In some ways, Annie Hall … is Woody Allen's first film;… his technical and narrative assurance has reached a new level, and there has never before been so much concentration on the comic's own personality, outlook and phobias….

Allen's concerns and comic apparatus have been drastically simplified. The elaborate parody mechanisms of Sleeper and Love and Death are here abandoned…. The setting in Annie Hall is largely Manhattan, its apartments, sidewalks, bookshops, tennis clubs, analysts' offices, restaurants, park benches and cinemas—all of which provide mainly neutral backgrounds for the verbal gymnastics of the leading couple…. Outside Manhattan, however, the environments are seen through more satirical eyes: Alvy's Brooklyn home, beneath a roller-coaster; Annie's home in Wisconsin, straight from a Norman Rockwell painting; and, especially, the scenes in Los Angeles. 'It's like living in Munchkinland!' Alvy tells his friend and manager Rob…. And so it seems all is...