Annie Hall

FADE IN:

Abrupt medium close-up of Alvy Singer doing a comedy monologue. He

wearing a crumbled sports jacket and tieless shirt; the background is stark.

ALVY:

There's an old joke. Uh, two elderly

women are at a Catskills mountain

resort, and one of 'em says: "Boy, the

food at this place is really terrible."

The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and

such ... small portions." Well, that's

essentially how I feel about life. Full

of loneliness and misery and suffering

and unhappiness, and it's all over much

too quickly. The-the other important

joke for me is one that's, uh, usually

attributed to Groucho Marx, but I think

it appears originally in Freud's wit and

its relation to the unconscious. And it

goes like this-I'm paraphrasing: Uh ...

"I would never wanna belong to any club

that would have someone like me for a

member." That's the key joke of my adult

life in terms of my relationships with

women. Tsch, you know, lately the

strangest things have been going

through my mind, 'cause I turned forty,

tsch, and I guess I'm going through a

life crisis or something, I don't know.

I, uh ... and I'm not worried about aging.

I'm not one o' those characters, you know.

Although I'm balding slightly on top, that's

about the worst you can say about me. I,

uh, I think I'm gonna get better as I get

older, you know? I think I'm gonna be the-

the balding virile type, you know, as

opposed to say the, uh, distinguished

gray, for instance, you know? 'Less I'm

neither o' those two. Unless I'm one o'

those guys with saliva dribbling out of

his mouth who wanders into a cafeteria

with a shopping bag screaming about

socialism.

(Sighing)

Annie and I broke up and I-I still can't

get my mind around that. You know, I-I

keep sifting the pieces of the relationship

through my mind and-and examining my life

and tryin' to figure out where did the

screw-up come, you know, and a year ago we

were... tsch, in love. You know, and-and-and

... And it's funny, I'm not-I'm not a

morose type. I'm not a depressive character.

I-I-I, uh,

(Laughing)

you know, I was a reasonably happy kid,

I guess. I was brought up in Brooklyn

during World War II.

CUT TO:

INT. DOCTOR'S OFFICE-DAY

Alvy as young boy sits on a sofa with his mother in an old-fashioned,

cluttered doctor's office. The doctor stands near the sofa, holding a

cigarette and listening.

MOTHER:

(To the doctor)

He's been depressed. All off a sudden,

he can't do anything.

DOCTOR:

(Nodding)

Why are you depressed, Alvy?

MOTHER:

(Nudging Alvy)

Tell Dr. Flicker.

(Young Alvy sits, his head down. His

mother answers for him)

It's something he read.

DOCTOR:

(Puffing on his cigarette and

nodding)

Something he read, huh?

ALVY:

(His head still down)

The universe is expanding.

DOCTOR:

The universe is expanding?

ALVY:

(Looking up at the doctor)

Well, the universe is everything, and if

it's expanding, someday it will break apart

and that would be the end of everything!

Disgusted, his mother looks at him.

MOTHER:

(shouting)

What is that your business?

(she turns back to the doctor)

He stopped doing his homework.

ALVY:

What's the point?

MOTHER:

(Excited, gesturing with her hands)

What has the universe got to do with it?

You're here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not

expanding!

DOCTOR:

(Heartily, looking down at Alvy)

It won't be expanding for billions of years

yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try to enjoy

ourselves while we're here. Uh?

He laughs.

CUT TO:

Fall shot of house with an amusement-park roller-coaster ride built over it.

A line of cars move up and then slides with great speed while out the window

of the house a band shakes a dust mop.

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