I read this book long before Woody Allen's personal troubles became public. (I've always been an admirer of Allen's films.) It is, hands-down, the worst biography I ever read. Lax is more than reverent of Allen; he is obsequious and subservient. At a very early point in the book, I began to sense that every word had been approved by Allen. By the end, I though Allen's publicist and psychiatrists had probably signed off too.

P.S. If I had an option of giving this book no stars, I would have done so.

It's a commonplace that many artists have questionable private lives. What Mr Allen does or doesn't do in his private life is of passing interest to me. That he likes younger women doesn't make him much different, maybe unfortunately, from millions of other men (is Rupert Murdoch a classic example or what?) If I want gossip I read a magazine. Mr Allen's work on the other hand interests me very much. This bio by Mr Lax is good for excerpts from Mr Allen's comedy routines and in revealing the movie making experience from the editting point of view, shooting, casting, writing and rewriting. I don't think the prose skill of Mr Lax is especially high but the book's subject matter is interesting enough, and Woody Allen's writing amusing enough, to carry it along.

A natural stage in my succession of becoming a Woody Allen freak was picking up a biography. Any single one would have suited my needs, because I knew only as much as somebody who had seen ten or so of his movies and was beginning to show some serious interest in this singular personality.

It turned out that by accident I had picked out just the right book. Eric Lax delivers over 400 pages of what seems to be a very detailed and reliable account of Woody's life. Contrary to the tabloid-like obsession with Allen's women which many writers of today appear to revel, Lax's primary emphasis is on his work, influences, and progress as a comedian. A special section was added to the end of the book to summarise the events of the last ten years (the first edition of this biography was published in 1991), including the row with Mia Farrow and Woody's marriage to Soon-Yi Previn. But it remains a biography of the man it boasts in the title, not a collection of second-hand conjectures and prejudices about what he might seem to be. Indeed, this is left to the army of Woody admirers who like to derive his character from the roles he has played or written.

The shattering of preconceived images that surround the private self of Woody Allen is probably one of the major strengths of Lax's book. Woody is shown as somebody who has been engaging in his beloved trade for years and now shows genuine surprise about all the fuss that is being raised around his straightforward life. Nevertheless, I refuse to buy such a portrayal, simply because I am one of those blind followers who have merged Woody on-screen with the real-life Woody. True or not, it is an illusion I am prepared to live, for that is the main attraction of his movies.

This book is supposedly a complete look at Woody Allen but apart from the details of the split with Mia, adds little to the Eric Lax biography of several years ago (Baxter takes a few jibes at Lax, calling attention to those people he failed to interview; perhaps someone should remind Mr. Baxter that he didn't interview absolutely everyone who has come into contact with Woody Allen in the past 60 years either). To his credit, Mr. Baxter seems to have a wealth of financial and contractual information about Woody's films that's seeing the light of day for the first time. The question is, who cares? The book often bogs down in these behind-the-scenes passages and I found myself having to resist the urge to put it down for good. There's also a fairly obvious attempt to create "balance" by throwing dirt Woody's way, none of which is too successful. Let's face it. This imperfect man is a creative genius and, biographies or no biographies, deserves to be respected as such. I still recommend the book to Woody Allen fans, if only to say you've read this latest biography.

For the most part, I found this book well written and informative, although typos occur quite frequently in the hardcover edition.

After a brief background on Allen's childhood, the author titles the chapters after the titles of Allen's films; a beneficial format, because it allows the reader to watch the movie before they read the chapter if they elect to do so.

The author has interesting arguments about why Allen acted the way he did in certain situations, but it is important to note that it doesn't appear that Mr. Baxter actually spoke with Allen during his research for this book. This is not the Gospel on Allen, but it is an interesting body none the less.

This is a very fair, even-handed look at the life of Woody Allen and his films. It is NOT critical of him, as several of the negative reviewers below seem to suggest. The author writes with candor and doesn't censor himself. Those are qualities I expect from a biography. Why read a bigraphy if you don't expect to come across a few warts? I've been a fan of Woody's for over 25 years. I like him. And, I like this book.

Luckily, this book is very small in size, so one can hurl it against the wall or furniture or even the TV set and not do any damage. To be fair, its size is part of its problem--it seems to be part of a series of "Pocket Essentials," books which aim to give a brief overview of a director's work. Allen had almost 30 movies to his credit when this book was written, so cramming that much plot summary and commentary into 90 pages had to be tough. Oddly, it's Interiors that gets the most space (about 5 pages), not Annie Hall or Manhattan.

Once you accept the fact that this will be film commentary lite, however, annoying problems still abound. The author's style is simplistic--it sounds like his first unedited draft is what was published. Sloppy sentence style, typos, and poor word choices (he calls Take the Money and Run a "skit," quite literally, even though it's a 90-minute movie; "adopted" and "adapted" are not the same word) are frequent. Poor research is evident--he claims Allen has worked with only three cinematographers, which is wrong and easily disproved. He also incorrectly claims that Allen's unique credits style started with Annie Hall. Some major plot points are missed, such as the importance of Holly's pregnancy in Hannah and Her Sisters.

Occasionally, the author does express an interersting insight--his discussions of Interiors and Broadway Danny Rose are good. However, this is overall a shoddy production in every way, right down to the physical look of the type. Most revealingly, on the last page, in an annotated bibliography entry, the author criticizes his own work. He refers to a recent Allen biography as "[o]bviously compiled from various thin sources and padded out with background detail, much like the book you now hold in your hands." Avoid this book. I know I will avoid any more in the Pocket Essentials series.