Woody Allen is deeply fascinated and affronted by the reign of jargon. Sociologists who write about the death of the word in America must have tin ears; American wits at the moment have the antennae for details of cliché that the English have for details of vernacular. In "Bananas," which is slightly about revolution in a banana republic, the plot is ropy and can seem flailingly right-wing when it probably thinks and means something reforming; the one-liners therefore run out of steam halfway through the picture, and too many scenes tend to come out on a bit of l'esprit de l'escalier when they would work better if the person on the staircase would shut up, but the film really is funny about automated language. (pp. 127-28)

But still, for all the odd glories of the film, it has to be said that the Castro jokes are often miles...