Woody Allen Was the Person Bob Dylan Most Wanted to Punch

Even the most anti-war artists of the 21st century could bring themselves to violence in extreme circumstances — such as when they saw Woody Allen’s stupid, smarmy, unpunched face.

Nowadays, it would be neither newsworthy nor noteworthy for anyone with convictions to say that they wish they could give comedy filmmaking legend and accused child molester Woody Allen a smack that would make his head spin faster than ours did when Allen became his own father-in-law. Allen’s filmmaking career continued on mostly unimpeded after he left his romantic partner Mia Farrow for her 21-year-old adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn in 1992, but the court of public opinion has somewhat soured on the Annie Hall star and director in the decades since, especially after Allen’s biological daughter Dylan accused him of sexual assault.

But long before film fans everywhere and Allen’s own family hated his guts, Bob Dylan hated Allen’s face and wanted to deliver physical punishment upon it until his bespectacled eyes were tangled up in black and blue.

While best known as one of the most prominent anti-war advocates of the 1960s, privately, Dylan had a notoriously short temper that seemed to heat up out of nowhere. In British rock journalist Paul Trynka’s 2014 biography Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones, Trynka alleged that the late rock star and 27 Club member witnessed Dylan’s violent rage during a party — though, thankfully, Mr. Tamborine Man's percussive temperament wasn’t directed at Jones.

According to Jones’ friend Prince Stanislas “Stash” Klossowski De Rola, Dylan approached both Stash and Jones during the soiree and asked them, “You know what I’d do if Woody Allen was here?” then answering the question himself, “Punch him in the face, knock his glasses off and tread on them.”

“Dylan was extremely aggressive,” Stash told Trynka. “Way, way out there. He would corner you, jab his finger into your chest, and he would go on and on with this amazing rap. Then he’d try to enlist you in a vendetta. He’d have these passing whims, like a hatred of Woody Allen or Terry Southern — ‘let’s all get him,’ all of it like a whirlwind.”

While the source of Dylan’s violent dislike of Allen isn’t currently in the public record, fans of the folk singer have theorized that the feeling may have been mutual, as demonstrated in the above scene in Annie Hall where Allen dismissively listens to Shelley Duvall’s airhead character Pam go on about how Dylan’s lyrics moved her deeply.

Whatever the cause of the alleged acrimony between Dylan and Allen, one point is perfectly clear — it’s a damn shame that the two never actually came to blows, as the brawl would have made A Complete Unknown a little more electric.