Sleeper (1973)

In this delightfully sparse but fanciful futuristic comedy, Woody Allen plays Miles Monroe, a 35-year-old clarinettist and owner of the Happy Carrot health food store in Greenwich Village who goes to the hospital in 1973 for a routine operation on a peptic ulcer. By a clumsy mistake, he dies on the operating table and – to cover up the hospital’s malpractice – is placed on ice.

In 2173, his chilled capsule is discovered and he is awoken from hypersleep where he finds a world gone farcically awry – and worries a lot about the arrears of his Social Security payments.

Because Miles lacks a computerised identity and has no serial number, personality code or voice print, he finds himself an unwilling ally of a group of zany guerillas who are intent on overthrowing the big brother government.

To avoid capture in this Brave New World of pills and orgasm machines, Miles poses as a robot slave when beautiful socialite poet Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) gives a dinner party.

After finally revealing his true identity to her, he kidnaps her, and they go on the run, fall in love, and she becomes a born-again rebel.

Miles eventually revives the long-forgotten idea of love and wins Luna over, even when his wooing at a farm full of monstrous vegetables and animals is subject to constant comic interruptions.

It’s probably Woody Allen’s tightest, most disciplined work to date.

Miles Monroe
Woody Allen
Luna Schlosser
Diane Keaton
Erno Windt
John Beck
Doctor Melik
Mary Gregory
Doctor Tryon
Don Keefer
Doctor Agon
Don Mcliam
Doctor Orva
Bartlett Robinson
Rainer Krebs
Chris Forbes
Doctor Nero
Marya Small
Doctor Dean
Peter Hobbs
Ellen Pogrebin
Susan Miller
M.C.
Lou Picetti
Herald Cohen
Brian Avery
Jeb
Spencer Milligan

Director
Woody Allen