The Purple Rose of Cairo

By 1985, Woody is in the heart of his “Golden Age of Mia Farrow” phase. With three collaborations behind them including her spectacular performance in Broadway Danny Rose, Allen next focuses his lens on a softer, more innocent role for Farrow in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Cecilia works as a waitress in a greasy-spoon in New Jersey. Her husband, Monk, is out of work and spends his days shooting dice, boozing, carousing, and generally being The Beast to Cecilia’s Beauty. In order to escape the harsh realities of the Great Depression, Cecilia takes refuge in the local movie-house. She loves movies for the respite the experience offers from her daily life— she savors the fashion, romance, beautiful people, and the kind of perfection only possible in celluloid. Cecilia is a dreamer. She fantasizes about films and a life better than this one. When things in her life are at their worst, she seeks shelter in the matinee showing of the film within the film, The Purple Rose of Cairo. Shot in the style of the champagne pictures of the 1930s, The Purple Rose of Cairo follows bored jet-setters around the globe as they meet explorer Tom Baxter in an Egyptian tomb, only to bring him back to their New York penthouse for a “madcap Manhattan weekend.” To the shock of his co-stars and audience members, Tom Baxter physically leaves the screen and enters the real world once he notices Cecilia in the crowd. “You must really love this picture. You’ve been here all day and I’ve seen you here twice before,” Tom says to her, annihilating the fourth wall. The two run off and so begins an adventure that explores themes familiar to any Woody fan— fantasy vs. reality, magical realism, the role of art, and the impossibility of innocence.

Woody has often lamented the creative process, how a perfect idea gets mangled as it makes its way through the perils of filmmaking. “There’s a big difference between what you set out to make and what you make almost every time,” says Allen in Woody Allen: A Documentary. “There are a lot of surprises that happen between writing it, doing it, and seeing it on the screen. Most surprises are negative. Most surprises are that you thought something was good or funny and it’s not,” he explains. The director is almost always self-effacing regarding his work and its shortcomings. “I’ve made just about 40 films in my life and so few have really been worth anything because it’s not easy,” he says. The Purple Rose of Cairo, it seems, is a rare instance where Woody is happy with the outcome. “Only on The Purple Rose of Cairo,” says Woody to interviewer Stig Bjorkman. “That’s the closest I’ve come to a feeling of satisfaction. After that film I thought, ‘Yes, this time I think I got it right where I wanted to get it.’” It’s rare for Woody to deem one of his films an artistic success, let alone give it praise. Considering the ponderous process it took to get the film into its final form, it’s a wonder it turned out to be one of the few to meet Allen’s expectations.

“I wrote half the film and I couldn’t figure out where to go,” Woody explains. “So I put the script away and started to write something else and then came back to it. I got the idea that the thing that made it work as a film was to have the real actor enter the story. And that gave me the whole development.” Once Tom Baxter, played by Jeff Daniels, flees with Cecilia, he quickly learns that life on the other side isn’t as consistent as it is on the silver screen. Their relationship blossoms as he adjusts to the real world. “I just met a wonderful new man,” she says. “He’s fictional but you can’t have everything.” The actor who plays Tom, Gil Shepard, arrives to quell the situation and control his creation. While Tom is innocence incarnate, Gil is calculating, frenetic, and though he shares the same boyish good looks as his on-screen doppleganger, they can be deceiving. When Cecilia has to choose between Tom and Gil she goes with the latter because he’s real, a man of flesh and blood. While Tom can offer an escape from reality, it will ultimately remain a fantasy. Gil is real but, as is the case with life, reality can be cruel. Real people let you down. Real problems don’t end happily ever after like they do in the film world. The Purple Rose of Cairo ends on a melancholy note as Cecilia realizes there’s no escape from her life, other than the precious hours spent at the movies. The weight of the film rests squarely on the shoulders of Jeff Daniels as he plays Tom with an infectious wide-eyed optimism and Gil with a whip-smart irresistible Hollywood charm that’s equal-parts appealing. And to think the film almost didn’t happen this way.

“Woody’s not afraid to change cast members as he goes along if something doesn’t work out,” says Allen biographer Eric Lax. “The best example of this is Michael Keaton in The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Filming began with Keaton playing the dual roles of Tom Baxter and Gil Shepard. Casting Director Juliet Taylor explains, “[Woody] greatly admired Michael Keaton and still does, but never took the time to meet him.” The casting process for Allen’s films is the stuff of legends. Often, the first time many actors speak to or even meet Woody is on the first day of shooting. “Once [Keaton] was there, Woody just felt he was so contemporary for a movie that took plaice in the 1930s, that it just didn’t feel right.” The production was able to re-shoot the scenes with Daniels in Keaton’s place. Woody’s ability to suss out when an actor isn’t working well is admirable but one wonders if it could’ve been avoided.

Films, like other forms of art, offer an outlet for escapism. The fantasy of the film world is appealing but, ultimately, one can’t live in a fantasy. The world outside of the theater goes on and problems persist. For Cecilia, the movies offer such an escape. “We go to the movies in order to experience brief lives that are not our own,” writes Roger Ebert. “Allen is demonstrating what a tricky self-deception we practice. Those movie lives consist of only what is on the screen, and if we start thinking that real life can be the same way, we are in for a cruel awakening.” The Purple Rose of Cairo simultaneously shows what’s great about movies, the transportive magic of cinema, while throwing back the curtain on the deceptive ruse of it all. It’s cinematic slight-of-hand at its finest.

Broadway Danny Rose

1984 was a busy year at the box office. Broad comedies with massive success like Beverly Hills Cop, Revenge of the Nerds, a second-run of Ghostbusters, Police Academy, and Gremlins were matched with blockbusters like Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, The Terminator, the genre-defining Nightmare on Elm Street, and Karate Kid. Most of these films spawned a series of sequels, cartoons, and toy lines and live on in daily cable-TV re-runs. Amidst these colossal Hollywood hits, is Broadway Danny Rose. It’s Woody Allen, off on his own metaphorical and quite literal island of Manhattan, putting out another film, without much fanfare, that’s just as charming, funny, introspective, and remarkable as his greatest films to this point. 1984 also saw the release of This Is Spinal Tap, another watershed moment in comedy. The mock rock documentary comes a year after Zelig, Woody’s masterful use of the fake film format and its influence is palpable. In Woody’s career, Broadway Danny Rose comes “right in the middle of that amazing run,” writes Andrew Pulver for The Guardian. “The one that started, approximately, in 1979 with Manhattan… and ended, sort of, in 1992, with Husbands and Wives (the last film he completed before what I call The Trouble— his career-disorienting breakup with Mia Farrow).” It’s his third film working with Mia Farrow and another in a long string of successful collaborations with cinematographer Gordon Willis. As a result, Woody’s storytelling, acting, and direction feel mature, confident. The film exudes an air of assuredness, partly due to Woody’s first-hand experience with the show business types portrayed in the film.

Danny Rose is a personal manager to the lowliest two-bit acts that ever worked the Borscht Belt. Whether he’s singing the praises of his blind xylophone player or hammering out a deal for his one-legged tap-dancer, Danny genuinely believes in the talents of his misfit entertainers. One night, a group of road-weary comedians are trading show-biz tall tales when they settle into what’s known as “the greatest Danny Rose story of all time” and that’s where the film begins. Danny is representing Lou Canova, a has-been lounge singer with a shot at a comeback. Lou had a hit in the ‘50s but has since found his career and love-life to be, much like his burgeoning drinking problem, on the rocks. Riding a nostalgia craze, Danny manages to book Lou a gig at the Waldorf, a showcase for Milton Berle who is putting together a TV special filled with the stars of yesteryear. It’s just the break they need. Always willing to do anything for a client, Danny agrees to chaperone Lou’s mistress, Tina Vitale, so she can attend, along with Lou’s wife. Tina is an abrasive, street-wise woman with ties to Mafia thugs including a deceased husband and a lovelorn son of a Mob family. When Danny is mistaken for Tina’s lover, the mobsters put a hit on Danny and he, along with Tina, spend the better part of the film outrunning their would-be killers. It’s one of the most plot-centric films of Allen’s since Play It Again, Sam but is raised above some of Woody’s other comedies thanks to impeccable acting and an unshakable sense of authenticity.

Woody stood on the shoulders of giants like Bob Hope and created an archetype unto himself. Always the self-doubting nebbish dweeb, the typical neurotic character portrayed by Allen has since imitated by many actors. Even in Woody Allen films where the director is not the lead, actors have done their version of the character. Will Ferrel did it in Melinda & Melinda, Jason Biggs did it in Anything Else, Scarlett Johannson did it in Scoop. In Broadway Danny Rose, however, we see a different kind of portrayal from Woody. Danny Rose is sleazy but not in a distasteful or untrustworthy way. He’s the kind of guy who can’t help being “on”. He’s always performing, always looking for an angle. His life is so consumed by show business that even interactions with casual acquaintances become pitches for stardom. When Danny and Tina take refuge in his apartment and she talks of her desire to be an interior decorator, Danny jumps into manager mode, imagining her decorating resorts, hotels, and palaces. From his cheesy clothes to his sweaty charm, Danny Rose is a lovable character, despite being a tap-dancing, pedantic loser. “Allen makes Danny Rose into a caricature, and then, working from that base, turns him back into a human being: By the end of the film, we see the person beneath the mannerisms,” writes Roger Ebert. This is due, largely because his belief in others is sincere and his loyalty is genuine. Despite the fast-talking, wise-cracking facade he’s constructs, there’s a tender side to Danny Rose. His clients leave him at the first sign of success and he carries that betrayal in his heart. Likewise, near the end of the film when Danny is surrounded on Thanksgiving Day with his gaggle of clients, dishing out frozen turkey dinners, it’s difficult not to be struck by the sad charade of it all. There are glimpses that, deep down, Danny knows it’s lousy too. Starring opposite Woody is the unknown Nick Apollo Forte, a real-life version of Lou Canova discovered by Allen’s long-time casting agent.

“I looked at a million singers,” says Woody Allen. “We were getting desperate. Then Juliet Taylor went to a record store and bought as many records as she could. And she saw this picture of Nick Apollo Forte on one of the records. He was in Connecticut someplace, in a small town, singing in a little joint. And he came to New York, and I tested him. Then I looked at all my tests of everybody, and he was the best one.” Despite his lack of experience, Forte gives an equally loving portrayal of the Italian underdog. “There were certain times when I had to do fifty takes with him because he just couldn’t get it. But he was basically very nice,” says Woody. Forte “plays the has-been crooner with a soft touch: he’s childish, he’s a bear, he’s loyal, he has a monstrous ego,” muses Ebert. Unlike Danny, Lou does not possess a slavish devotion to friends and family. He sleeps around, has talks with other talent agents, yet one can’t help rooting for the guy due in large part to Forte’s depiction of the lovable louse. The biggest surprise of the film, however, comes from Mia Farrow and her role as Tina Vitale.

Based on the owner of an Italian restaurant frequented by Woody and Mia at the time, Tina Vitale is unlike any character from Farrow at this point. It is a sharp, biting portrayal. Tina has a hot-temper and cold sense of morality. “I never feel guilty,” she tells Danny. She lives by the code of “You do what you gotta do.” In the 2012 film, Woody Allen: A Documentary, former Allen co-star Mariel Hemingway discusses Mia and her role as Woody’s muse. “The more you understand the person then you can bring out these different qualities in them,” says Hemingway. “Who would have ever though that Mia could be this actress in some of these films? Broadway Danny Rose, I mean, who would’ve thought that she could’ve played these different characters with those accents?” Yet, there’s a vulnerable side to Tina that saves her from being wholly unlikeable. After the betrayal against Danny she orchestrates with Lou, finding him better representation, guilt gnaws at her, ultimately poisoning her relationship with Canova. F.X. Feeney, an American writer and film critic, discusses Mia’s relationship acting alongside Woody for a decade:

“Mia Farrow became his muse and he began to show us a range in Mia Farrow that had been denied us, say, by Rosemary’s Baby or Hurricane. Just sides of her that we were not able to see and Woody Allen was able to bring her out in all her rainbow of colors. And through her, he explored, a number of wonderful modes of filmmaking. And, in a way, by so doing he’s also testing his own range, he’s fulfilling every key on the piano-board he’s got. He’s just running the scales in his own talent through the ‘80s with Mia Farrow as his partner.”

Any analysis of Broadway Danny Rose would be remiss if it did not mention just how funny it is. That’s a hard thing to quantify or even clarify what makes the comedy work. Neil Sinyard writes, “The humor of Danny Rose is not black: more a sort of melancholy monochrome.” Like some of Allen’s most-beloved films such as Annie Hall or Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose straddles the line between being a comedy but also having something serious to say. “Less intense than Stardust Memories,” writes Sinyard. “Broadway Danny Rose is still a similarly thoughtful inquiry into the alienation rather than fulfillment of the American Dream, and what the pursuit and achievement of success can do to human relationships.” Critic Andrew Pulver posits the hero Danny Rose speaks to a unique aspect of the Jewish experience. “It’s ultimately impossible to fully understand Broadway Danny Rose without coming to grips with its innate Jewishness,” he writes. “Danny Rose is useless in a fight, can barely run up a hill without being sick, is a loser in business, is deserted by all except those even more troubled than him. But he is unquestionably a beacon of hope in a moral wasteland – because of, not despite, his refusal to take other people on. Rose’s Jewishness is a defiantly non-religious identity.” Jim Gillman at the Jewish Film Guide adds that, “the film manages to highlight a widely held Jewish attitude concerning the importance of guilt as a mechanism that keeps people from doing even more horrible things to another than are already being done.” Certainly these things are at work in the film but the master-stroke of Allen’s best work is to place these elements on a subterranean level while the big laughs bubble up to the surface.

What keeps Broadway Danny Rose so endearing after the years is, despite the goofy characterization of the titular character, the film oozes a sense of authenticity. From the comedians sitting around the table at Carnegie’s Deli dishing Danny Rose stories to the titular character himself, there’s an inescapable feeling that Woody has been around these kinds of people throughout his career. It gives a glimpse into show business that feels real, not glamorized. It’s a working-man’s view of show business. If life is lonely at the top, it’s even lonelier at the bottom.