Louise Lasser

Four people struggle against increasingly insatiable drug addictions. Despite their best intentions the drugs win as their lives spiral out of control.

Brian, painter Ellen and chef Sam timeshare an apartment on different days. A shift on Mon/Wednesdays causes mistaken identity as Ellen and Sam have never met but leave notes, food etc. behind for each other. Sam has a problem with his roommates: they are disgusting, and don't seem to share his views on responsibility, privacy, and basic hygiene. Such is his discomfort with his living arrangements that he agrees to share the occupancy of another flat: he gets two nights a week, the owner (a sleazy frat-boy yuppie named Brian, soon to be married) and Ellen (a would-be painter seeking relief from her boring marriage) each get their separate nights in the flat. Things go extremely well until Sam and Brian swap nights without telling Ellen, who attributes the "nice" things that happen around the place to the slob Brian, while berating the responsible Sam for his hedonistic lifestyle. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>

A naive monk, named Brother Ambrose (Marty Feldman), is sent by the abbot on a mission to raise $5,000 in order to save their monastery from closing. He goes to Hollywood where he encounters a number of eccentric characters. He is at first robbed and later befriended by con artist Dr. Sebastian Melmoth (Peter Boyle), and meets a prostitute named Mary (Louise Lasser) who lets him stay at her apartment. Mary grows to care for Ambrose and seduces him while he is taking a cold shower to try to alleviate his lustful thoughts about her. While he is in Hollywood, he visits several churches including a service at the Church of Divine Profit, performed by the televangelist Armageddon T. Thunderbird (Andy Kaufman) in which he sees the focus of the sermon being a request for money in exchange for salvation. Ambrose is angered by this message and tries to meet a number of times with Thunderbird, being ejected each time. Dr. Melmoth and Ambrose travel the city in a modified schoolbus, in which they hold church services for donations. During one service, the brakes of the bus release and the bus rolls downhill into a river. The passengers escape safely in the river and are shown on the local news being baptized by the pair, which catches Thunderbird's attention. He prays to G. O. D. for guidance and it tells him to work with Ambrose to make more money because Ambrose is an innocent and has a clean image. Thunderbird has his minions kidnap Ambrose and bring him to his office where he outlines a plan for his own brand of church on wheels. He says he will pay Ambrose the $5,000 the monastery needs if he assists him. While they are talking, Thunderbird mentions that G. O. D. (Richard Pryor) audibly talks to him when he prays to him and Ambrose is surprised because he himself has never heard from God in this way. Ambrose agrees to work with Thunderbird and they go across the country from town to town holding services in their own bus. One day at Thunderbird's headquarters, Ambrose overhears Thunderbird praying to G. O. D. in his private chamber and when he hears G. O. D. speak back to him, he is intrigued. When Thunderbird leaves, he sneaks into the chamber and discovers that G. O. D. (General Organizational Directivatator) is a sophisticated master computer, linked to all of Thunderbird's finances and operations. He talks with G. O. D. and reads the Bible to it, giving it morality and a conscience. G. O. D. decides to give all of Thunderbird's money away and tells Ambrose what to do to accomplish this, which results in bags of money being poured out of the office's window. Thunderbird discovers someone has been interfering with the computer and rushes back to headquarters where he tries to capture Ambrose and destroys the computer. Ambrose grabs the paid monastery mortgage certificate from Thunderbird's office and escapes in a chase through the city. While Mary and Dr. Melmoth look for Ambrose during his escape, she learns that Melmoth is the father that left her family when she was a child, due to a distinctive tattoo she sees on his leg. They eventually find Ambrose and rescue him from the people chasing him. Ambrose goes back to the monastery and gives the abbot the mortgage certificate, then leaves and marries Mary, who is pregnant from their single night together. The end titles show Melmoth's bus traveling down the road, saying they "all lived happily hereafter".

The credits at the start and close of the film are played over a backdrop of a large mass of white rabbits, to the tune of "Let's Misbehave" by Cole Porter. The film is divided into seven vignettes, as follows: "Do Aphrodisiacs Work?" In Elizabethan times, the king (Anthony Quayle) is infuriated by his fool (Woody Allen), whom he considers unfunny. Later, the fool follows the queen (Lynn Redgrave) into the gardens and fondles her. After she stalks away, the ghost of the fool's father appears and commands him to have sex with the queen. A sorcerer provides him with an aphrodisiac but warns him that if the king discovers the potion, he will be killed. The fool then gives the queen the potion, and as soon as she drinks it, she demands that he ravage her. Upon removing her clothes, however, the fool discovers her chastity belt, and gathers keys and tools in a desperate attempt to break it open. As the fool opens the belt, the noises from inside the room attract the attention of the guards and the king himself. Hearing him approach, the fool and the queen struggle to close the belt, but his hand becomes stuck inside, so she throws her dress over his hand to hide it. When the king wants to make love to his wife, the fool pretends to leave but hides beneath her skirt. Soon, the king uncovers the fool and has him beheaded. "What Is Sodomy?" At Dr. Ross's (Gene Wilder) busy practice, he is surprised by a visit from Armenian shepherd Milos Stavros (Titos Vandis), who announces that he is in love with a sheep named Daisy. Unsure how to respond, Ross is further horrified to hear that Milos made love to the animal but now imagines that she is cold and indifferent to him. When Milos urges the doctor to speak to her for him, Ross gently suggests psychiatric care. Milos insists on carrying Daisy inside, where, as Ross explains why Milos' feelings are completely inappropriate, the doctor strokes the sheep and begins to fall in love with her. That night at dinner Ross is listless and later, his wife Anne (Elaine Giftos) finds him petting his lambswool sweater. The next day, Milos brings Daisy to the office, and Ross nervously woos her. He takes her to a hotel room, ordering caviar and grass from room service. Soon he is buying the animal diamonds and lingerie, but when Anne catches the two together, Ross loses his family and his license. Waiting tables to support Daisy, he screams to the crowd that he is a doctor, then returns home to find a note from Milos stating that he has taken Daisy back to Armenia. A broken man, Ross drinks Woolite on street corner. 'Why Do Some Women Have Trouble Reaching an Orgasm?" (Note: this segment is filmed entirely in Italian) After his wedding, Fabrizio (Woody Allen) takes his bride Gina (Louise Lasser) to bed, but she is unmoved and passive. Over the next weeks, he grows despondent at his wife's lack of passion, and disheartened by his friends' tales of their sex lives. Despite his exhaustive efforts, she remains bored. Fabrizio visits his priest, who states he can do nothing to help. One day the couple is in a store when Gina becomes aroused and urges Fabrizio to make love to her. Realizing that she wants to make love only in public places, the two enjoy sex in church, restaurants and friends' homes. Although Fabrizio is concerned that they will one day be discovered, he is relieved that at least his wife is not frigid. "Are Transvestites Homosexuals?" Sam (Lou Jacobi) and Tess have dinner with the parents of their daughter's fiance Alvin. During the meal, Sam goes upstairs, ostensibly to use the bathroom but really to try on Alvin's mother's dresses. As the others are downstairs discussing their travels, upstairs he prances in a dress, hat, high heels and purse. Upon hearing Alvin's father climbing the stairs, Sam hangs from the window ledge to hide. Unable to hold on, he drops to the ground and walks to the sidewalk in front of the house, where his purse is snatched by a man running by. Women walking nearby gather to help him, then the police arrive. Insisting that he does not want to press charges, Sam struggles to hide his mustache. When another police car pulls up with its siren blaring, everyone in Alvin's parents' home steps outside to investigate. Sam tells the police that he is three months pregnant, prompting Alvin's father to invite him inside. At that point, Tess recognizes him, shouting "She's my husband." Later, in bed, Tess tells her husband that she does not mind that he is "diseased and perverted," and pleased that she is so understanding, he agrees to see a doctor about his condition. "What Are Sex Perverts?" The television game show "What's My Perversion?" begins with a commercial for hair conditioner that features two football players in a locker room. As the ad ends, the men begin kissing. Jack Barry emcees the show, which asks celebrity panelists Pamela Mason, Regis Philbin, Toni Holt and Robert Q. Lewis to guess a contestant's deviant sexual preference, based on the answers to questions they pose. Contestant Bernard Jaffe, who likes to expose himself on subways, answers a series of questions, but the panel cannot guess his perversion, speculating that perhaps he is a rapist or child molester. Later, one lucky winner acts out his fantasy on air: Rabbi Chaim Baumel, a silk stockings fetishist, is tied up and whipped while his wife sits at his feet eating pork. "Are the Findings of Doctors and Clinics Who Do Sexual Research and Experiments Accurate?" Victor Shakapopulis (Woody Allen in another role), a sexual phenomena researcher, stops at a gas station on his way to the home of Dr. Bernardo (John Carradine), a renowned sex expert with whom he plans to work. Helen Lacey (Heather MacRae), a young reporter planning to interview Bernardo, tells him her car has broken down, so he offers her a ride. At Bernardo's mansion, the door is opened by hunchback Igor. Bernardo enters and whips Igor, then serves dinner, at which the two younger visitors praise the doctor and his innovative findings. He notes that although he was thrown out of the Masters and Johnson Institute for Sexual Studies and labeled insane, he initiated dozens of major findings in the field. He then takes them to his laboratory, where Victor and Helen are horrified to see the experiments being performed on unwilling human subjects: one man has sex with a huge loaf of bread, while the brain of a lesbian is being transported into a man who works for the telephone company. Bernardo holds them at gunpoint and declares that Helen will be the subject of his new experiment, in which he will test her heart rate while she is "gang-banged" by twenty Boy Scouts. Igor restrains Victor and straps Helen down, but Victor escapes, grabs Bernardo's gun and shoots into the lab, ruining his equipment. As the lab begins to burn, Victor frees Helen and they flee. Bernardo and Igor are trapped in the ensuing explosion. Outside, the car will not start, and Victor and Helen witness a giant breast burst out of the house and move toward them. They race to the sheriff to report the "fiendish tit" on the loose. Meanwhile, a couple parked nearby is attacked by the breast. Victor plots to destroy it, and so lures it out into a field. Dodging the milk it squirts at him, he holds up a cross and leads it into a giant bra, trapping it. Walking with an admiring Helen, Victor decides that some things about sex are better left unknown. "What Happens During Ejaculation?" In a mission control center inside one man's brain, operators are busily controlling all his bodily functions. The main operator (Tony Randall) signals the eyes to show him the man's dinner date and agrees with the controller (Burt Reynolds) that there is some likelihood of sexual activity later. The sperm prepare to launch, hoping this is not another false alarm. The operator directs the man to attempt to make love to his date in his car. Engineers winch up the penis, but the workers fail to keep the erection upright. All of the body systems check in with each other to locate the problem, and finally a 45-degree erection is achieved. As he lines up for penetration, one sperm (played by Woody Allen) is scared to go out, but his friend reminds him that he took an oath to fertilize an ovum or die trying. Suddenly, the erection once again flags, and the operators scramble to alleviate the problem, which is revealed to be a priest in the conscience room turning up the guilt mechanism. Jettisoning the priest, the main operator calls "Full steam ahead." In the erection room, the laborers sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while the sperm play a melancholy tune, then launch. When the orgasm is completed, the controllers celebrate with champagne and cigarettes. In the car, the date asks to "go again," and the main operator signals the gonads that "We're going for a record."

While awaiting the outcome of her husband's surgery, Julie Messinger discovers he has been having affairs. Julie Messinger has it made. She is a New York housewife whose husband, Richard, is an editor for a prominent photography magazine. They have a small circle of friends, including well-meaning, but inept Dr. Timothy Spector, photographer Cal Whiting and Cal's live-in girlfriend Miranda. Julie's mother spends her days getting pedicures and manicures, applying make-up and fake eye-lashes and buying expensive clothes, all the while criticizing her daughter for her looks and behavior. When Richard goes into the hospital for a minor mole-removal surgery, Julie gets more than she bargained for. Richard suffers from complications and goes into a coma, supposedly caused by a rare surgical factor, and she gathers friends and family together, culminating in a hilarious "quasi-cocktail-party" scene in the blood donation center of the hospital. While dealing with red tape, hospital bureaucracy and clueless doctors, Julie discovers her husband's "little black book," which contains the names of her friends. She confirms that her husband had been sleeping around and proceeds to make a fool out of him by getting it on with his male friends. When the complications get more ominous, guilt opens the door to her liberation as a woman. A scathingly funny examination of the dirty rich partying while one of their number lies on the brink of death. —thustlebird

On the Wide World of Sports television broadcast, American sportscasters Don Dunphy and Howard Cosell (playing himself), report that the president of the island Republic of San Marcos has been assassinated and replaced by a dictator, General Emilio M. Vargas (Carlos Montalbán). Meanwhile in New York City, clumsy looser Fielding Mellish ((Woody Allen)) works as a product researcher at General Equipment, where he tests electrically warmed toilet seats, coffins with piped-in music and the new "Execusizer," a gym built into the desks of busy corporate heads. Unhappy with his job, Fielding blames his lack of success on the fact that he never finished college. Fielding has also been unsuccessful in his attempts to date women, until Nancy (Louise Lasser), a politically active college student, knocks on his door, asking him to sign a petition urging the United States to support the revolutionaries in San Marcos, who are rebelling against the new corrupt dictator. Although Nancy is busy with yoga classes and her women's group, Fielding talks her into going out with him. Smitten, he accompanies her to political rallies and riots, and eventually makes love to her. Fielding's newfound happiness is shattered when Nancy, feeling that "something is missing," breaks up with him. She explains that she needs someone who is a leader, more politically aware, and less emotionally, sexually and intellectually immature. The breakup depresses Fielding so much that he quits his job and decides to go to San Marcos, where he and Nancy had planned to vacation. Before leaving, he visits his parents, a surgeon and nurse who are in the middle of operating on a patient, to explain that he will be gone for a while. Disappointed that Fielding has not followed him into the family business, Dr. Mellish tries to give him confidence by insisting that he take over the operation, but his mother gives him her blessing. In impoverished San Marcos, where each peasant has been ordered to pay the dictator his weight in manure, a captured rebel is tortured by being forced to listen to a recording of Naughty Marietta , which prompts him to confess that the rebels are planning a revolution on July 4th. After Fielding checks into a hotel, he receives an invitation to dine with Vargas at the palace. During the meal, Vargas explains to Fielding that he wants to keep his people safe from Communism by exterminating "a few troublemakers." Vargas ignores Fielding's point that the rebels are not Communists and sticks Fielding with the bill. After Fielding leaves, Vargas and his men decide that Fielding is "perfect" for their plans. Later, Vargas' men, who are disguised as rebels, try to kill Fielding, intending to blame the death of an American citizen on the revolutionaries in order to win United States support for their regime. Fielding escapes, but is then captured by the real rebels, who take him to their leader, Esposito. At the rebels' camp, Fielding is told that Vargas has already reported his death to the newspapers and will kill him to prevent the truth from getting out. The rebels want him to stay and risk his life for their cause, but Fielding believes that being dead is "a tremendous drawback" to one's sex life and prefers to remain cowardly. However, he trains with the rebels and learns about guns, grenades, camouflage and first aid. When the camp is low on food, Fielding is sent to raid the town and, with a few other men, enters a café and orders a couple thousand sandwiches, wheelbarrows of cole slaw and some drinks, then has it delivered. Esposito later sends Fielding and two rebels to kidnap the British ambassador to hold as a hostage until imprisoned sympathizers are freed. While sedating the ambassador with sodium pentothal, Fielding accidentally renders his comrades unconscious. When the ambassador escapes, his revived co-workers flee and Fielding grabs a cross and joins a Catholic procession in order to evade some suspicious soldiers. Meanwhile, mistaking the United Jewish Appeal for the CIA, Vargas makes a pact with them for support, and when the rebels attack, he discovers that the Jewish fundraisers offer little protection. Although the CIA does send men, half the agents are sent to fight for the dictator and the other half to fight against him. His regime defeated, Vargas flees to the safety of Miami. After the rebels' victory, Esposito announces that he is the ruler of San Marcos, and orders that the country's official language will be Swedish and that citizens must now change their underwear every half hour, wearing it outside their clothing so that it can easily be checked. These proclamations and others cause the rebels to realize that power has driven Esposito mad. At the request of his comrades, Fielding takes over as president, but it is soon apparent that San Marcos needs the support of other countries in order to prevent future corrupt dictators from seizing control. The problem, Fielding and his close associates realize, is that Americans think of them as Communists, and Communists believe them to be American puppets. In addition, they have nothing to barter for aid, except bananas. Fielding's advisers urge him to go to the United States and raise money, but he knows that, back home, his reputation as an uneducated product tester has no clout. Disguised in a red beard and mustache, Fielding flies to the United States, where he is officially welcomed as San Marcos' leader. There Fielding's interpreter translates by repeating every English sentence in heavily accented English, until men in white coats with a butterfly net arrive to take him away. During a dinner fundraiser at which he is the speaker, Fielding tries to tell a joke about a farmer who has an incestuous relationship with both his daughters, but decides he is telling it to the wrong crowd. Nancy, who does not recognize him, approaches to express her admiration for the leader and, after they go to bed together, Fielding reveals his true identity, after which Nancy remarks that she now knows why something in their sexual encounter seemed to be missing. Meanwhile, the FBI sees through Fielding's disguise and, based on his record of involvement in riots and protests, assumes that he is trying to subvert the government. On the six o'clock news, newscaster Roger Grimsby reports that Fielding has been charged with being a subversive impostor. At his trial for charges of fraud, inciting a riot, conspiracy to overthrow the government and using the word "thighs" in mixed company, Fielding acts as his own lawyer. Both J. Edgar Hoover, who comes to court (disguised as a black woman), and Miss America provide testimony against Fielding. Although an acquaintance describes Fielding as a "warm, wonderful human being," the court reporter types that he is a "conniving little rat." While the jury passes around a joint, Fielding, acting as both lawyer and defendant, attempts to cross-examine himself, causing the judge to order him bound and gagged. Fielding is found guilty on twelve counts and sentenced to 15 years, but the time is suspended if he promises not to move into the judge's neighborhood. A free man, Fielding proposes to Nancy, and their wedding night at the Royal Manhattan Hotel is covered by Dunphy and Cosell for Wide World of Sports . From their spectator-filled hotel suite, Cosell provides a play-by-play description of the action. In an interview with Cosell after the consummation of their marriage, Nancy states that Fielding was not the best she has had, but also not the worst, and Fielding predicts that their next "bout" will occur in late spring. Cosell wraps up the interview by saying that "they may live happily ever after and again they may not," but promises to be there to cover the action.