Take the Money and Run (1969)

Genre

Comedy | Crime

Director

Woody Allen

Country

USA

Cast

Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire, Jacquelyn Hyde, Lonny Chapman, Jan Merlin, James Anderson, Howard Storm, Mark Gordon, Micil Murphy, Minnow Moskowitz, Nate Jacobson, Grace Bauer, Ethel Sokolow, Dan Frazer, Henry Leff, Mike O'Dowd, Louise Lasser

Storyline

When he was a child, Virgil Starkwell (Woody Allen) wanted to play cello. Grown up and with no musical talent, he joins a street gang and ends up in prison for the first time. This will be only the first of many failure at his chosen profession, being a criminal.

Opinion

A few years later the What's Up, Tiger Lily? experiment, Woody Allen made his first real film, marking the beginning of his wonderful career as a filmmaker.

Fun and original, with some hilarious moments, Take the Money and Run is an amusing comedy that will keep you glued to the screen thanks to the odd sympathy of Woody Allen.

In his first film, Allen makes fun of some film genres and television programmes. "Hit" by his pungent irony are both the law and the gangsters, and through the mockumentary style he also makes a criticism of those television programmes that exploit and monetize the lives of ordinary people. 

The satire is more than successful, and swims in a ocean of hilarious gags and never vulgar humour, but Allen does not just make people laugh, he also makes some psychoanalysis, trying to make sense of Virgil's attraction to cello, and people constantly breaking Virgil's glasses.

There are many memorable sequences that can not be omitted like the robbery with the massage on the paper that nobody seems to understand, or the evasion with the soap revolver that turns into bubbles under the rain, or the escape of the eight men tied together with the chain.

If you don't like Woody Allen because of his neurotic rich New Yorkers, you should definitely check out this one, I think it'll do for you.

Quotes

Virgil: After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her, and after half an hour I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse.

Louise: He is always very depressed. I think that if he'd been a successful criminal, he would have felt better. You know, he never made the 'ten most wanted' list. It's very unfair voting; it's who you know.