Broadway Danny Rose

In Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, the director stars as a theatrical agent who ends up on the run from the Mafia with his client's mistress. Mia Farrow is almost unrecognisable as the mistress, in sunglasses and a blonde wig.

This is one of Allen's 'screwball' comedies, as fast-paced as his "early, funny" films such as Love & Death. Allen does his usual shtick, memorably describing a cousin as "like something you might find in a live bait shop". Like Zelig, Stardust Memories, and Manhattan, it was filmed in black-and-white with cinematography by Gordon Willis. (Allen also worked with Willis on the colour films Annie Hall, Interiors, and The Purple Rose Of Cairo; he later directed Shadows & Fog in black-and-white without Willis.)

Allen's recent European productions (Cassandra's Dream, Match Point, Scoop, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and even his latest film Whatever Works, pale in comparison with Broadway Danny Rose, confirming that his greatest films are the New York comedies that he not only wrote and directed but also performed in.