For critic Andrew Sarris, Manhattan is ‘the only truly great American film of the Seventies’. Its theme, according to Allen, is ‘the problem of trying to live a decent life amidst all the junk of contemporary culture – the temptations, the seductions’. He plays a man romantically torn between an adolescent innocent (Mariel Hemingway) and his best friend’s mature but vulnerable mistress (Diane Keaton). The elegant comedy lances the emotional pain.

Allen: ‘The American Dream is, you grow up and you meet some woman or you meet some man and you fall in love – and you get married. And then you raise children and you’re faithful. That’s the American Dream in terms of relationships. Of course, reality does not always allow this to come true. But that is what everybody tries to achieve, a deep, lasting, permanent relationship with a single other person of the opposite sex. But it’s easier said than done.’