Horst_In_Translation Review of Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story

Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1972 TV Movie)

Woody and politics? Nah.

[4/10 · 24 October 2017]

"Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story" is a 26-minute live action short film from 1941, so this one will soon be half a century old and here's hoping that Oscar winner Woody Allen (turns 82 this year) will see this day as he is the writer, director and the one who plays the title character here. At that point, he was in his mid-30s and it's far from an early career effort for him in all 3 fields, but especially if you look at when he started writing screenplays. The film is in color and it puts the fictitious character of Harvey Wallinger into the world of defining American politics. So it is a mockumentary from start to finish really and if you say after seeing this one that the title of my review is not really accurate because there is virtually no political statement in here, then you probably aren't wrong. It's just that politics really never was a genre for Allen, so it is a bit unusual to see he is the one who made this. And it is really all about the absurdities surrounding Wallinger and his rise to power. It was never Woody's attention to make a political statement. This may be the most unpolitical political film you have ever come across. But for me, it only works for the half the runtime or so because there's 1-2 funny quotes and situations before the 15-minute mark, but overall I was underwhelmed. Maybe Allen realized it too with this one that politics are maybe not his forte, so he focused more on romance and comedy (and crime) in the coming decades and delivered some great films indeed. On a side-note, his muse Diane Keaton is in here too, so her biggest fans and Woody completionists are probably the only ones who want to check this one out. Everybody else can skip it and they will not be missing much. I give it a thumbs-down.