Take the Money and Run PG

Crime lives!
43K ratings
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Format:  DVD
item number:  6G23X
on most orders of $75+
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DVD Details

  • Rated: PG
  • Run Time: 1 hours, 25 minutes
  • Video: Color
  • Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
  • Released: October 10, 2017
  • Originally Released: 1969
  • Label: KL Studio Classics

Performers, Cast and Crew:

Starring &
Performer: , , , , , &
Directed by
Edited by , &
Screenplay by &
Composition by
Produced by
Director of Photography:
Executive Production by

Entertainment Reviews:

Fresh90%

TOMATOMETER
Total Count: 21

Upright80%

AUDIENCE SCORE
User Ratings: 11,903
It has plenty of hilarious jokes and concepts, like the ventriloquists' dummies at prison visiting time, and the return home from a chaingang break with five shackled cons in tow. Full Review
Time Out
Jun 24, 2006
Rating: C+ -- This good natured, episodic spoof of gangster movies was Woody Allen's first film as a director. Full Review
EmanuelLevy.Com
May 8, 2011
A few good laughs in an 85-minute film do not a comedy make. Full Review
Variety
Mar 26, 2009
Whatever its genesis, Allen's scraggly rhetoric evolved into the dominant comic style of the 70s. Full Review
Chicago Reader
May 10, 2013
I have long thought Woody Allen to be one of the funniest men in the world, and now that his first film, Take the Money and Run, which he has written, directed and in which he stars, is out, the world is going to know it as well. Full Review
Gannett News Service
Jul 8, 2019
Rating: 3/5 -- Rosenblum even suggested the use of New Orleans jazz on the soundtrack, which became a staple of future Allen projects. Full Review
Empire Magazine
May 10, 2013
Rating: 3/5 -- Not really good, but interesting early Allen.
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Nov 13, 2002

Product Description:

Although it followed his WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY (which was mostly just a humorous redubbing of a Japanese spy film), TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN was truly Woody Allen's directorial debut. After spending years writing gags for television comedies and as a stand-up comedian, Allen began to appear in films in the mid-1960s. He developed some frustration with the way his writing was being used and decided to make films himself, with the result being TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, the world's most inept thief, as an early version of the nebbish, neurotic persona he would later perfect. The film combines two formal styles; in part it is played as a documentary about Virgil's life and his turn to crime, with a voice-over narration and interviews, but many of the scenes are shot like a standard fiction-comedy feature.

Although in light of Allen's later work the film may appear a bit crude, many of the elements of his filmmaking and comic style are evident in it. In common with his other early works (such as BANANAS and SLEEPER) the plotting is very loose, as the narrative exists mostly as a skeleton on which to hang a series of gags and jokes. The influence of fellow Jewish comedians the Marx Brothers is fully evident in that structuring principle (Allen even goes as far as to have a scene where Virgil's parents disguise themselves in interview with false Groucho glasses), as well as in the combination of verbal quips with slapstick visual gags (such as Allen attempting to play the cello in a marching band). Although TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN seems a bit simplistic, it still retains its comedic effect and offers an early view of Woody Allen's later filmmaking style.

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Product Info

  • UPC: 738329216573
  • Shipping Weight: 0.25/lbs (approx)
  • International Shipping: 1 item

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