Bananas is a 1971 comedy film written by Mickey Rose and Woody Allen, directed by Allen, and starring himself and Louise Lasser. It featured a young Sylvester Stallone in a small but memorable role. Parts of the plot were based on the book Don Quixote, U.S.A. by Richard P. Powell. It was filmed on location in New York City, Lima (Peru), and various locations in Puerto Rico, including San Juan, Carolina and Loiza. The film is number 78 on Bravo’s ‘100 Funniest Movies’.
Fielding Mellish (Woody Allen) is a neurotic blue collar man who tries to impress social activist Nancy (Louise Lasser). Trying to get in touch with the San Marcos revolution, he visits, attempting to show his concern for the native people. However, nearly killed by the local caudillo, only to be saved by the revolutionaries, he is then indebted to help them. Mellish clumsily learns how to be a revolutionary, and then in an effort to feed the troops goes to a restaurant and in typical New Yorker fashion asks for thousands of deli sandwiches (including one special order), plus wheelbarrows of coleslaw on the side.
When the revolution is successful, the Castro-style leader goes mad (declaring at one point that all underwear be worn on the outside), forcing the rebels to place Mellish as their President. When traveling back to the U.S. to obtain financial aid, he reunites with his activist ex-girlfriend and is exposed. In a classic courtroom scene, Mellish tries to defend himself from a series of incriminating witnesses (including an actress (Dorothi Fox) portraying J. Edgar Hoover allegedly disguised as a black woman). He is eventually sentenced to prison, but his sentence is suspended on the condition that he doesn’t move into the judge’s neighborhood. Nancy then agrees to marry him. The between-the-covers consummation of their marriage — an event that was over much more quickly than Nancy had anticipated — was announced ‘play by play’ by Howard Cosell.
Summary via Wikipedia.