Annie
Hall
(played by Diane Keaton): “Alvy, now
don't panic. Please.”
Alvy
Singer (played by
Woody Allen): “Look, I told you it was a ... mistake to ever bring a live
thing in the house.”
Annie: “Stop it! Don't ... don't do that! There.”
(The lobsters
continue to crawl on the floor. Annie, holding out a wooden paddle, tries to
shove them onto it.)
Alvy:
“Well, maybe we should just call the police. Dial nine-one-one, it's the
lobster squad.”
Annie:
“Come on, Alvy, they're only baby ones, for God's sake.”
Alvy:
“If they're only babies, then you pick 'em up.”
Annie:
“Oh, all right. All right! It's all right. Here.”
(She drops the
paddle and picks up one of the lobsters by the tail. Laughing, she shoves it at
Alvy)
Alvy:
“Don't give it to me. Don't!”
Annie:
(Hysterically) “Oooh! Here! Here!”
Alvy:
(Pointing) “Look! Look, one crawled
behind the refrigerator. It'll turn up in our bed at night.” (They move over to the refrigerator; Alvy
moves as close to the wall as possible as Annie, covering her mouth and
laughing hysterically, teasingly dangles a lobster in front of him) “Will
you get outta here with that thing? Jesus!”
Annie:
(Laughing, to the lobster) “Get him!”
Alvy:
(Laughing) “Talk to him. You speak
shellfish!” (He moves over to the stove
and takes the lid of a large steamer filled with boiling water) “Hey, look
... put it in the pot.”
Annie
(laughing): “I can't! I can't put him in the pot. I can't put a live thing in
hot water.”
Alvy
(Overlapping) “Gimme! Gimme! Let me do it! What-what's he
think we're gonna do, take him to the movies?”—Annie Hall (1977), written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman,
directed by Woody Allen
The comedy that brought Oscars to Diane Keaton (Best
Actress) and Woody Allen (Best Director, Best Original Screenplay) premiered on this date 35 years ago. The film represents a marked step forward in Allen’s evolution as a filmmaker, and even
in his screen persona.
Gone were the rat-a-tat one-liners he had learned to
grind out as a writer for Sid Caesar, and as a stand-up comic on his
own; in was humor generated by character and situation. (See Alvy and Annie’s
initial discussion about taking a ride in her car.) Gone were abrupt transitions
and New York as a mere backdrop; in were split screens, flashbacks, and
location shots in which the film takes on the force of a character in its own
right, all structured stylishly with the help of cinematographer Gordon Willis.
Gone was the loser, the cowardly nebbish lucky to get a date; in was the assertive New York
intellectual who, for all his twitchiness, gets the girl (though keeping her was
another story).
Any of a number of scenes from this cinematic,
valentine-after-the-fact to former lover Keaton would be worthy of comment, but
this quote does nicely here. Alvy and Annie are so comically neurotic in this
scene that the lobsters practically become things out of Alien. But further down the road, how can two people who transform
a minor incident into something enormous (albeit enormously funny, in
retrospect) manage to live together for the long term?
There is an ironic, closing parenthesis to this
scene after Alvy and Annie break up. Alvy is again preparing lobster at the
Hamptons beach house, but his new date, unlike Annie, is humorless, and he
realizes how hard it will be to find someone who’ll match his former love.
In her recent memoir, Then Again, Ms. Keaton sums up the magic of the movie in a few
sentences: “Annie Hall was his [Allen’s]
first love story. Love was the glue that held those witty vignettes together.
However bittersweet, the message was clear: Love fades. Woody took a risk; he
let the audience feel the sadness of goodbye in a funny movie.”
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