DVD Review: Take the Money and Run (1969) is Woody Allen’s first screen triumph

Kino Lorber’s blu ray release of Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run” allows us to clearly see the foundation of Allen’s “early, funny” period in which his clever ideas extended from isolated gags to overall structure.

When Allen first got the idea for this film, he sought out Jerry Lewis to direct it. Recognizing Lewis’s keen visual sense and experience with outrageous comedy, Allen felt his project would benefit from Jerry’s experienced approach. Lewis was unable to do the film, but encouraged Allen to direct it himself. The rest, as they say, his history.

Shot in semi-documentary style, the film shows Allen’s character, Virgil Starkwell, from childhood, being bullied, shaming his parents, and eventually stumbling into a life of petty crimes for which he is ill-suited. Some of the visual ideas are stunningly hilarious. Examples include a running gag of bullies removing Virgil’s glasses and stomping on them, the shot of his parents being interviewed with Groucho glasses and mustaches on to hide their identity, and Virgil’s attempt to play base fiddle in a marching band by running a few steps, sitting, and starting to play, then repeating. When the film was first released, critic Judith Crist called it “nuttiness triumphant,” which is as accurate a description as any.

There is a romantic angle featuring pretty Janet Margolin, but the heart of the film is the outrageous comedy. When Virgil is arrested and put on a chain gang, food rations are a bowl of steam. For punishment, he is locked in a box with an insurance salesman. When he attempts to rob a bank, the note he presents has such bad penmanship, a team of bank tellers crowd around in an attempt to decipher what it’s trying to say. It’s all quite hilarious.

“Take the Money and Run” has Woody Allen taking on the auteurist approach to cinema for the first time – ascent as writer, director, and actor. And while most critics appreciated the film, others (including Roger Ebert) were dismissive. The film lost money at the box office. However, as time goes on, films will often emerge as aesthetically better than originally perceived. “Take the Money and Run” is, today, considered classic, vintage Woody Allen.

The Kino Lorber blu ray is available here.