Fading Gigolo

Woody Allen acts as actor-director John Tuturro's pimp in Fading Gigolo, a rare instance of his acting in someone else's movie.

Allen said that the reason he's appearing less in his own films is that he essentially plays the same character in every movie and it's not that easy building a movie around that character. I don't know if he's playing that same character in Tuturro's movie.

Allen tried to play a different role in Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and felt he failed. He thought it may be his worse movie. It did fairly well in Europe.

I've seen Allen in a few movies made by people other than himself. In the '70s, he was in The Front about the Hollywood blacklist. It started as a serious drama but became more comedic with his presence which angered some of the people involved. There was Scenes From a Mall which I hear wasn't very good, a Jean-Luc Godard movie. He played a character named Tex Cowly in Picking Up the Pieces. (Tex dismembered his wife in the movie.) I didn't watch very much of it.

I saw him in Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear. As I recall, his role consisted of him sitting and reading something. He was in a made for TV version of The Sunshine Boys.

They wanted him to play Alan Dershowitz in that Klaus Von Bulow movie. He turned it down and Dershowitz represented Mia Farrow against him later.

Allen wrote the play but didn't direct Play It Again, Sam. He had already directed a couple of movies at the time, but he said he had never directed a movie with a beginning, a middle and an end and wasn't sure he could do it.

He made an uncredited appearance a comedy called The Imposters.

And there was the animated movie about ants.