Shadows and Fog

An inconclusive charade for celebrity guests, Allen's film - made before Husbands and Wives - will add to the general sifting through the oeuvre for relevances to his personal predicament, without registering as a work on its own. This is Woody as Bergman, Woody as Punchinello, both over-familiar. He plays Kleinman, a nebbich, hopelessly besotted with a sword-swallower from the circus (Farrow). She has run away from her husband (Malkovich), an egotistical womanising clown who is cheating with the trapeze artiste (Madonna). There's a desultory subplot about The Ripper, but most of the action features Woody and Mia wandering nighttown, he witteringly supportive, she kvetching. The shadows of German Expressionist cinema have been superbly revived, but to little purpose.