Sleeper - 1973

Film Synopsis

Sleeper is Woody Allen's 1973 slapstick comedy loosely set in a futuristic "Brave New World" society. Miles Monroe (Woody Allen), the neurotic owner of the Happy Carrot Health Food Store in New York awakens from cryogenic freeze in the year 2173, two hundred years after he went into the hospital for a "routine operation."

The country has since become a crazy police state which stays in power by battling underground political forces for power. The doctors who revive him seek to use his unkown identity to infiltrate the underground and organize a resistence force that will ultimate assasinate their nation's feared, wheelchair-bound leader.

Main Cast

• Woody Allen .... Miles Monroe
• Diane Keaton .... Luna Schlosser
• John Beck .... Erno Windt
• Mary Gregory .... Dr. Melik
• Don Keefer .... Dr. Tryon
• John McLiam .... Dr. Aragon
• Bartlett Robinson .... Dr. Orva
• Chris Forbes .... Rainer Krebs
• Mews Small .... Dr. Nero (as Marya Small)
• Peter Hobbs .... Dr. Dean
• Susan Miller .... Ellen Pogrebin
• Lou Picetti .... M.C.
• Brian Avery .... Herald Cohen
• Spencer Milligan .... Jeb Hrmthmg

Filmed before Love and Death, this successful screwball comedy cemented Allen as a leading filmmaker and also prominently featured his girlfriend at the time Diane Keaton. Starting with the cryogenically frozen Allen being slowly thawed, unwrapped in aluminum foil, the movie is full of numerous gags, many of which play homage to silent film comedy inspiration Buster Keaton.

The science fiction element combined with the slapstick continues to make Sleeper popular with film fans.

Sleeper Trivia:
Many fans already know that Allen had hoped to film Sleeper in the futuristic planned capital city of Brasilia, an idea which was rejected by United Artists. But did you also know....

Additional:

Budget: $2m (USA)