Behind the film
Woody Allen had already filmed the ending. Then he changed his mind.
How a film that began shooting in October 1984 underwent a change of direction before finally reaching cinemas in February 1986.
The film that nearly ended differently
One of Allen's finest films almost had a very different conclusion.
Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) is one of his finest films. Funny, moving and filled with wonderfully observed characters, it's also one of the most optimistic films of his career.
Yet the version audiences eventually saw was considerably different from the one Allen originally intended.
The film began shooting in Manhattan on 18 October 1984. By early 1985, Michael Caine had returned to New York to film a new ending. Allen had already shot a much darker conclusion, but felt that it failed to work with the rest of the picture.
Even after the film became a critical and commercial success, he remained unhappy with the compromise.
The story behind that decision reveals quite a lot about Allen's approach to filmmaking, and why even a film regarded as one of his greatest achievements could leave its director dissatisfied.
The original trailer · 1986
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) — Original theatrical trailer
18 October 1984 · New York
Filming begins in Manhattan.
According to the American Film Institute, principal photography began on 18 October 1984, a date confirmed in a Daily Variety report published five days later.
Allen was working with an exceptional ensemble cast. Mia Farrow played Hannah, the seemingly dependable centre of a complicated family. Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest played her sisters, Lee and Holly, while Michael Caine took the role of Elliot, Hannah's husband, whose infatuation with Lee threatens to destroy their marriage.
Allen himself appeared as Mickey Sachs, Hannah's former husband, a television producer whose anxieties about illness and death lead him into an increasingly desperate search for meaning.
The structure was unusually ambitious.
Rather than following a single central character, Allen created a series of interconnected stories unfolding over two years, framed by three Thanksgiving gatherings.
The inspiration was partly literary. Allen told The New York Times that he had begun with a relatively straightforward story about a man falling in love with his wife's sister. Rereading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina encouraged him to expand it into something closer to a novel on film.
The production also made extensive use of real New York locations.
Hannah's apartment was actually Mia Farrow's home on Central Park West. Her mother, Maureen O'Sullivan, played Hannah's mother, and several of Farrow's children appeared in the Thanksgiving scenes.
Elsewhere, Allen filmed at locations including the Carlyle Hotel, Columbia University, the Chrysler Building, Central Park and the legendary CBGB music club.
The New York I remember
Manhattan, just two years before my first visit.
For me, these locations add considerably to the film's appeal.
I first visited Manhattan in 1988, just two years after Hannah and Her Sisters was released. That period of New York holds a particularly sentimental place in my memory.
Whenever I watch the film, I'm struck by the appearance of the city. The streets, restaurants, apartment buildings and familiar landmarks belong to the Manhattan of the late 1980s, a city I was just beginning to discover.
There are other Woody Allen films that make more spectacular use of New York, particularly Manhattan (1979). But there's something about the everyday city captured in Hannah and Her Sisters that I find especially affecting.
“That period of New York holds a particularly sentimental place in my memory.”
Carlo Di Palma · Cinematography
A different look for Woody Allen's New York.
Another important change occurred before filming even began.
Gordon Willis, whose photography had helped define the appearance of Allen's films throughout the previous decade, was unavailable.
Willis was still working on James Bridges's Perfect (1985). Consequently, Hannah and Her Sisters became Allen's first film since Love and Death (1975) to be photographed by somebody else.
His replacement was the Italian cinematographer Carlo Di Palma, whose previous work included Michelangelo Antonioni's Red Desert (1964) and Blow-Up (1966).
The difference is immediately noticeable.
Willis had given Manhattan its extraordinary black-and-white photography and brought a carefully controlled visual style to films including Interiors (1978) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).
Di Palma's New York feels warmer and more relaxed. His colour photography gives the interiors a natural quality, particularly during the crowded family gatherings.
One of the film's most impressive sequences takes place in a restaurant, where Hannah, Lee and Holly confront tensions that have been building between them. The camera moves around the sisters as their conversation becomes increasingly uncomfortable.
The movement draws us into the emotional confusion without interrupting the performances.
It was the beginning of a long collaboration between Allen and Di Palma, who would photograph several more of his films over the following decade.
The original ending
The film wasn't supposed to end happily.
The biggest change to Hannah and Her Sisters came after Allen had already filmed its original conclusion.
In the version audiences know, Elliot eventually recommits to his marriage with Hannah. Lee moves on and marries someone else, while Holly finds happiness with Mickey.
The final Thanksgiving gathering offers something approaching genuine optimism.
Mickey, who has spent much of the film worrying about death and the apparent meaninglessness of existence, discovers that life may be worth living after all. His encounter with the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933) becomes an important turning point in that journey.
The original ending was considerably less reassuring.
In a 2008 interview with Entertainment Weekly, subsequently quoted by Turner Classic Movies, Allen described how Elliot remained hopelessly in love with Lee, despite her having married another man.
Unable to act on his feelings, Elliot stayed with Hannah in a marriage that offered little prospect of happiness.
Allen had filmed this conclusion, but became dissatisfied when he watched the material.
The problem wasn't simply that the ending was unhappy. Allen felt it failed to provide a satisfying conclusion to the film he had made.
In a particularly revealing 2001 interview at the British Film Institute , published by The Guardian, Allen explained that the original conclusion had been deliberately bleak, influenced by the work of Anton Chekhov.
But the film's mixture of humour, romance and family drama had created expectations that his original ending couldn't fulfil.
He believed he had failed to prepare viewers for such a pessimistic conclusion.
That admission is fascinating.
Allen wasn't necessarily questioning the validity of his original idea. He still believed there was something worthwhile in it. His concern was that the film, as constructed, hadn't earned that degree of unhappiness.
It's a distinction that says a great deal about the difference between writing an ending and making one work on screen.
And there's something rather ironic about one of Allen's most celebrated films owing part of its success to an ending its director never particularly liked.
“There's a difference between writing an ending and making one work on screen.”
Early 1985 · Additional filming
Michael Caine returns to New York.
The decision to change the ending meant returning to production.
The AFI records that a Daily Variety report dated 2 April 1985 confirmed Michael Caine had recently returned to New York to shoot a new conclusion.
The report doesn't establish the precise date of the additional filming, but it confirms that substantial changes were being made months after principal photography began.
Nor was the ending the only material reconsidered during production.
Turner Classic Movies records that Allen discarded several completed scenes, including an art-gallery sequence featuring Tony Roberts and a more explicit encounter between Elliot and Lee.
Allen's willingness to revise the film after shooting was characteristic of his working methods.
What makes Hannah and Her Sisters particularly interesting is the extent to which the changes affected its underlying outlook.
The earlier version would have left Elliot trapped in an unhappy marriage. The released film allows its characters a measure of happiness despite their considerable failings.
In his BFI interview, Allen made another revealing point: these changes were his own decisions.
He said he didn't conduct conventional audience preview screenings. Instead, he judged his films in the editing room, occasionally allowing a small number of trusted people to see them.
His concern about the original ending was therefore a creative judgement rather than a response to a studio demanding a happier conclusion.
Whether he made the right decision is another question.
Personally, I think the finished ending works. There's enough disappointment and dishonesty in the preceding two hours to prevent it from feeling entirely sentimental.
The characters haven't become better people simply because the film allows them some happiness.
But I can also understand why Allen might have preferred the more uncomfortable possibilities of his original story.
7 February 1986 · US theatrical release
Why did the film take so long to reach cinemas?
Given that filming began in October 1984, it's reasonable to wonder why Hannah and Her Sisters didn't reach American cinemas until 7 February 1986.
The AFI provides an explanation.
The production had undergone revisions during 1985, including the changed ending. But the film was completed and ready for release by late November of that year.
Distributor Orion Pictures then made a deliberate decision to hold its release until February 1986.
According to a New York Times report dated 3 January 1986, the delay was intended to maximise cinema bookings.
Orion believed the film had greater commercial potential than Allen's previous releases.
Traditionally, his films opened in a limited number of cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, occasionally including Toronto, before expanding elsewhere.
For Hannah and Her Sisters, Orion planned something considerably more ambitious.
The film opened on 54 screens across the United States on 7 February 1986, with plans to expand to 200 by 21 February.
The distributor also intended to have as many as 700 prints in circulation.
Unusually for an Allen film at the time, it received television advertising.
The strategy reflected Orion's confidence that the picture could reach an audience beyond the director's established following.
That confidence proved justified.
The film was widely praised, performed strongly at the box office and received seven Academy Award nominations.
It won three Oscars: Best Original Screenplay for Allen, Best Supporting Actor for Michael Caine and Best Supporting Actress for Dianne Wiest.
Research and further reading
Sources.
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American Film Institute —
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Production dates, contemporary trade reports, reshoots and theatrical release history.
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Turner Classic Movies — Behind the Camera
Production accounts, Michael Caine's recollections and Allen's comments on the changed ending.
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Turner Classic Movies — Hannah and Her Sisters
The original story, deleted material and cinematography.
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The Guardian — Woody Allen at the BFI (2001)
Allen's first-hand account of the original ending and his reasons for changing it.
Hannah and Her Sisters · Forty years later
The ending
that nearly
wasn't.
Looking back at Hannah and Her Sisters forty years after its release, I find the story of its production almost as interesting as the film itself.
It began with a relatively simple idea about forbidden love, developed into an intricate ensemble drama and eventually became a film whose optimistic ending contradicted some of its director's original intentions.
Allen continued to express reservations about the finished picture years after its success.
During that 2001 BFI interview, he acknowledged that he had compromised his original vision because he couldn't make the darker conclusion work.
It's difficult to imagine Hannah and Her Sisters ending any other way now.
The final Thanksgiving scene, with its mixture of relief, affection and the possibility of a better future, feels like a natural conclusion to the lives we've been following.
Perhaps that's precisely why the decision to change it was the right one.
And whenever I return to the film, there's another pleasure alongside the performances and the writing: the opportunity to revisit a Manhattan that existed when I first fell in love with the city.
For me, that New York is as much a part of Hannah and Her Sisters as the characters themselves.