Celebrated film maker Woody Allen has been abducted from his Manhattan townhouse by a gang of fans of his older work. The kidnappers issued a communique Monday morning to law enforcement and the media stating their intentions. It reads as follows:
Whereas Woody Allen’s films have grown more stale than the air in the doomed Russian submarine Kursk in its final hours over the last forty years, we, the fans of his older films, vow not to release him until he signs a pledge not to make any more movies for the duration of his natural life or until the expiration of my two-for-one meal coupon for Nate Zipsky’s Burger Emporium, whichever comes first. We take this extreme measure not with any sense of existential dread, but rather with a gnawing anxiety that absent our actions Mr. Allen would even now be contriving another screenplay on his Olympa SM-3 typewriter in which a magician uses a Chinese cabinet to facilitate the unseemly relationship between a neurotic older man and a nubile, innocent blond waif with an inexplicable taste for the music of Cole Porter. Duty demanded that we act to preserve the legacy of his great earlier films. Are not those who stand idly by while crimes against art are committed complicit? And if not, shouldn’t they at least be compelled to sing the Dutch National Anthem while standing naked and being pelted with anchovies by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Thus far Mr. Allen has refused to sign the pledge but he is becoming more pliable by the hour after being forced to perform isometric exercises to the music of Mitch Miller. We feel confidant that he will render his John Hancock soon and spare the film world the further tarnishing of his majestic oeuvre. For this we expect no plaudits, although we wouldn’t balk at a weekend at the Ritz-Carlton with a couple of Swedish airline stewardesses.