You're up to poisons already. You guys are slipping into a mad obsession.
When I first saw Manhattan Murder Mystery half a lifetime ago, I don't think I understood the full magnitude of the commitment I was making -- to see every subsequent Woody Allen film in a theater, regardless of how they were received. In the two decades since there have been plenty that were received very poorly indeed, but I don't think I could have picked a better one to start with because Manhattan Murder Mystery encapsulates so much of what I love about Allen's work. Working with the right collaborators definitely helped since his messy breakup with Mia Farrow led to him being paired up onscreen with Diane Keaton for the first time since 1979's Manhattan, which was also the last film he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. And since its murder-mystery plot was originally intended for Annie Hall, it's tempting to see Keaton's and Allen's characters as updated versions of Annie and Alvy, long since married (and with a college-age kid played by Zach Braff in his feature debut) and drifting into complacency.
When shakes them out of it is a chance encounter with two elderly neighbors (Jerry Adler and Lynn Cohen) who seems set in their ways and cause Keaton to ponder whether she and Allen are becoming "a pair of comfortable old shoes." Then Cohen drops dead of a heart attack and Keaton slowly comes to suspect that Adler may have murdered for, which Allen chalks up to "too much Double Indemnity." She has the ear of their newly divorced friend Alan Alda, though, who also shows an interest in her plan to start a restaurant and gives her pointers when she starts playing amateur detective over Allen's strenuous objections. For his part, he starts spending time with author Anjelica Huston (Allen is her editor at the publishing house where he works) which leads to some jealousy on Keaton's part. Worries about the state of their marriage fall by the wayside, though, as she keeps stumbling onto circumstantial evidence that points to Adler's guilt.
Along the way, Allen throws out one-liner after one-liner, many of which land and all of which are organic to his character. ("Can you believe this guy in Indiana?" Keaton asks him, reading from the Daily News. "Killed twelve victims, dismembered them and ate them." His reply: "Really? It's an alternative lifestyle.") Also lending the proceedings an organic feel is cinematographer Carlo Di Palma's restless, frequently handheld camera, which is a continuation of the shooting style they previously employed in Husbands and Wives. And Allen makes his intentions clear right off the bat by playing Cole Porter's "I Happen to Like New York" over the opening credits, followed by a soaring helicopter shot of the city skyline. Even if he's spent the better part of the last decade finding inspiration (and funding sources) elsewhere, New York is his town, and it always will be.