Movie Quote of the Day (‘Annie Hall,’ Facing a Lobster Crisis)

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.”