This film seizes on something that would fascinate any ordinary person. The idea of knocking off someone by contract. And not just anybody, but a mentally unstable mistress who is demanding that ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) leave his wife and come to her or else she will expose the affair to his friends and family anyways, along with certain financial discrepancies that occurred in his business. Judah is well thought of in the community, and in lots of ways an everyman who we can identify with. Judah is depicted as going through the same stages of conscience that any ordinary person in this situation might do. In noirs or stark gangster pictures, it's a common occurrence and no one frets about it : but here is a "regular" type guy actually goes through with the crime in all of its stages, no I can't; well, maybe; caves in; guilt --- going through the same things that I or you might go through. After all, for me at least, doing something like that is out of the question. And yet Woody makes us identify with doing just that in a real-world, not a romanticized one. His ability to take an idea like that and make is so alive is just one of his many gifts. And that's only a part of the movie, which mainly deals with the unfairness and lack of justice of the universe.
One of Landau's patients is a very moral rabbi who is going blind - there is nothing that will stop it - and worse, he will be blind by the time his daughter gets married, so he won't even get to see that event. So part of Landau's inner torment is why would he get to keep his profession, his reputation, and his family at the expense of somebody else's life when a moral man like his patient and friend the rabbi has such an unjust fate?
This was one of if not the the best of Woody's films. How does it end? Let's just say Woody Allen would have been very frustrated by the old production code.
One of Landau's patients is a very moral rabbi who is going blind - there is nothing that will stop it - and worse, he will be blind by the time his daughter gets married, so he won't even get to see that event. So part of Landau's inner torment is why would he get to keep his profession, his reputation, and his family at the expense of somebody else's life when a moral man like his patient and friend the rabbi has such an unjust fate?
This was one of if not the the best of Woody's films. How does it end? Let's just say Woody Allen would have been very frustrated by the old production code.