"If nothing lasts why am I bothering to make films, or do anything for that matter?" a nervy Woody Allen asks the aliens in his surreal paean to the burden of fame, Stardust Memories. "We enjoy your films," they tell him. "Particularly the early funny ones."

They would, one suspects, wholeheartedly approve of the New Yorker's latest. In it, publisher Larry Lipton (Allen) is married to Carol, who becomes obsessed by the idea that their charming, if dull, stamp-collecting neighbour has disposed of his wife in the perfect murder. Eventually, and despite his early reticence at amateur sleuthing, Larry has to admit something does seem amiss in their comfortable apartment block, and somewhere along the line they drag their friends -- a divorced playwright and glamorous novelist -- into the intrigue.

Originally written for former lover Mia Farrow before the over-publicised bust-up, Allen sensibly recasts the female lead with one-time leading lady Diane Keaton. It's tempting to suggest, everything being equal, that as far as his films are concerned, things have worked out for the best. Keaton may, as Allen points out, only have one character, but as she demonstrated in Annie Hall and Love and Death, the director has never had a better comic foil; after the whining of the Farrow years the result is refreshing. Around the leads, Alan Alda's playwright harbouring desires for Carol is the only one to share her initial detective enthusiasms, while Crimes and Misdemeanours co-star Anjelica Huston is the slightly aloof poker-playing author equally unable to resist a good murder.

Manhattan Murder Mystery seems to borrow from several earlier Allen pictures (it was, he says, the original plan for the Oscar-winning Annie Hall), and throws them wholesale at a bundle of old movie quotes -- the neighbour-anxiety of Hitchcock's Rear Window; the elaborate murder/insurance gamble of Wilder's marvellous Double Indemnity; the supposed killer's repertory cinema; Allen wanting to get home to watch an old Bob Hope caper on TV. At the surprisingly energetic climax, a chase around the old cinema is played out against a back-drop of mirrors, and even has Welles' Lady From Shanghai on the screen behind: "I'll never say life doesn't imitate art again," vows Allen.

The only obvious hangover in here from his most recent work is the restive, hand-held camera that made Husbands and Wives such a remarkable departure, albeit a little less dizzying than before. The result is an edgy, frenetic pace to the picture, complementing the hyped-up drive of the leads and the script's almost gag-a-line comedy (Manhattan, Annie Hall co-writer Marshall Brickman working again with Allen) that gives the whole an energy not seen since Broadway Danny Rose almost a decade ago.

This isn't great Woody Allen -- it has none of the weight of Hannah and Her Sisters or Manhattan -- but is a defiantly upbeat Woody Allen and co-conspirators enjoying themselves greatly. He is one film-maker who knows precisely what he's doing, and here it's making one of his most relentlessly entertaining movies in years.