Arrow Academy’s second Woody Allen collection covers 1979-85, during which he made many of his best-loved films.  These begin with Manhattan, a sublime Gershwin-scored Panavision love-letter to his home city, and end with The Purple Rose of Cairo, a wistfully affectionate romance about the cinema’s past that also doubles as a hilariously fantastical farce.

In between there’s the Felliniesque, fascinatingly self-analytical Stardust Memories; the bucolic romp A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (the first of thirteen films starring Mia Farrow); the technically and conceptually astonishing Zelig, in which a “human chameleon” bears witness to many of the 1920s and 30s cultural and political upheavals; and the perfectly-formed Broadway Danny Rose, a comedy about a theatrical agent who gets mixed up with the Mob.

By now, Allen was working with a tightly-knit regular team: cinematographer Gordon Willis, designer Mel Bourne, editor Susan E. Morse and producer Robert Greenhut worked on nearly all of these, achieving an enviable consistency of style at a time when American cinema was moving away from the notion of the auteur director.

Collection Includes:

• Manhattan (1979)
• Stardust Memories (1980)
• A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982)
• Zelig (1983)
• Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
• The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
• Exclusive to this collection: Manhattan and a hardback book featuring new and archive writing on all the films.