Description:
Amazon.com essential video
Woody Allen's feature-film debut, Take the Money and Run, a mockumentary that combines sight gags, sketchlike scenes, and standup jokes at rat-a-tat speed, looks positively primitive compared to his mature work. Primitive, but awfully funny. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, a music-loving nebbish who turns to a life of crime at an early age and, undaunted by his utter and complete failure to pull off a single successful robbery, continues his unbroken spree of bungled heists and prison breaks even after he marries and raises a family. Narrator Jackson Beck, whose stentorian voice of authority makes a perf
Amazon.com essential video
Woody Allen's feature-film debut, Take the Money and Run, a mockumentary that combines sight gags, sketchlike scenes, and standup jokes at rat-a-tat speed, looks positively primitive compared to his mature work. Primitive, but awfully funny. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, a music-loving nebbish who turns to a life of crime at an early age and, undaunted by his utter and complete failure to pull off a single successful robbery, continues his unbroken spree of bungled heists and prison breaks even after he marries and raises a family. Narrator Jackson Beck, whose stentorian voice of authority makes a perfect foil for Starkwell's absurd exploits, lobs one droll quip after another with deadpan seriousness. Though spotty, Allen tosses so many jokes into the mix that it hardly matters and when they hit they are often hilarious: the chain gang posing as cousins to their old-woman hostage ("We're very close," Virgil explains to a dim cop), arguing with a dotty movie director who is supposed to be their cover for a bank robbery, Virgil's escape attempt with a bar of soap. Allen spoofs decades of crime films, everything from I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang to Bonnie and Clyde, but you don't have to know the movies to enjoy this goofy, sometimes clumsy, but quite clever comedy. --Sean Axmaker
"The gags come every 30 seconds" (Boxoffice) in this "delightful satire" (Hollywood Citizen-News) from film legend Woody Allen in his brilliant first outing as writer, star and director. Allen is "hilarious" (NY Daily News) and "never fails to steal the audience's heart" (LAHerald-Examiner) in this inspired comedy that's nothing less than "nuttiness triumphant" (Look Magazine)! Virgil Starkwell (Allen), having no talent for his beloved cello, turns to larceny as a career. Unfailingly optimistic, he is nevertheless a complete criminal failurealthough his prison breakouts are often successful. And with the support of his loving wife Louise (Janet Margolin), he may yet pull off a successful bank heist if he can just manage to write out a legible stickup note!
... (more)
(less)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release date: 6 July 2004
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 9780792861102 UPC: 027616908315
Tags: Comedy (2), Jazz (1), 1960's (1), Recommended (1), Thieves (1), American (1), Slapstick (1), R1 (1), Comedies (1), AFI Top 100 (1), On-the-run (1), Essential Cinema (1), Scams And Cons (1), AFI Top 100 Laughs (1), 1960-1976 (1)
My tags:
Add tags
Login
1 comment
