Annie Hall: The Original Cut?

[montgomery]

No, not hand-written, typed up, but an actual draft of the script. Yes, they're fairly easy to come by, especially in Los Angeles. I didn't pay more than 20 bucks for it. This is definitely a screenplay worth looking for if you're a fan of the film.

[Dylan]

Here is a scan I found online of several Annie Hall lobby cards, a few of which feature some of the deleted scenes:

[Antoine Doinel]

The scenes that were cut from the original version of Annie Hall have most likely all been destroyed. From the Premiere interview with Woody Allen:

What about stuff your fans would be interested in, like the lost scenes from the Anhedonia cut of Annie Hall? The one with you playing basketball against the Knicks, and other scenes?

All that stuff is probably non-existent. I probably destroyed that twenty years ago.

Really? It's not moldering in some warehouse?

Not that stuff. We keep stuff from the last current couple of films and as they become three and four down the line we throw the stuff away.

[Dylan]

That's a great interview; I had read it a few days ago but lost the link, so thanks for posting it.

I probably destroyed that twenty years ago.

In editor Ralph Rosenblum's (excellent) book When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins, I believe he wrote that even then the footage no longer existed, and that was two years after Annie Hall's release. It's probably safe to assume that the footage did in fact exist somewhere in 1979, but it's probably gone forever now, unless a bootleg has been made (which seems pretty doubtful, but who knows?).

[MichaelB]

It's probably safe to assume that the footage did in fact exist somewhere in 1979, but it's probably gone forever now, unless a bootleg has been made (which seems pretty doubtful, but who knows?).

Gut instinct says probably not. Allen and Rosenblum wouldn't have had any reason to request a dupe of their work print, it's unlikely they'd have transferred it to video back then (if I remember rightly, the editing was carried out in 1976), so unless one of the tiny handful of people who saw it managed to make a copy somehow - which is highly implausible - it almost certainly ceased to exist from the moment they took it apart to assemble the final cut.

[montgomery]

I can't think of any instance of deleted scenes from Allen's films surfacing anywhere.

But I have noticed from reading some of his scripts that many unused scenes make appearances in other films. For instance, the hell elevator scene in Deconstructing Harry is in the original Annie Hall script. It's nearly identical except for a few updated references.

[AWA]

A deleted scene from "Hannah & Her Sisters" can briefly be seen in the trailer.

Eric Lax, Woody's biographer, seems to suggest that the outtakes are still in fact stored someplace and not destroyed as Woody sometimes suggests (presumably to prevent people from coaxing someone with possible access to leak them).

[Ingeri]

But I have noticed from reading some of his scripts that many unused scenes make appearances in other films. For instance, the hell elevator scene in Deconstructing Harry is in the original Annie Hall script. It's nearly identical except for a few updated references.

Like the "Conservative Radio Talk-Show Host" level in Hell? Which left me in stitches when I saw it in the theater.

How relevant that's become these days unfortunately, huh? A true testament to Woody's brilliant, and priceless commentary. Or would that be dysentery? (dissent + commentary)

I can't even fathom a different Annie Hall, and I prefer it's title over Anhedonia, ugh. And, um.....who gets murdered in the original script anyway (since noone's asking)? Maybe he settled on the title Annie Hall, because the very structure of the film was like her personality in it. Unpretentious, endearing, romantic, funny, improvised. La-di-da.....

I've always loved the rich nostalgia in Annie Hall, and how Woody's humor provides the perfect counter-balance to it's subtle melancholy.

I wonder how I would feel about this stunning performance by Diane Keaton if the film was called Anhedonia.

Seems Like Old Times

BTW, the character "Tony Lacey's Girlfriend" in Annie Hall (the beautiful girl at the party in LA who almost turns Rob's brain into guacamole, and who asks Alvy if they'd met before at EST) was played by Laurie Bird, who also co-starred as "The Girl" (hitchhiker) in Two-Lane Blacktop directed by Monte Hellman (a recent Criterion release). In real life she was Art Garfunkel's lover/girlfriend, which is fascinatingly ironic, considering how she was cast in Annie Hall as the girlfriend of the character played by Paul Simon. Tragically, Laurie Bird committed suicide in Art Garfunkel's New York apartment in 1979 at the age of 25. He dedicated his album Scissors Cut to her, and began his life-long, long distance (trans-continental) walking hobby as a way of dealing with her death. The photograph of Art Garfunkel on the cover of his album Watermark was taken by Laurie Bird, and she appears sitting to his left on the cover of Breakaway.

[Polybius]

Or would that be dysentery? (dissent + commentary)

I've always loved that line.

On a similar note of minutiae...I've also always liked the fact that Dissent's tireless and brilliant editor, Irving Howe, later appeared in Zelig.

[AWA]

The alternate script is, unfortunately, still seemingly yet to make the jump online. I have only found the following snippets of transcription from an old newsgroup posting with details from the original script:

For "Annie Hall" the script had contained a segment wherein a street elevator takes Alvy (Woody), Annie (Diane Keaton) and Rob (Tony Roberts) down through Hell, escorted by the Devil.

Here is what Woody Allen and co-scripter Marshall Brickman envisioned as the nine layers at the time of that writing:

"Layer 1: People who make money off religion, bad surgeons, and people who say 'right on'"

"Layer 2: The military, oil companies, and gossip columnists"

"Layer 3: The National Rifle Association"

"Layer 4: People who act cute, homicidal maniacs, and advertising men"

"Layer 5: Organized crime, fascist dictators, and people who don't appreciate oral sex"

"Layer 6: Guys who walk in the streets playing loud portable radios, bad interior decorators, and disc jockeys"

"Layer 7: FBI informers, CIA assassins, and fast food chains"

"Layer 8: Prison guards, people who try to be funny with waiters, and the guy who invented double knits"

"Layer 9: Politicians, torturers, and contemporary architects"

The Citadel Press book "Woody Allen: His Films and Careers" contains a still photo of this scene. The caption states that the elevator takes the three on an unusual journey, but not that the scene had been cut from the release version! Nor does the book's text make any mention of this.

The script for "Annie Hall" has it that Richard Nixon would get on the elevator at the sixth or seventh floor (the script doesn't make it clear which) and ask to see Joseph McCarthy. Nixon would exit on the lowest (ninth) layer.

In "Deconstructing Harry," it would be Woody's character who left the elevator on the ninth floor.

Another idea carried over from the earlier script was the appearance in Hell of a disparaged inventor. In "Annie Hall," it was the originator of "double knits;" in "Deconstructing Harry," he is the inventor of aluminum siding (He introduces himself after the elevator has let off its passengers).

There are other instances of Woody later using ideas that did not make the final cut of "Annie Hall."

In the script for "Annie Hall," after Tony Roberts has picked up Woody from the Los Angeles jail and they have talked, there was scripted for Woody's return to New York:

"Romantic entering New York view, music, perhaps Gershwin."

Gershwin wasn't used in "Annie Hall," but two years later, for "Manhattan," the opening would be a series of affectionate shots of New York City, accompanied by "Rhapsody in Blue."

Likewise, the joke about the woman who finally had an orgasm but then learned it was the wrong kind, was in the "Annie Hall" screenplay but did not appear on screen until "Manhattan."

The screenplay of Woody's "Annie Hall" had also had some black characters, but the scene was cut from the movie before its release twenty years ago.

Early in the screenplay, in the scenes where Alvy (Woody) examines his early life, we were to see his childhood neighborhood. An "interview style" closeup of Alvy's mother was to have her saying: "It's not the same now that 'The Element' has moved in."

Cut then to Alvy. (What follows up through my line of asterisks is quoted from the screenplay.)

Alvy: "The Element. Can you believe that? My mother always was worried that 'the element' would move in. It's like a science-fiction movie."

CUT TO SHOT of movie title beginning, writing on screen.

TITLE: The Invasion of the Element

Shots of a street in Brooklyn. We hear a grim, serious narrator's voice.

Narrator: Little did the small and serene community in Brooklyn realize that they were about to be invaded by -- The Element.

Shot of blacks moving in front moving van, whites are fainting as if it was a sci-fi film.

If anyone has a copy of the original script, I sure would love a copy. Or you could just take it to the nearest Copies store and have them photocopy it into a .pdf digital document which can be distributed via sendspace or something here for all to read. Contacting the original author of the above postings (made in 1997) has proven unsuccessful, as he is unwilling to pass his script along and suggesting only that I research some store in Hollywood where to get it instead.

[montgomery]

I'll try to get my copy online, if I can find it.

[AWA]

I'll try to get my copy online, if I can find it.

If you do, let me (and, I assume, many others on this board) know. I might be able to at least trade you some other script for it.