This is the first truly "Woody Allen" movie--directed and starring Allen himself. He had previously lent his, at the time, good name to some horrible projects such as CASINO ROYALE, WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY? And WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? While I will be one of the first ones to say that many of the jokes fall flat, the ones that do are so funny and unusual that it's easy to forgive the movie's many short-comings. One of the stupidest and funniest parts of the film was how it was done semi-documentary-style and this parents appeared with "Groucho Glasses" (with fake nose, mustache, etc. And, when mom says "he was a good boy" and dad interrupts by saying he was "always bad--I knew he'd never amount to anything" it was a riot and was so much the opposite of what you'd expect to see in such a documentary. Other great moments include his becoming, temporarily, a Hessidic rabbi, the escaped chain gang sequence and the abortive bank robbery. Rarely have I laughed so hard--it's so funny and it's a shame this spark of raw humor was so seldom evident in his later films.
Review of Take the Money and Run
