1972 Woody Allen comedy consisting of seven shorts based on the book of the same name by Dr. David Reuben. The skits are uneven in their execution, though universally inspired as they answer such questions as "Do aphrodisiacs work?" and "What's a sex pervert?".

  • Allen plays a court jester who obtains a magic potion to seduce the jealous king's wife (played by his then-wife Louise Lasser), but didn't count on her chastity belt.
  • Gene Wilder plays a doctor who sheepishly discovers that love doesn't just happen between a man and a woman.
  • A transvestite can't resist the urge to try on his future son-in-law's mother's new dress at a dinner party.
  • In a spoof of Italian cinema, Allen plays a husband who discovers his wife can only climax in public.
  • Jack Berry spins the old 1950s game shows with "What's My Pervision?" (with a cameo by Regis Philbin).
  • A mad sex scientist's experiment in human sexuality goes horribly wrong, unleashing a gigantic breast on a sleepy countryside.
  • In perhaps the funniest skit, we are given a peek at what goes on in the body during sex, with Burt Reynolds and Tony Randall controlling the action from the brain and Allen downstairs as a reluctant Sperm.
  • This film was created during the early stage of Allen's carreer, before he began experimenting with darker and more mature themes. Within his canon it snuggles nicely with Bananas and Take the Money and Run.

    Dr. David Reuben's 1969 book Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) was both a groundbreaking part of the sexual revolution and perpetuating some of the same old stereotypes when it first came out. For many people in the early 1970s, it was the source for sexual information about heterosexual intercourse, masturbation, and other formerly-taboo topics, discussed in an easy-to-read question/answer style. It stayed on the best-seller list for more than a year. Reuben even brought these subjects up on talk shows, having to get special permission to use the word "masturbation" when he went on The Tonight Show to discuss the book and making TV history.

    However, the original book tells readers to douche with Coke, that gay men “thrive on danger” and “generally go by aliases,” that you can create your own condoms out of plastic baggies, and the only mention that lesbians exist at all is a brief bit in the section on prostitution.

    A re-edited version was released on the 30th anniversary of the original, but it's still not perfect -- it says women have no sex drive after menopause, that gay men are all having anonymous sex in parks, and that mosquito repellent is as important as condoms in reducing your chances of getting AIDS (most public health people think HIV can't be trasmitted through insect bites).

    Sources:
    Having read the original edition and http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/reuben_intro.html

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