Broadway Danny Rose

Broadway Danny Rose (1984) — watch online on iFILM, Woody Allen's black-and-white comedy in which he also stars as the title character. Danny Rose runs a one-man talent agency in New York. His roster: a one-legged tap dancer, a blind xylophonist, a balloon artist. Hopeless acts, but Danny believes in every last one of them.

One client actually has a shot — Lou Canova, a washed-up lounge singer played by Nick Apollo Forte who is catching a second wave of fame. Danny books the gigs, smooths the road, and as a personal favour agrees to pose as the girlfriend of Lou's actual girlfriend, Tina (Mia Farrow). Tina, it turns out, is entangled with a mob figure — and suddenly Danny is sprinting through Manhattan alleys with no idea how he got there.

Allen frames the whole story as a table anecdote traded by stand-up comics over lunch at Carnegie Deli, giving the film the warmth of a yarn told between friends. Shot to echo the look of 1950s New York cinema, it is quietly one of his sharpest studies of loyalty and loneliness. Stream Broadway Danny Rose online on iFILM.