Love, Oh Careless, Love-With Diane Keaton and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” In Mind  

DVD Review

By Associate Editor Alden Riley 

Annie Hall, starring Diane Keaton, Woody Allen,

It is funny how some film assignments I get from my boss,

Sandy Salmon, come into being. I mentioned in a recent review of the classic female vs. male clash of wills and style George Cukor’s Adam’s Rib starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy that he wished me to watch such strong independent lead women’s roles from the 1930s and 1940s to prove out his thesis that female actors such as Hepburn were able to turn in great performances with style and panache without appearing to be man-eaters. Or not too much anyway in contrast to many female-driven leads today where to avoid such designations the     

story-line has to bend over backwards cutting the heart out of such efforts. I had mentioned that in my review of the current Wonder Woman as an example and that one phrase started Sandy’s wheels rolling. 

The genesis of the film under review, Woody Allen’s masterly romantic comedy Annie Hall is very different. It is based on two factors, the first stemming from a BBC radio news broadcast that Sandy heard on his way to work one day about a survey that had been done naming the 150 greatest comedy films of all times. Annie Hall had been named number three on that list. The second my answer that I had never seen the film, had no particular interest in Woody Allen’s logjam of films after having seen a few from his early 2000s production (except Blue Jasmine but that was carried by the performance of Cate Blanchett more than Woody’s plotline and dialogue), and tended away from reviewing romantic comedies. Naturally that put fury red in Allen devotee Sandy’s eyes (that “devotee” status which in turn he had gotten from his film critic friend Sam Lowell, former film editor here, when they were both at the American Film Gazette).        

So here I am grinding it out on this one. Pleasantly grinding it out on a film that still seems fresh today some thirty plus years after its premier. As my companion who was watching the film with me said “it has aged well.” Agreed. I am not sure where I would put it in the pantheon of cinematic great comedies but it certainly belongs among the low numbers, no question about that.   

Of course as with many Woody Allen vehicles the art is in the dialogue and wit and not so much the plotline. At the time of production Woody was well known for his New York Jewish kid comic routine in many such film efforts. Annie Hall is in line with that persona from the neurotic self-effacing guy who can’t seem to “get it” about romance after two failed marriages to two bright star Jewish women and starts out once again on the roady road to love-to romance. Although this time with a classic WASP woman from Wisconsin Annie Hall of the title played by then paramour Diane Keaton as an aspiring nightclub performer (check out her stand-up performance of It Seems Like Old Times which brought a tear to the eye of my viewing companion). Still Woody can’t seem to get the hang of modern romance and he loses Annie not only to another man but to another coast-the dreaded enemy Left Coast-LA. The film is rounded out with every important New York intellectual referential tidbit from the period. Sandy said he howled when Woody made a cutting comment to his second wife about two New York-based high-end intellectual publications of the day- Commentary and Dissent saying they had merged into a new magazine Dysentery. Sandy said “ouch” but I was, maybe not being from New York or old enough to remember those publication was non-plussed by that one although many of the other references were very funny.

Like I said I can for once agree with Sandy and also can truthfully say I was not be put off by yet another “have to do” Sandy assignment this time. This film deserves its low number on the greatest comedy list.