The friendship behind ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Manhattan’

Woody Allen found a partnership with Marshall Brickman. After Brickman died Friday, Allen spoke about their collaboration — a rare moment in his life, he said, when writing was not lonesome but rather comradely, pleasurable.

In the mid-1970s, writer and director Woody Allen was known for farcical movies about subjects such as the search for the world’s best egg salad, but by then, he felt he was done “just clowning around,” as he later told film critic Stig Björkman.

As he headed in a new artistic direction, he took a friend along for the ride: a folk musician-turned-humorist named Marshall Brickman.

Together they worked on Annie Hall (1977), a comic but wistful remembrance of a failed relationship, and Manhattan (1979), which focused on characters struggling to find themselves in work and romance. The films came to be widely considered the two essential Woody Allen movies.

Reviewers noticed that Allen had worked out a new style. In his review of Manhattan, New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote, “Mr. Allen’s progress as one of our major filmmakers is proceeding so rapidly that we who watch him have to pause occasionally to catch our breath.”

He didn’t achieve that progress by himself. After Brickman died Friday, Allen spoke with the Times about their collaboration — a rare moment in his life, he said, when writing was not lonesome but rather comradely, pleasurable. A Q&A, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, is below.

You and Brickman were both Jewish entertainers from Brooklyn. Was that common background a factor in how you got to know each other?

We met at the nightclub the Bitter End. He was a folk singer in a folk group, and I was on the bill with him. We were backstage, and we chatted with each other. Sometimes, after the cabaret show was over, we’d go out to Chinatown together and have a late supper.

It lent a particular kind of flavor to things that we had similar backgrounds. That’s what sort of brought us together. We spoke the same language. I would say it was New York City. It wasn’t Brooklyn; it wasn’t Jewish. We both loved Manhattan: We liked the streets, the parks, the restaurants — the feel of the city.

I did romanticise Manhattan, and we both chose to live in Manhattan. I would imagine he felt about it the same way I did.

How did your collaboration develop?

We remained social friends, and it occurred to us to work on a project. We did a futuristic movie [Sleeper in 1973]. It was whatever occurred to us at the time. After that, we could have written a cowboy movie.

I had a script with the Annie and Alvy characters [of Annie Hall], but it was a murder mystery. I felt it could be changed just to a regular story. We worked on it together on and off. It evolved from many walks and talks.

We lived directly across from Central Park. I was on 74th and Fifth, he lived on 74th and Central Park West. He would usually walk over in the morning. We’d go sit in the park.

On many, many occasions we’d have dinner together as well, very frequently at Elaine’s. We would talk about many things — not always the script — but much of the conversation would be about the script we were working on. We weren’t writing; we were just talking about what the scenes would be, what the characters would be. We had a good time delighting each other with new jokes or new ideas, plot twists and things.

Gradually, drafts would evolve. We’d make corrections. It sort of evolved piecemeal.

What were his contributions to films like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan?”

His contributions were the same as mine. He was very good at jokes and dialogue and good at plot and good at character, the same as me. We both did all that stuff together.

You read and hear all the time, “This one is a comedy genius.” Comedy geniuses are a dime a dozen. But Marshall is, or was, one of the authentically funny people. He was a wonderful wit. He stood out from the crowd.

What made Brickman a good partner? Did you keep working this way in the future?

Doug McGrath was the only one that I ever collaborated with other than Marshall. I’ve done 50 movies, almost all of them alone. Writing films by myself is a much more spartan kind of thing.

When I was with Marshall, it was more pleasurable. The two of us were just constantly talking to each other. Those were special days for me.

He was married, and then he had children. We went our separate ways. We still remained friends; it’s just that we couldn’t live the exact same way as we did when we were two single people.

Does any memory of your friendship with Brickman stand out to you in particular?

When we finished Annie Hall, and the two of us were searching for a title, we came up with “Anhedonia,” which was a little-known psychological term for the inability to experience pleasure. The two of us were so delighted. We thought we had the best title in the world. United Artists thought that it was the worst title in the world. They said: “This is a delightful movie. You can’t call it that.” But I remember the sense of manic euphoria that Marshall and I had.