6Annie Hall

Some facts about the writing of the film:

• Woody Allen was born in Flatbush, NY. He has been a television writer, a playwright, a screenwriter, an actor, an author, a director and a producer.
   
• Marshall Brickman wrote jokes for Woody Allen's standup act in the 1960s.
   
• Allen originally conceived Annie Hall as a murder mystery with a subplot about a romance. multiple sources
   
• Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman considered as many as 100 possible titles for the film before settling on Anhedonia the inability to feel pleasure. United Artists fought against it (among other things, they were unable to come up with an ad campaign that explained the meaning of the word) and Allen compromised on naming the film after a central character three weeks before the film's premiere. The New York Times, 4/20/77
   
• Many elements in the script were based on reality, including the fact that Diane Keaton's real name is Diane Hall, and her nickname is Annie. multiple sources
   
• Woody Allen: "Details are picked from life. I'm a comedian. Diane sings, and I'm friends with Tony Roberts, and almost everybody I know has moved out to California." The New York Times, 4/20/77
   
• "In common with her character, [Diane Keaton] calls her grandmothers 'Grammy,' uses expressions like 'la-dee-dah' and 'Oh, gee, it's a wacky old world,' and orders pastrami and white bread with mayo." The New York Times, 4/20/77
   
• Marshall Brickman: "At first, in Annie Hall, we made Diane Keaton a neurotic New York girl, but the character had no dramatic transition. This led us to give her a family in Wisconsin." The New York Times, 8/21/77
   
• Brickman: "The first script of Annie Hall was much more episodic, tangential, and novelistic We started to become interested in the love story between Woody and the Keaton character, which was all over the place. We cut and pasted to make the love story more important, and the structure emerged. The material was telling us what to do." Film Comment, June 1986
   
• Allen on writing Annie Hall: "I've always been able to get laughs. I wanted to move on. This is not a quantum leap, but at least it's a couple of inches in the right direction." The New York Times, 4/20/77

Read a page from the screenplay of Annie Hall.