Woody Allen Bio by FilmMakers Magazine

Woody threatened to sue the producer to try and keep the movie from actually entering the theaters because he disliked the movie so much.

After What’s New, Pussycat, Woody’s next film was Casino Royale, a film in which he was just an actor. The part in which Woody played was small, but he was paid a good deal of money, and therefore spent the next 6 months in London for the role. During that time, Woody wrote a great deal of material including short stories that were published in the New Yorker Magazine.

Once back in New York, Woody made his first film, which ironically wasn’t even his film to begin with- What’s Up, Tiger Lily? Originally. This film was a Japanese picture which Woody and a few others dubbed into English and changed the original story almost completely. Just before the movie hit the theaters, Woody threatened to sue the producer to try and keep the movie from actually entering the theaters because he disliked the movie so much. Woody followed up on his threat and initiated a lawsuit. While the case was still pending, the movie opened in theaters and got rave reviews. Woody decided to drop the case.

United Artists signed Woody to a contract to write whatever he wanted and do whatever he wanted to do.

With his next film Take the Money and Run Woody finally got his first directing experience, and that was when Woody felt his career in film really began. The script was written with a friend of Woody’s named Mickey Rose and was given to British director Val Guest, but the film company didn’t want him to direct it. Next the script was given to Jerry Lewis but the film company still didn’t want to do it. Finally a new company was formed, Palomar Pictures, and they told Woody that he could direct the picture as long as he kept it under $1 million budget and he agreed.

After Take the Money and Run, United Artists signed Woody to a contract to “write whatever he wanted and do whatever he wanted to do.” The result of this was a script called The Jazz Baby. Stunning executives that thought they would receive another comedy, Woody gave them a very serious story about a period of Jazz. Even though they had signed a contract, the executives felt a need to tell Woody that they really didn’t like the story. Woody compromised, asked for the script back and quickly wrote out a new one, Bananas.

The characters being mostly upper class, educated, neurotic, white New Yorkers.

Bananas, Woody’s second film (1971), was a satire on a revolutionary situation in a fictitious Latin country. Being his second film, Woody felt much more confident directing a project. He already had one film under his belt, and now had some idea of how to avoid mistakes and use time wisely. By this time, Woody was taking full part in his films, being directly involved in the writing, directing, acting and casting. There seemed to be a trend appearing in his films now, the characters being mostly upper class, educated, neurotic, white New Yorkers. When asked why this was so, Woody replied simply that this is what he knows. He doesn’t know enough about he black or Hispanic experience to justify writing about their life.

After writing and acting in the play, Play it again Sam, Woody wrote the script, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, based on a book by Dr. David Rueben. Elliot Gould had purchased the rights to the book, but he wasn’t doing anything with it, so he sold the rights to Woody. The only part of the book that was actually used in the movie was the questions, such as Do aphrodisiacs work, and Woody gave his version for the answers.

In 1973, Woody wrote, directed and acted in his next film, Sleeper. Originally, Woody went to United Artists and said that he wanted to make a big, expensive film, four hours long. The movie would be a comedy, and would start out in New York. The first two hours would end with a man getting frozen in a cryogenic machine. There would then be an intermission, and following would be the next two hours of the film where the man wakes up 500 years in the future. United Artists loved the idea for the film, but after some time, Woody decided it was too big of a project, and he ended up only using the second half of the script to make the final movie. The movie ended up being quite inexpensive, less than $3 million.