Apparently striving for the kind of publicity that ads featuring contorted, half-naked hipsters just can't buy, American Apparel's short-lived "Woody Allen is Our Spiritual Leader" campaign finally attracted a lawsuit this week. The AP reports that the writer-director, whose rabbi get-up from Annie Hall was featured last year on the clothing retailer's billboards (with the Yiddish caption "the holy rebbe") wants $10 million for "blatant misappropriation and commercial use of Allen's image":

In a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the actor-director said he does not endorse commercial products or services in the United States, which makes the May 2007 American Apparel billboards in Hollywood and New York and Web site displays "especially egregious and damaging."

Allen's lawsuit describes him as among the most influential figures in the history of American film and a man who has maintained strict control over the projects with which he is associated.

Representatives from American Apparel didn't return calls seeking comment, but we sense that AA accountants are just today discovering the top-secret "Settle out-of-court for ironic replacement of nubile flesh with dirty old man: $5 million" line item that chairman Dov Charney snuck into the '07 budget. More ironically, we hear that the unannounced switch was the exact same reason Allen took such offense in the first place.

[Photo Credit: The Forward]

• Woody Allen Sues over Billboard [AP via NYP]