell thinks he's dying after shot with an arrow by Leopold, and admits to Andrew that he slept with Adrian a year and a half ago.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The entire film is set at the turn of the century, so it's inevitable.Adrian: Imagine sharing a bed before marriage. It's sort of depraved!
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Leopold's dream comes true after a fashion.Leopold: Just now, before I awoke. I was dreaming this. Precisely this. That's incredible. We were alone and you were lying across the sofa, and you were reading. I asked you what, and you said The Katzenjammer Kids. And I thought it was funny. And then your robe fell open slightly. Only slightly, the way it is now, and I was taken with a great erotic fervor. And all the terrible thoughts of my whole life, that I'd been afraid to unleash, poured forth.
Dulcy: How did I react?
Leopold: You pressed your lips to mine... and then the scene changed, and we were two savages in the wilderness. It was a prehistoric era. I was a Neanderthal, hunting my enemies with primitive weapons (fiercely) and loving you uninhibitedly.
Dulcy: Jesus. What did you eat before you went to bed?! - Driven to Suicide: Maxwell tries to shoot himself in the head when Adrian declares that Ariel's marriage to Leopold will be long-lived — he gives himself a head wound instead). Andrew is about to do the same when he finds out Adrian slept with Maxwell, but Adrian stops him lovingly.
- False Teeth Tomfoolery:Dulcy: (Immodest Orgasm) Bite me harder! Harder!
Leopold: I can't. These are not my teeth! - Freudian Trio:
- Leopold is the Superego, insisting that only the physical world exists
- Maxwell is the Id, indulging in pleasure because the real world is too rough
- Andrew is the Ego, who believes there's more to life than meets the eye
- Gay Nineties: The film takes place in 1900, which is technically the last year of the 1890's.
- Guilt Complex: The entire reason Andrew and Adrian can't enjoy sex is that Adrian slept with Maxwell a year and a half before and her guilt sabotaged the sex.
- Hollywood Darkness: The many of the "night" scenes are obviously shot in the day, and the film doesn't even try to hide the fact.
- Insufferable Genius: Everyone save his professorial colleagues think Leopold is a pompous ass.
- Ladykiller in Love: Womanizer Maxwell falls instantly in love with Ariel. Gender Flipped in that Ariel Really Gets Around, too. It gets Lampshaded by Maxwell who notes they're both heavy flirts — but their flirting days are over.
- Literal Metaphor: After Leopold shoots Maxwell in the chest with a bow and arrow.Maxwell: Look at me — shot in the heart by Cupid's arrow, only it was shot by Leopold!
- Love Dodecahedron: Andrew and Maxwell pine for Ariel, who's about to marry Leopold, who knows Maxwell is after Ariel, while Adrian suspects Andrew of still carrying a torch for Ariel. Maxwell ends up with Ariel, Dulcy has sex with Leopold, while Adrian and Andrew rediscover their sex life.
- Mad Scientist: Well, more "very neurotic" than "mad", but Andrew is an inventor, and he's played by Woody Allen, and he's exactly what one would expect from Woody Allen as an inventor. Andrew even refers to himself as a "crackpot inventor".
- May–December Romance: Leopold and Ariel have a very notorious age difference (at the time the film was released, José Ferrer was 70 and Mia Farrow was 37).
- Minimalist Cast: The film basically has six characters in it, aside from the minor actors in the prologue.
- Mythology Gag: Tony Roberts plays "Maxwell".
- Only a Flesh Wound: Maxwell gets an arrow to the heart, but survives. It makes sense, since Leopold is such an old man, from the distance he fired it, it didn't get deep enough to reach the actual organ.
- Out with a Bang: Leopold dies mid-orgasm while having sex with Dulcy. In fact, the entire forest is filled with the spirits of those who died while lovemaking!
- Public Domain Soundtrack:
- The entire film uses music by Felix Mendelssohn, including his famed wedding march.
- Leopold sings one of the oldest songs in human history, Sumer is i-cumin in.Sumer is i-cumin in —
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!
- Really Gets Around:
- Dulcy is a 1900 equivalent of a free love hippie, and is unabashed about discussing sex, including getting nostalgic over seeing a hammock (she lost her virginity in one) and teaching Adrian a sex position called a Mexican Cartwheel.Andrew: That sounds incredibly filthy!
Adrian: It is!
Andrew: Great! - Ariel apparently fooled around with everyone in Chicago, including the White Sox.
- Dulcy is a 1900 equivalent of a free love hippie, and is unabashed about discussing sex, including getting nostalgic over seeing a hammock (she lost her virginity in one) and teaching Adrian a sex position called a Mexican Cartwheel.
- Rule of Three:Andrew: Leopold! You're a man of reason! You're a pacifist! (Oh, Crap! look) You're an animal!
- Sad Clown: Maxwell plays the foolish Casanova, but he admits while drunk that the hospital is a depressing place, and it's taught him Carpe Diem, explaining his sexcapades.
- Sex God: According to their partners, both Adrian and Leopold are really good in bed.
- When Andrew and Adrian finally have sex again, Andrew gushes it was "a religious experience!"
- Dulcy says that she had sex with Leopold "like two savages", and remarks "he was magnificent!"
- Sliding Scale of Realistic vs. Fantastic: Leopold is on the far end of realistic, claiming nothing exists that we cannot touch, while Andrew believes in fairies and ghosts. Leopold's glowing spirit announces that Andrew was right after he dies.
- Speech-Centric Work: There's little action (til the climax), as the characters gossip, lie and banter amongst themselves for most of the film.
- What Could Have Been: In-Universe, Andrew is haunted by the fact he never courted Ariel, and wonders what could have been. However, it's too late for both of them. Had they joined when they were young, they might have been an item. It's too late now, and neither finds the other exciting anymore after they attempt to have sex.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The film's plot is a loose retelling of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. As for William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, it features partner-swapping, mysticism, and the lead character’s love interest shares a name with Ariel from The Tempest. Allen also stated that it was also influenced by Claire's Knee.
