the outline of judah's moral dilemma - whether a person can continue everyday life with the knowledge of having committed murder - evokes the pivotal idea of russian novelist fyodor dostoyevsky's "crime and punishment" (1866), despite suggesting a resolution nearly opposite to that of the novel. allen would revisit the theme in his films "match point", "cassandra's dream" and "irrational man". the characters of both judah and his gangster brother have been said to be influenced by a jewish medical student who attended nyu with one of marshall brickman's relatives.