The top laugh riot from Woody Allen’s “early, funny” period, in which he was making Bob Hope movies for the cynical 1970s. There isn’t a single quip here from Allen’s New York City lonely heart who gets mixed up with South American radicals over his interest in a hipster girl (the terrific Louise Lasser, who gets her fair share of laughs, too) that would sound out of place from Hope in any of his classics. Allen is just as lily-livered, scheming and easily swayed by a beautiful woman. He gets into trouble and then slips and trips his way out of it. You know the drill. Allen channels Hope while he also sneaks in great Chaplin-esque physical comedy and co-writes and directs. This film remains fascinating today because it’s still relevant. It’s a reminder that 1971 and 2016 have more in common than we think. Guys are still scheming to get into girls’ pants by pretending to give a damn about their ultra-left politics. That never gets old. I’ve done it myself. Make this film in our paranoid-to-the-max climate today and it would likely get interpreted as a political statement, left-wing or right-wing depending on where the critic stands and how much they enjoy feeling persecuted, rather than the piece about human foibles that it really is. There is a political edge (see the gag where The National Review is filed among the pornography at a newsstand), but this film is all about the jokes. They fly rapid-fire and at that pace, a fierce mind like Allen’s is liable to plant a bullet in everybody. Not every punchline in this blizzard of comedy ages well all these years later, but the ones that do are killers and the whole film flies by on a breeze unencumbered by plot or sense or, blech, good taste. Bananas is truly bananas, bless it. A classic.