This movie is considered to be a spoof of Russian Novels . It is set in czarist Russia, 1812 , a neurotic Boris Grushenko (Woody Allen) wishes to marry his distant cousin (Diane Keaton) . Although both of whom take two divergent ways in their lives, those paths cross once again . When Napoleon threatens to invade the Russian Empire, the coward soldier is forced to enlist to save his natal nation . Later on , Boris and his lover cousin formulate a scheme to assassinate Napoleon (James Tolkan) . At the end he is detained and the condemned man reviews his past life .

Amusing picture fable is plenty of the filmmaker's signature angst-ridden philosophical comedy . Hilarity slips into vulgarity rather too often in this usually in-and-out early Woody Allen comedy which embroils the little man in Russia invaded by Napoleon . Like a Russian soldier , the gags and funny sketches fire off in all directions . There is a lot of spoofs and even Bergman's ¨The seventh seal¨ and ¨Persona¨ and jokes for moviegoers . As the movie featured the Death character of The Grim Reaper , Allen is known to be inspired and influenced by Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman who had featured the Grim Reaper in his film The seventh seal (1957) ; in the Bergman film the Grim Reaper wears black robes whereas in this film he wears a white gown . The picture is ironical about major Russian novels particularly the works of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky . In fact , the movie title is a play on words of such Russian novel titles as Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" . Nice acting by Woody Allen at his best , as a condemned man who reviews the follies of his life . His comic style paid homage to a number of classic comedians which included Bob Hope , Charles Chaplin and The Marx Brothers . Intermittently hilarious , pre-Annie Hall Allen fare , it is is one of eight cinema movie collaborations of Woody Allen and actress Diane Keaton, Allen co-starring in six of them and directing seven of them . These are the followings : Play It Again Sam , Sleeper , Interiors , Manhattan , Radio Days , and Manhattan Murder Mystery . It is fun enough to make wish there were more of it and you will have to keep your eyes peeled to spot notorious secondaries as Jessica Harper , Harold Gould , Olga Georges Picot , Féodor Atkine , Gérard Buhr , Howard Vernon and James Tolkan as Napoleón and his double and about ¨fifty-four supporting players" .

Witty as well as classical musical score contributes much . At the beginning the soundtrack was taken from Igor Stravinsky music , but , subsequently , Woody Allen took Sergei Prokofiev's lighthearted score that worked far better . The movie's big battle sequence features Sergei Prokofiev's cantata music from Sergei M. Eisenstein's epic Alexánder Nevsky (1938). Colorful as well as evocative cinematography by Ghislain Cloquet , being shot on location in Hungary and Paris , France . Lavish and stunningly produced by Charles H. Joffe , Allen's ordinary producer . This enjoyable motion picture was vigorously directed by Woody Allen , being his sixth film as director and here to ridicule Russian novels such as "The Idiot", "The Gambler", "War and Peace", "Anna Karenina", "Crime and Punishment", and "The Brothers Karamazov". Woody Allen has said that this movie was "my funniest picture to that time".

Woody Allen films fall into different categories-his early films verge on slapstick while still being bitingly satirical (Sleeper, Bananas, Play It Again, Sam, among others) while his later works generally fall into one of two categories: contemporary social satire or nostalgic period pieces, generally set in the 1930s or 1940s. Love and Death is probably the most cerebral of the slapstick films and what I suspect a collaboration between Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman and the Marx Brothers would have looked like had one ever taken place. Sight gags abound along with the philosophical discussions Woody Allen films have as a matter of course. It's a hilarious film that spoofs Bergman, the military, patriotism and, of course, love and death. Most highly recommended.

I think this film marks the beginning of Woody Allen's attempt to be seen as an intellectual film maker. Up until this movie, his movies were often pretty silly--even dopey at times. And he was great at being dopey--producing some movies that were jam-packed with laughs. However, in this film we see SOME of his previous silliness but it is now combined with references to Russian literature that only Russians, intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals would understand. For the first time, he shows that he is beginning to lose his audience--his "regular" fans. References to Uncle Vanya, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy will no doubt go right over the heads of fans who were used to a different brand of humor. While the film is NOT devoid of laughs, they are fewer and the overall message from Allen seems to be "wow--I'm funny AND an intellectual". I guess I'm not an intellectual, then.