On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy

Although a bit early for a biographal piece, this book does provide some great insight into the thought processes of one of the greatest comedians of all time. It is seperated into stages, first going into Woody doing stand-up at Vegas, then taking a look at his (rather interesting) early life, then his film debut in "What's New Pussycat?" and further on into some of his other films, most notably "Sleeper." It then highlights some experiences from his plays and discusses a few of his essays published in "The New Yorker." Obviously it's not chronological throughout, not that it needs to be. I thought one of the most interesting things about this book was its inclusion of scripts from unused scenes in Woody's films, like the spider sequence in "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex," and an alternate ending for "Sleeper." It also includes a few unused TV skits Allen either wrote or contributed to. This book guides you through what it feels like to work on a Woody Allen film, all the way from casting to rewriting to color editing to prescreening. It shows you the ups and downs of being a TV writer, a filmmaker, a stand-up comedian, and a playwright. An interesting read for Allen fans, with quite a few funny unpublished jokes. I recommend reading this after reading "Getting Even." From the looks of things, this book was written before "Love and Death" was distributed to theaters and before "Annie Hall" even had a title or a finished story. I wish this book would have held off a bit, and waited until these films were out and about so the book could have given more insider insight into these great works.