“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex”* but Were Afraid to Ask, Woody Allen (U.S., 1972)

Dr. Reuben’s liberating tome, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, led the sixties sexual revolution, was translated into fifty-four languages, and then adapted for sintillating cinema by a director whose guilt-filled alter-ego once said to his sexual partner, “That’s the most fun I’ve ever had without laughing.” Seven segments of sensual satire cover such age-old sexual mysteries as “Do Aphrodisiacs Work?” told in Elizabethan English, “What Are Sex Perverts?” staged as a 1950s game show, and the infamous “What Happens During Ejaculation?” in which Woody plays a fearful sperm preparing to leap into the great unknown. The most fun you’ll have without moaning.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Allen, inspired by the book by Dr. David Reuben. Photographed by David M. Walsh. With Allen, Louise Lasser, Tony Randall, Gene Wilder. (88 mins, Color/B&W, ’Scope, 35mm, From Park Circus)