Sleeper (1973, Woody Allen)

Woke.

Hey folks! This is movie number three in my American Dystopias series. This, and the final fourth one, are both funny, or at least “funny.” Ha ha ha, oppression and injustice tickle my ribs. [pinches bridge of nose, takes a long sigh] Anyway, as always, there are spoilers here. Read with care. Thanks!

What is it? Sleeper, directed by Woody Allen, written by Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman, and starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Don Keefer, Mary Gregory, Bartlett Robinson, and introducing Spencer Milligan as Jeb Hrmthmg.

First viewing? I recall seeing parts of this on HBO when I was a kid, but I only watched it in full on 1 Feb 2025 and again on 26 Mar 2025.

What’s it about? Miles Monroe (Allen), a health food store owner from 1973, is cryogenically frozen, and awakens in 2173. He is given the task of helping a rebellion overthrow the country’s tyrannical Leader, requiring Miles to navigate an absurd and unrecognizable America, with the help of poet Luna (Keaton).

What are your thoughts about it? Okay, let’s get this out of the way: Woody Allen, as a person, is pretty sus. Granted. Now, I presume any discussion of his work isn’t taken as an endorsement of his personal character. I happen to like his movies, generally speaking (they vary tremendously in quality) but if your feelings about the man will keep you from reading, go ahead and drive away. It’s okay! Just come back next week. I am very much a “separate the art from the artist” guy, but that’s not possible for all people, all the time — including me. Some years ago, I was getting into this black metal band — yeah yeah, first mistake — that I thought was really terrific, only to discover they were literally Nazi pedophiles. I deleted all their music from my hard drive and never looked back. Point being, everyone has a line, and your line is your own, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

So, again: I like Woody Allen movies. That said, I’ve found I prefer the ones that tend toward the dramatic rather than straight comedic, ones that are streaked with tragedy or pathos, your Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors. My favorite is Annie Hall, but I’m a huge fan of Interiors, his first completely serious, absolutely not-funny film.¹ Today, however, is one of the early ones, when Allen focused on what he (presumed he) did best: being funny.

I think, I think, this Spencer Milligan as “Jeb Hrmthmg.” If his name or face seem familiar, that’s because Milligan was most famous as Rick Marshall, the man’s man dad from the 1970s kid’s adventure show LAND OF THE LOST. Not gonna lie, it is weird seeing him play a stereotypical flaming gay man as he does here. I mean, he does it well, showing he had a range that you wouldn’t have expected from LOTL. According to Wikipedia, he got sacked from the show when he (rightfully) wanted a piece of the merchandise pie. Miligan passed away in 2024. You, sir, were a real one. RIP.

Sleeper, like Allen’s previous movies, exists as a container for a series of jokes, some visual, some verbal. This container is, I think, pretty unusual for a comedy at the time, perhaps even a first: a Brave New World-esque dystopia. What’s more, it seems clear to me (even if my research didn’t confirm this) that Allen was specifically influenced by George Lucas’ THX 1138.² The emphasis on architecture as signifiers of “the future,” the smooth-faced robots in black uniforms, the white work-wear of the citizens, the unusual-looking automobiles… or maybe those are just what artists in the early ’70s thought was futuristic. Regardless, it’s also a savvy move, because it allows Allen to throw any bizarre, absurd gag into the frame, and since we’re dealing with an imaginary society two hundred years in the future, it fits right in with zero dissonance. (Exhibit A: One of Luna’s party guests enters wearing a swastika shirt along with a tallit around his neck.) It might also be the realistic of dystopias I’m looking at in this series, in that for a number of people, the fascistic tyranny is a small price to pay for relative comfort. (It’s not realistic in that, in our world, it’s the robots that will have the pretentious parties while the humans do the work.)

“Oh, he was probably a member of the National Rifle Association. It was a group that helped criminals get guns so they could shoot citizens. It was a public service.” Some jokes never fall out of fashion.

Unfortunately, as great a container the world of Sleeper is, Allen has about as much interest in it as he did for the Latin America dictatorship in Bananas. Only the jokes a milieu provides are necessary. Fair enough. Except that very little in Sleeper is actually funny. Allen seems to think he can duplicate the silent comedy of Chaplin or Keaton; he cannot. Sequences, like Miles’ initial awakeneing from hibernation, or the jetpack escape, or the Miss America pageant, are a visual demonstration of diminishing returns. Allen comes up with a brilliant setup — he’s asked by the future scientists to identify historical people and objects like Richard Nixon and gag chattering teeth — but the follow-up is awfully flat. When the revelation that the gay couple has a bitchy robot butler gets the biggest laugh out of me (a joke that lasts about three seconds), that’s cause for alarm. Maybe, maybe if the structure were stronger, if protagonist Miles were given an external goal to focus on, the weak laughs would be more forgivable. But he spends most of the movie running from things and doesn’t run toward anything (kidnapping the leader’s nose) until the last seventeen minutes.

Diane Keaton is always terrific, and this very brief moment displays her great instincts as an actor. Despite this being a comedy, when the jackbooted thugs grab her and say they’re going to brainwash her, she lets out a horrible, not-funny scream. Comedies like this sometimes have a problem of communicating stakes – it’s all a joke, why so serious – but here Keaton reminds us that people are underneath the boot.

Still, perhaps I’m not giving Allen enough credit. Once you look past the limp “overthrow the oppressive regime” throughline, there’s another controlling metaphor.³ A great deal of Allen’s preoccupations are existential: what it means to be born never asked, and thrust into a world controlled by absurd institutions, only to die. Following this, Allen’s idea of a modern American man’s lifecycle forms the backbone of the story. When Miles wakes up after two hundred years, he’s essentially a helpless infant, needing to be fed and taught to walk. (The infuriatingly dopey grin Allen wears during this sequence makes me want to throw a shoe at my screen, but I have to concede it fairly represents the stage of blissful ignorance.) Soon after, he learns about the real world, and like a teenager, angrily rejects it. Nevertheless, he joins the workforce, doing robotic manual labor literally as a robot. He meets Luna, and after a contentous courtship, they are briefly “married” and set up house. But soon enough they are forcibly “divorced,” each thrown into a mid-life crisis that upends their identiies. Miles is abducted and brainwashed into being a proper citizen, while Luna joins the anti-government revolutionaries that live out in the woods for some reason. Eventually, they reconcile, and Miles wins Luna back from new suitor, revolutionary leader Erno. By this time, Miles, having been programmed and re-programmed and de-programmed, finally knows who he really is. And with that self-knowledge, he’s ready to take on the Leader and his government.⁴ Finally, the story ends as it must, with death — but not for Miles or Luna, but for the Leader, his nose squished like Silly Putty.⁵

One part that did make me chuckle was Miles as a robot fighting the ever-expanding instant pudding. The “trying to handle a chaotic situation while pretending everything is copacetic” gag always works for me.

Thematically, Sleeper is rich. But then, so’s The Phantom Menace, and you don’t see people making a big deal over that. (Don’t fact check me.) Allen’s next film, Love and Death, technically his sixth as director⁶, would show him levelling up, finally demonstrating that he’s figured out how to meld his comedy with the demands of narrative filmmaking. (For one thing, the plot of Love and Death isn’t really any more complex than his previous films, but it certainly feels like it is, making it more satisfactory, story-wise.) Sleeper was an important stepping stone for Allen the artist, but like an actual stepping stone, it only exists to move a person from point A to point B. You’re not supposed to pay attention to it.

Oh shit everyone, Erno the Revolutionary is John Beck, “Moonpie” from ROLLERBALL! As a cast member of two (2) cinematic dystopias, I hereby enter Mr. Beck into the Against the ’70s Hall of Fame.

How many stars out of five? After the first viewing, I gave it two pleasure orbs out of five; upon rewatching, I downgraded it to 1 1/2.

Where can I stream it? As of this writing, Sleeper isn’t available to stream or buy digitally. I think that’s the first time that’s happened in this column. Still, if you know where to go, you can find it.

What can we take from it? Today, I have a new descriptor for the Cypher System: Neurotic. My intention here is to allow players to create Woody Allen-type characters, although I hope it is broad enough to work for other character conceptions. (I’m also working on a new focus, Is a Woody Allen Character, to mesh with this descriptor, but couldn’t get it finished before press time. We’ll see it when I get to the next Woody Allen film.)

NEUROTIC

You are overly anxious and obsessive. Your mind continually churns through thoughts of death and misfortune, and mouth continually voices those thoughts. It’s difficult for you to make choices, because every choice needs to be carefully analyzed to make sure it doesn’t lead to certain doom, and every choice leads to certain doom.

You gain the following characteristics:

Fixated: +4 to your Intellect pool.

Skill: You are trained in philosophy. Whether reading philosophy made you neurotic or your neurosis naturally led you to philosophy is unclear.

Skill: You are trained in kvetching. Don’t ask me how that’s helpful, just know that you’re very good at it.

Ability: Being anxious and paranoid can have its perks, as sometimes you can see how things can go wrong and sometimes they are out to get you. Once per session, when faced with two or more options on how to proceed, you get a free Player Intrusion to declare which of the options is the worst, and what would happen if it were chosen. If this option is chosen, every character in the session gets 1 XP.

Inability: Being around a neurotic person takes its toll. All tasks related to pleasant social interactions are hindered.

Initial Link to the Starting Adventure⁷

1. You are on the run from somebody or some group (or some thing) and have blundered into the PCs. You now hope they can protect you.
2. You have become enthralled with one of the other PCs, and have joined up in order to impress them, not realizing you are walking into danger.
3. A PC or NPC has asked you to accomplish some goal you have no interest in pursuing, although you’ll end up blundering towards it anyway.
4. You, somehow, have been put in charge of the PCs and are supposed to lead them in their goal, and you have no idea how to do that.

NEXT TIME, ON AGAINST THE ’70S: Americathon (1979, Neal Israel)