Diane Keaton, who died on Oct. 11 at 79, made eight films with Woody Allen, seven of which Allen directed. Though the pair is most famous for Annie Hall (1977), the movie which propelled both Keaton and Allen to legendary stardom, Keaton also appeared in the classic Allen films Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Interiors (1978), Manhattan (1979), and Radio Days (1987). But it was their final collaboration, 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery, which best exemplified the rapport between the former romantic partners.
Manhattan Murder Mystery Is an Underrated Comedic Thriller
Manhattan Murder Mystery is a comedic thriller in the vein of 1940’s screwball comedies like His Girl Friday (1940) and Adam’s Rib (1949), but it’s most indebted to the Thin Man movies, the series of six movies based upon Dashiell Hammett’s book of the same name and starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Allen and Keaton play Larry and Carol Lipton, a long-married couple who, with their son (Zach Braff, in his first film role) now at college, are clawing at the walls looking for something—anything—to distract them from their twilight years.
When we meet Larry and Carol, they’re leaving a Knicks game early so Larry can get home to watch a Bob Hope movie in bed. “You said you’d sit through the Knicks game if I went with you to the Wagner opera next week,” Larry tells Carol in a classic bit of Allen dialogue, before adding, “I don’t know why they put that movie on so late!” The couple’s loving familiarity and annoyance with one another is quickly established through some equally classic Keaton eyerolls, which culminates with Carol making friends with a couple in their apartment building and accepting the invitation for a late-night drink, seemingly to get Larry’s goat.
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Mr. and Mrs. Paul and Lillian House (Jerry Adler and Lynn Cohen), at first, appear to be opposite sides of Larry and Carol’s coin. The two couples share a pleasant if stilted evening together in which Carol expresses her desire to open a restaurant and Mr. House shares that he and Lillian will soon be celebrating a major anniversary. But the next evening, Larry and Carol arrive home to find Mrs. House deceased, we’re told due to a nascent heart issue, and Mr. House beside himself at her sudden death.
Perhaps because she genuinely believes something is amiss, or because she’s a bit bored, Carol almost immediately launches a theory that Mr. House killed his wife. Larry, who just wants to lie in bed and watch TV unbothered, dismisses it as a flight of fancy. Carol, however, isn’t hearing it, and with the help of the couple’s close friend, Ted (Alan Alda), she begins following Mr. House. When she sees a woman on a bus who looks exactly like Mrs. House, Carol convinces Larry to join her in unraveling the mystery.
Keaton and Allen Have Rarely Been Better Onscreen
Manhattan Murder Mystery is one of Allen’s against-type films, and one of his best. Throughout his career, Allen has crafted a number of thrillers—most famously Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Match Point (2005)—but except for Manhattan Murder Mystery, they’ve all been straight-ahead potboilers with little or no humor. Manhattan Murder Mystery is one of the director’s few films that doesn’t feel entirely like a Woody Allen movie, and is all the better for it. It’s the sort of pulpy thriller, indebted to all manner of classic cinema before it, which the filmmaker has not done before or since. The delicate balance between suspense, comedy, and the director’s trademark domestic drama is well-gauged and ultimately leads to a satisfying, closed-end finale of the sort Allen rarely indulges.
But the most remarkable aspect of Manhattan Murder Mystery is the rapport between Allen and Keaton, who have never been better together. The film plays both on the audience’s cultural understanding of Allen and Keaton as longtime friends and former romantic partners, as well as their on-screen presence. At times, Manhattan Murder Mystery plays like a sequel to Annie Hall, if the characters had stayed together, had a son, and moved uptown.
After decades of increasingly disappointing films from Allen, Manhattan Murder Mystery stands as one of the director’s last outright classics. The climax, a cinema-set confrontation orchestrated to Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1947), is the only passage in Allen’s filmography which could honestly be described as an action sequence, and the director pulls it off with a grounding verisimilitude that exhibits the very best of his directorial prowess.
Keaton, who basically only made light comedies near the end of her career, gives a performance which ranks among her best. As Carol, she strikes a perfect compromise between the stumbling, off-the-cuff Keaton of films like Something’s Gotta Give (2003) and the steelier reserve she showcased in the Godfather films, or Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977). It’s the most naturalistic and lived-in performance the actor has given in one of Allen’s films, including Annie Hall. She and Allen are so real and natural in their interactions and behavior with one another that at times the movie has a documentary quality. (Carlo Di Palma’s lush cinematography helps a great deal, as well.)
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Movie Received Rave Reviews, But Is Largely Forgotten
Manhattan Murder Mystery received uniformly rave reviews (it currently holds 94 percent critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes), but it’s been largely forgotten in the pantheon of Allen and Keaton’s filmographies. Part of this could have to do with the film’s release, coming out just over a year after allegations of sexual misconduct by Allen against his daughter, Dylan Farrow, on behalf of Allen’s former partner, Mia Farrow. (Keaton’s Manhattan Murder Mystery role was originally written for Farrow.)
Allen is still an immensely controversial figure, and in the wake of the #MeToo movement has become persona non grata in Hollywood, with his most recent movies having been financed outside of the United States. As there always is in such cases, much discussion has been devoted to whether or not Allen’s significant artistic contributions can be separated from his personal life. It would be fair enough to dismiss some of Allen’s solo work, like his stand-up comedy and essays, some of which have not aged brilliantly. But to dismiss his cinematic output would be to dismiss not only the work of Keaton but also all of the actresses and actors for whom Allen penned some of their best roles, such as Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Cate Blanchett, and, of course, Keaton.
Keaton’s immense contribution to cinema, as an actor, a producer, a writer, and a director, will never be forgotten, and near the top of the list will be her collaborations with Allen. Manhattan Murder Mystery, in its small and unassuming way, serves as a totem to Keaton’s immense, genre-spanning talent. Despite all of her roles and accolades, you’d be hard pressed to find another project in which Keaton is tasked with playing such a vast range of situations and emotions. She’s never been better onscreen, nor has Allen. Her talent, and that which she brought out in her co-stars, leaves both a remarkable legacy and a devastating chasm.
