Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

	Directed by: Woody Allen	COUNTRY USA GENRE Crime/Drama/ Comedy/Mystery NORWEGIAN TITLE Mordmysteriet på Manhattan RUNNING TIME 104 minutes
	Produced by: Robert Greenhut
	Written by: Woody Allen Marshall Brickman

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Larry Lipton	Woody Allen
Carol Lipton	Diane Keaton
Ted	Alan Alda	½
Marcia Fox	Anjelica Huston
Paul House	Jerry Adler	½
Lillian House	Lynn Cohen
Helen Moss	Melanie Norris	½
Nick Lipton	Zach Braff

Review

Woody Allen raids the vault of old classics and his own early films for this constructed and painfully manic version of Rear Window for the neurotic. Woody teams up with Diane Keaton for the first time since Manhattan (not counting Radio Days), as the two push each other to record-breaking levels of fussiness, wandering around in staged and allegedly mysterious situations while keeping a ceaseless conversation about intellectual meanderings and their neurological state. In essence, Allen presents very little new here, especially characterologically. His script has some great bits of comedy, but he doesn't know when to stop his scenes or mouth, and the mystery, not surprisingly turns out to be rather contrived, making the film lightweight and rather shallow. That is a shame, because Manhattan Murder Mystery starts off promisingly with pleasantly natural conversations between desexualised couples and newly divorced bachelors, and there is potential in the romantic relationships and the study of once-bubbling marriages gone still. Manhattan Murder Mystery is a sad document of how out of fashion Woody Allen was in the early 1990s, from the weary thematics to the horrible wardrobe and the unflattering camerawork and lighting.