Trivia / Annie Hall

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Paul Simon felt that the script's portrayal of Tony Lacey was unrealistic. He convinced Woody Allen that he had a much better grasp on how to portray a music industry sleazeball like Tony, so Allen let Simon rewrite his own scenes.
  • The conversation where Alvy and Rob keep referring to each other as Max comes from Allen's and Tony Roberts' real-life friendship, where they habitually call each other Max. In their early stage days, Allen would ask Roberts not to call him "Woody" in public, out of fear that people would recognize him. Roberts then suggested to call him "Max", and Allen agreed. Roberts proceeded to do this in private as well, and Allen soon started to follow suit.
  • Diane Keaton wore her own clothes.
• All-Star Cast: Go back to the main page and look at the poster.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Sigourney Weaver was originally offered the role of Dorrie. However, she was appearing in a play written by her best friend at the time and was unable to take the role. She makes a brief appearance near the end of the film as Alvy's date.
• The Cast Showoff: Diane Keaton gets to show off her singing chops in a couple spots.
• Creator Backlash: Allen has said numerous times that he wasn't satisfied at all with how the film ended up, and is mystified at how it's constantly listed among his best works.
• The Danza: Diane Keaton's real name is Diane Hall, and yes, she went by "Annie" as a child.
• Deleted Role: Brooke Shields had a scene as the young Alvy's first girlfriend that got cut.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Though frequently regarded as one of Woody Allen's best films, Allen himself doesn't think very highly of it, only being able to see how much it doesn't live up to what he really wanted it to be.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: This was originally written as a murder mystery named Anhedonia. The movie that we see is simply a romantic subplot that was secondary to the mystery. Allen's editor thought the main plot was so bad that he convinced Allen to cut it out entirely. The narration was then added in post-production, along with a few linking scenes. Many years later Allen would make Manhattan Murder Mystery, a comedy starring him and Keaton that took some elements of the original Annie Hall mystery plot.
  • Before that, the film was intended to be a period comedy set in Victorian London.
• Missing Episode: A Deleted Scene had Alvy walking around New York at night with all the neon signs telling him to go see Annie in LA. Allen hated how the scene turned out so much that he threw the negative of it into a tar pit.
• The Red Stapler: Annie's outfits caused a brief fashion sensation.
• Throw It In!:
  • The sneeze during the coke scene was unscripted, but left in because the result was so hilarious.
  • According to Tony Roberts, in the scene where Rob picks Alvy up from jail, Woody Allen was unaware that Roberts was going to pull the green visor down on his coat. Allen ad-libbed the line "Are we driving through plutonium?" They shot a second take during which Allen changed the line to "Are we driving through a field of bees?" The first take is the one in the film.
• What Could Have Been: Marshall McLuhan's cameo wasn't originally intended for McLuhan. Among Woody's first choices were Federico Fellini and Luis Buñuel. Fellini and Satyricon do get namedropped in the scene.
• Working Title: Woody Allen originally wanted to call the film Anhedonia, which is the clinical term for the inability to enjoy anything. Also a fitting title, as it is the protagonist's key character trait. Marshall Brickman suggested alternatives including It Had to Be Jew, Rollercoaster Named Desire and Me and My Goy. An advertising agency, hired by United Artists, embraced Allen's choice of an obscure word by suggesting the studio take out newspaper advertisements that looked like fake tabloid headlines such as Anhedonia Strikes Cleveland!. However, Allen experimented with several titles over five test screenings, including Anxiety and Annie and Alvy, before settling on Annie Hall.
• Write What You Know: Woody Allen and Diane Keaton were in a relationship.
• Write Who You Know: Annie Hall is basically Diane Keaton playing herself, right down to the nickname.

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