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81 Q4 2017 / CINEMONTAGE and Death, I looked at Woody and said, 'You're going to lose a lot of your fans,'" Kalish recalls. "He said 'Why?' I said, 'Because they like your visual humor, and now you've gone into more sophisticated humor.' He said, 'Well, that's where I'm going.' It was a much bigger picture compared to the previous, which were more controlled." Even as Allen's films grew grander, however, Kalish did not detect major differences in his attitude about editing. "Woody still relied on Ralph's and my input, and we would put it together with him sitting there," he says. Pointing out that the director was present in the cutting room as time permitted, Kalish adds, "He was always writing the next script — even while we were cutting — so he wasn't there all the time. It was a matter of, 'Woody, I have 20 minutes to cut. Why don't you come in?'" Kalish also worked as an uncredited sound editor on Bananas and Sleeper. Take the Money and Run remains Kalish's favorite Allen film, troubled post-production notwithstanding. "I saw Woody growing and getting better and better, but it's almost like a first- born. You sort of like your first-born better than the next one." Kalish's collaboration with Allen came to a close after Love and Death, but Rosenblum stayed on to help shape what became one of the director's signature achievements: Annie Hall, which was released as a romantic comedy centered on writer Alvy Singer's (Allen) relationship with his sometimes girlfriend, Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). But it was originally intended as a patchwork portrait of Singer's romantic life and mental state, with enlarged roles for such ultimately supporting players as Shelley Duvall and Carol Kane. "It was about all these multiple relationships that Alvy was having and his inability to sustain any of them after a certain point," says Bricmont, an assistant editor (along with Morse) who was promoted to editor during post-production. "It was an embarrassment of riches." Wrote Rosenblum: "The movie was like a visual monologue, a more sophisticated and more philosophical version of Take the Money and Run." Yet it was the core relationship between Alvy and Annie that stood out. "When we first screened the film in script order, it was pretty chaotic," recalls Morse, who was working with Allen for the first time. "It felt like a bunch of random scenes strung together until Diane came on screen. Then suddenly things began to click. It became apparent that the beginning had to be changed in order to get to her as succinctly as possible — and that the film was ultimately about Alvy's relationship with her, not his mid-life crisis, as the opening monologue suggests." Thus began the process of tightening the film to emphasize that relationship and excise extraneous scenes. "It was through the sheer talent of Woody, and the collaboration with Ralph, that we finally found the heartbeat of the movie, but you had to be willing to listen to find it," Bricmont comments. "The film was written, but it was so created in post-production. I went forward in my career with the misapprehension that all movies could and would have this kind of elasticity." Dissatisfied with the film's ending, Rosenblum proposed that Allen write a voiceover to be accompanied by a montage of highlights from Alvy and Annie's time together. While hearing Rosenblum and Allen discussing the potential sequence, Morse began pulling trims that might provide appropriate material. "Ralph turned to me and said, 'We're thinking about…,' and I said, 'Yes, I was listening to what you were saying, and these are the clips that occurred to me,'" Morse recounts. "I was just paying attention and trying to anticipate what they would want so they wouldn't have to break stride." Wendy Greene Bricmont. Photo by Martin Cohen