Movie Notes: Take The Money And Run

June 15th, 2009

= 2 stars

Starring Woody Allen, Janet Margolin
Directed by Woody Allen

Synopsis

Virgil Starkwell, (Woody Allen) drawn to a life of crime from an early age, finds his criminal behavior infinitely complicated by a romance with Louise (Janet Margolin).

The Good

• The crime concept provides a foundation for zany, slapstick comedy — larceny as farce. Particularly amusing is a bank robbery where the clerks can’t read the hold-up note, and a sequence involving escaped convicts still chained together.
• Virgil and Louise’s relationship is quite endearing, and foreshadows Allen’s later romantic commentary. Other seeds of Allen’s later work: Allen contemplates murder, and several purely visual vignettes set to retro music.
• Filmed in San Francisco.

The Bad

• Lacks the sensitivity, neuroses, or moral contemplations of Allen’s later works.
• Essentially a series of loosely connected bits, with a huge variety of locations, ideas, moods, and themes — basically too much for one film.
• Very weak ending.

Conclusion

While marginally interesting to witness seeds of Allen’s later films, taken on its own, Take The Money And Run is mildly amusing but certainly not a must-see.

Next Woody Allen Movie: Bananas

IMDB: Take the Money and Run
Wikipedia: Take the Money and Run
Rotten Tomatoes: Take the Money and Run