Annie Hall/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion: Annie arrives to meet Alvy while a group of stereotypical Italian-Americans are hounding him for autographs. He immediately describes them to her as "the cast of The Godfather" - the movie that arguably made Diane Keaton's career.
    • Also one of the actors playing the autograph hounds (Rick Petruccelli) had a very small role in The Godfather.
    • Annie Hall is Diane Keaton's real name (Annie is a nickname variant of Diane).
  • All-Star Cast: Go back to the main page and look at the poster.
  • Hey, It's That Guy: Paul Simon as Tony Lacey, Christopher Walken as Annie's psychotic brother, Carol Kane as Alvy's old girlfriend, Shelley Duvall as the Rolling Stone reporter Alvy briefly dates, Jeff Goldblum as a guest at Clifton's party who forgot his mantra, and Truman Capote passes by the camera in one scene as Alvy calls him "the winner of the Truman Capote Look-alike Contest".
    • Beverly D'Angelo appears in Rob's sitcom.
    • John Glover plays Jerry, Annie's actor boyfriend who instructs her to "touch my heart...with your foot".
    • Sigourney Weaver makes two blink-and-you'll-miss-her appearances, the first on the arm of a guy who tells Alvy that Annie is living with Tony Lacey, the second as Alvy's movie date toward the end.
  • 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.
  • Throw It In: The sneeze during the coke scene was unscripted, but left in because the result was so hilarious.
  • What Could Have Been: 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.
    • Marshall McLuhan's cameo wasn't originally intended for McLuhan. Among Woody's first choices were Federico Fellini and Luis Bunuel.
    • A deleted sequence had Alvy walking around New York at night with all the neon signs telling him to go see Annie in LA. He hated how the scene turned out so much that he threw the negative of it into a tar pit.
  • Working Title: Woody Allen originally wanted to call the film Anhedonia, which is the technical term for the inability to enjoy anything. Also a fitting title, as it is the protagonist’s key character trait.