Take the Money and Run (Full Screen Edition)
Starring:James Anderson, Grace Bauer, Jackson Beck, Lonny Chapman, Dan Frazer, Mark Gordon, Marcel Hillaire, Jacquelyn Hyde, Nate Jacobson, Louise Lasser, Henry Leff, Janet Margolin, Jan Merlin, Minnow Moskowitz, Micil Murphy, Mike O'Dowd, Mickey Rose, Ethel Sokolow, Howard Storm
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD
Editorial Review:
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
Average customer rating:
- Take the Money and Run
- One of Woody Allen's Funniest!
- Very good film
- Woody is soooo young here
- Early Woody as a Career Bank Robber Has Some Funny Sight Gags But It Just Drifts
|
Take the Money and Run (Full Screen Edition)
Starring: James Anderson , Grace Bauer , Jackson Beck , Lonny Chapman , and Dan Frazer
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
 General
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Hyde, Jacquelyn
| ( H )
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Lasser, Louise
| ( L )
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| ( M )
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Similar Items:
- Bananas
- Play It Again, Sam
- Sleeper
- Love and Death
- Annie Hall
ASIN: B00020X88E
Release Date: 2004-07-06 |
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
Description
"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!
Customer Reviews:
Take the Money and Run.......2007-06-28
Presented as a mock documentary complete with narration by radio ham Jackson Beck, Allen's hilarious directorial debut is nuttier and loaded with more gags than his later, more sophisticated New York films. But that's exactly why it works: The laughs are goofy and often puerile, and for all the zippy one-liners that don't quite elicit a full-belly guffaw, Allen piles on with cutting satire (focused mostly on footage of presidents Nixon and Eisenhower). You'll have a lot of fun watching this manic genius at work in one of his earlier comedic efforts.
One of Woody Allen's Funniest!.......2007-03-26
The first film Woody Allen did as the star, writer, & director is a small masterpiece from the man that is not only hilarious but also captures how much Allen has changed in style over the years.
Now, we're used to the Woody Allen movies where people walk around and talk, having intellectual conversations while making wisecracks. When Woody Allen first came out, his movies were goofy and built on sight gags and coincidences; "Take the Money and Run" is one of Allen's funniest movies. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, a hardened criminal...Sort of. Virgil gets his start early, hanging out with the neighborhood kids and committing minor crimes (ones which he never gets away with). He also, in his spare time, plays cello in the local band (he's not very good at cello). After serving time in jail (and attempting to escape using soap and shoe polish to fashion a gun, only to find out it's raining outside), he meets Louise (Janet Margolin) and, eventually, marries her. Despite settling down, Virgil just can not stop committing crimes, which will lead him all the way back to prison and to a chain gang. The movie is told in a pseudo-documentary style that only few filmmakers could pull off. Allen does it perfectly. There's so much brilliance in this movie; there's nearly a gag a minute. From the beginning where Young Virgil attempts to steal a gumball machine and is chased by a cop, to near the end where Virgil (chained to 6 guys) try to pass off as a little old lady's cousins to a cop. There's a lot of people in the world who don't like Woody Allen and I don't see how you can't. His films can suit all tastes, be it comedy like this, comedy like "Annie Hall," or drama like "Match Point," his films are all so varied and (for the most part) original. And, having said that, "Take the Money and Run" is a film that will appeal to a much broader audience than the average Allen-film. It can appeal to a regular Woody Allen fan, a person who kind of likes Allen, a person who just likes a well-executed comedy or a kid who doesn't care about who the writer/director is and just wants to see a funny movie. In the comedic department, "Take the Money and Run" is a masterpiece.
GRADE: A-
Very good film.......2007-01-09
Take the Money and Run, is a film hilarius and funny. Woody Allen in the great moment.
Woody is soooo young here.......2006-11-16
Very funny for Woody's first full length feature. He's an incompetant bank robber and his wife is a laundress. Enjoy!
Early Woody as a Career Bank Robber Has Some Funny Sight Gags But It Just Drifts.......2006-09-19
Long before Christopher Guest mastered the genre, Woody Allen made a comic mockumentary of the life of a failed bank robber named Virgil Starkwell complete with newsreel footage, excerpts from interviews with people in his life (including his embarrassed parents in Groucho Marx masks) and a stentorian voiceover narration by Jackson Beck. This fitfully funny 1969 comedy marks Allen's feature film debut as a triple threat - director, writer (with early partner Mickey Rose) and star, and it shows the earmarks of his later visual style even if the laughs are not always there.
Lacking an actual storyline, the movie takes us through Starkwell's life from shoplifting bubblegum machines as a youngster to bank robberies to finding the ideal woman to prison and so on and so on. This is Allen at his purest with focus on often hilarious sight gags and self-deprecating one-liners without his later forays into the complexities of the human condition. In fact, this is probably the only time that Allen has played a screen character without any intellectual pretensions. The closest he comes is pretending to be a cellist with the Philharmonic to the girl of his dreams, a pretty laundress named Louise. The best gags are probably the prison shirt-folding machine, the bank robbery where Starkwell's badly handwritten note is passed around the staff to interpret, the escaped chain gang coming into the old woman's house, the prison vaccine experiment that turns Starkwell into a Hassidic rabbi, and my favorite, the totally impossible scene where he drives a car inside a blackmailing woman's house chasing her around.
Of less interest is the romance between Starkwell and Louise, who is portrayed as self-conscious and rather mealy-mouthed. Allen's usual generosity with actresses has not yet developed at this point, and Janet Margolin is forced to play Louise quite passively despite her beauty. For a movie that is supposed to take place between the 1940's through the early 1960's, it certainly looks and feels like hippie-era 1969, especially with the Austin Powers-style music over the chase scenes. Allen's first wife Louise Lasser (yes, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) has a funny cameo as an early girlfriend. There are no extras with the 2004 MGM DVD package.
Average customer rating:
|
Take the Money and Run - Uncut (Widescreen Edition)
Director: Woody Allen
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
Similar Items:
- Sleeper
- Bananas
- Play It Again, Sam
- The Woody Allen Collection, Set 2 (Shadows and Fog / September / Crimes and Misdemeanors / Another Woman / Alice)
- Mighty Aphrodite
ASIN: B000C15OF8 |
Product Description
EDITORIAL REVIEW -
Amazon 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 [refers to VHS release].
++++ DVD FEATURES: This officially licensed release from South Korea is All-Region NTSC Code 0 (playable worldwide). The FULL 91 minute film is presented in Widescreen display format, Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound in ENGLISH with optional (removable) English and Korean subtitles. Includes: Chapters, Story Line, Production Note and About Cast & Director.
Average customer rating:
- Take the Money and Run
- One of Woody Allen's Funniest!
- Very good film
- Woody is soooo young here
- Early Woody as a Career Bank Robber Has Some Funny Sight Gags But It Just Drifts
|
Take the Money and Run
Starring: James Anderson , Grace Bauer , Jackson Beck , Lonny Chapman , and Dan Frazer
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Comedy
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Comic Criminals
| Comedy
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Classic Comedies
| Comedy
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
General
| Parody & Spoof
| Comedy
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Chapman, Lonny
| ( C )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Hillaire, Marcel
| ( H )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Hyde, Jacquelyn
| ( H )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Lasser, Louise
| ( L )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
Margolin, Janet
| ( M )
| Actors & Actresses
| Stores
| DVD
| Video
DVDs Under $14.99
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All Deals
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| Video
General
| Comedy
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
Parody & Spoof
| Comedy
| Today's Deals in DVD
| Special Features
| DVD
| Video
( T )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- Bananas
- Play It Again, Sam
- Sleeper
- Love and Death
- Annie Hall
ASIN: 6305474826
Release Date: 1999-06-15 |
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
Customer Reviews:
Take the Money and Run.......2007-06-28
Presented as a mock documentary complete with narration by radio ham Jackson Beck, Allen's hilarious directorial debut is nuttier and loaded with more gags than his later, more sophisticated New York films. But that's exactly why it works: The laughs are goofy and often puerile, and for all the zippy one-liners that don't quite elicit a full-belly guffaw, Allen piles on with cutting satire (focused mostly on footage of presidents Nixon and Eisenhower). You'll have a lot of fun watching this manic genius at work in one of his earlier comedic efforts.
One of Woody Allen's Funniest!.......2007-03-26
The first film Woody Allen did as the star, writer, & director is a small masterpiece from the man that is not only hilarious but also captures how much Allen has changed in style over the years.
Now, we're used to the Woody Allen movies where people walk around and talk, having intellectual conversations while making wisecracks. When Woody Allen first came out, his movies were goofy and built on sight gags and coincidences; "Take the Money and Run" is one of Allen's funniest movies. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, a hardened criminal...Sort of. Virgil gets his start early, hanging out with the neighborhood kids and committing minor crimes (ones which he never gets away with). He also, in his spare time, plays cello in the local band (he's not very good at cello). After serving time in jail (and attempting to escape using soap and shoe polish to fashion a gun, only to find out it's raining outside), he meets Louise (Janet Margolin) and, eventually, marries her. Despite settling down, Virgil just can not stop committing crimes, which will lead him all the way back to prison and to a chain gang. The movie is told in a pseudo-documentary style that only few filmmakers could pull off. Allen does it perfectly. There's so much brilliance in this movie; there's nearly a gag a minute. From the beginning where Young Virgil attempts to steal a gumball machine and is chased by a cop, to near the end where Virgil (chained to 6 guys) try to pass off as a little old lady's cousins to a cop. There's a lot of people in the world who don't like Woody Allen and I don't see how you can't. His films can suit all tastes, be it comedy like this, comedy like "Annie Hall," or drama like "Match Point," his films are all so varied and (for the most part) original. And, having said that, "Take the Money and Run" is a film that will appeal to a much broader audience than the average Allen-film. It can appeal to a regular Woody Allen fan, a person who kind of likes Allen, a person who just likes a well-executed comedy or a kid who doesn't care about who the writer/director is and just wants to see a funny movie. In the comedic department, "Take the Money and Run" is a masterpiece.
GRADE: A-
Very good film.......2007-01-09
Take the Money and Run, is a film hilarius and funny. Woody Allen in the great moment.
Woody is soooo young here.......2006-11-16
Very funny for Woody's first full length feature. He's an incompetant bank robber and his wife is a laundress. Enjoy!
Early Woody as a Career Bank Robber Has Some Funny Sight Gags But It Just Drifts.......2006-09-19
Long before Christopher Guest mastered the genre, Woody Allen made a comic mockumentary of the life of a failed bank robber named Virgil Starkwell complete with newsreel footage, excerpts from interviews with people in his life (including his embarrassed parents in Groucho Marx masks) and a stentorian voiceover narration by Jackson Beck. This fitfully funny 1969 comedy marks Allen's feature film debut as a triple threat - director, writer (with early partner Mickey Rose) and star, and it shows the earmarks of his later visual style even if the laughs are not always there.
Lacking an actual storyline, the movie takes us through Starkwell's life from shoplifting bubblegum machines as a youngster to bank robberies to finding the ideal woman to prison and so on and so on. This is Allen at his purest with focus on often hilarious sight gags and self-deprecating one-liners without his later forays into the complexities of the human condition. In fact, this is probably the only time that Allen has played a screen character without any intellectual pretensions. The closest he comes is pretending to be a cellist with the Philharmonic to the girl of his dreams, a pretty laundress named Louise. The best gags are probably the prison shirt-folding machine, the bank robbery where Starkwell's badly handwritten note is passed around the staff to interpret, the escaped chain gang coming into the old woman's house, the prison vaccine experiment that turns Starkwell into a Hassidic rabbi, and my favorite, the totally impossible scene where he drives a car inside a blackmailing woman's house chasing her around.
Of less interest is the romance between Starkwell and Louise, who is portrayed as self-conscious and rather mealy-mouthed. Allen's usual generosity with actresses has not yet developed at this point, and Janet Margolin is forced to play Louise quite passively despite her beauty. For a movie that is supposed to take place between the 1940's through the early 1960's, it certainly looks and feels like hippie-era 1969, especially with the Austin Powers-style music over the chase scenes. Allen's first wife Louise Lasser (yes, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) has a funny cameo as an early girlfriend. There are no extras with the 2004 MGM DVD package.
![Take the Money and Run [Region 2]](http://www.germanelectronics88.com/noimage.gif)
Average customer rating:
- Take the Money and Run
- One of Woody Allen's Funniest!
- Very good film
- Woody is soooo young here
- Early Woody as a Career Bank Robber Has Some Funny Sight Gags But It Just Drifts
|
Take the Money and Run [Region 2]
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Comedy
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
( T )
| Titles
| Features
| DVD
| Video
Similar Items:
- Bananas
- Play It Again, Sam
- Sleeper
- Love and Death
- Annie Hall
ASIN: B000059RJL |
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
Customer Reviews:
Take the Money and Run.......2007-06-28
Presented as a mock documentary complete with narration by radio ham Jackson Beck, Allen's hilarious directorial debut is nuttier and loaded with more gags than his later, more sophisticated New York films. But that's exactly why it works: The laughs are goofy and often puerile, and for all the zippy one-liners that don't quite elicit a full-belly guffaw, Allen piles on with cutting satire (focused mostly on footage of presidents Nixon and Eisenhower). You'll have a lot of fun watching this manic genius at work in one of his earlier comedic efforts.
One of Woody Allen's Funniest!.......2007-03-26
The first film Woody Allen did as the star, writer, & director is a small masterpiece from the man that is not only hilarious but also captures how much Allen has changed in style over the years.
Now, we're used to the Woody Allen movies where people walk around and talk, having intellectual conversations while making wisecracks. When Woody Allen first came out, his movies were goofy and built on sight gags and coincidences; "Take the Money and Run" is one of Allen's funniest movies. Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, a hardened criminal...Sort of. Virgil gets his start early, hanging out with the neighborhood kids and committing minor crimes (ones which he never gets away with). He also, in his spare time, plays cello in the local band (he's not very good at cello). After serving time in jail (and attempting to escape using soap and shoe polish to fashion a gun, only to find out it's raining outside), he meets Louise (Janet Margolin) and, eventually, marries her. Despite settling down, Virgil just can not stop committing crimes, which will lead him all the way back to prison and to a chain gang. The movie is told in a pseudo-documentary style that only few filmmakers could pull off. Allen does it perfectly. There's so much brilliance in this movie; there's nearly a gag a minute. From the beginning where Young Virgil attempts to steal a gumball machine and is chased by a cop, to near the end where Virgil (chained to 6 guys) try to pass off as a little old lady's cousins to a cop. There's a lot of people in the world who don't like Woody Allen and I don't see how you can't. His films can suit all tastes, be it comedy like this, comedy like "Annie Hall," or drama like "Match Point," his films are all so varied and (for the most part) original. And, having said that, "Take the Money and Run" is a film that will appeal to a much broader audience than the average Allen-film. It can appeal to a regular Woody Allen fan, a person who kind of likes Allen, a person who just likes a well-executed comedy or a kid who doesn't care about who the writer/director is and just wants to see a funny movie. In the comedic department, "Take the Money and Run" is a masterpiece.
GRADE: A-
Very good film.......2007-01-09
Take the Money and Run, is a film hilarius and funny. Woody Allen in the great moment.
Woody is soooo young here.......2006-11-16
Very funny for Woody's first full length feature. He's an incompetant bank robber and his wife is a laundress. Enjoy!
Early Woody as a Career Bank Robber Has Some Funny Sight Gags But It Just Drifts.......2006-09-19
Long before Christopher Guest mastered the genre, Woody Allen made a comic mockumentary of the life of a failed bank robber named Virgil Starkwell complete with newsreel footage, excerpts from interviews with people in his life (including his embarrassed parents in Groucho Marx masks) and a stentorian voiceover narration by Jackson Beck. This fitfully funny 1969 comedy marks Allen's feature film debut as a triple threat - director, writer (with early partner Mickey Rose) and star, and it shows the earmarks of his later visual style even if the laughs are not always there.
Lacking an actual storyline, the movie takes us through Starkwell's life from shoplifting bubblegum machines as a youngster to bank robberies to finding the ideal woman to prison and so on and so on. This is Allen at his purest with focus on often hilarious sight gags and self-deprecating one-liners without his later forays into the complexities of the human condition. In fact, this is probably the only time that Allen has played a screen character without any intellectual pretensions. The closest he comes is pretending to be a cellist with the Philharmonic to the girl of his dreams, a pretty laundress named Louise. The best gags are probably the prison shirt-folding machine, the bank robbery where Starkwell's badly handwritten note is passed around the staff to interpret, the escaped chain gang coming into the old woman's house, the prison vaccine experiment that turns Starkwell into a Hassidic rabbi, and my favorite, the totally impossible scene where he drives a car inside a blackmailing woman's house chasing her around.
Of less interest is the romance between Starkwell and Louise, who is portrayed as self-conscious and rather mealy-mouthed. Allen's usual generosity with actresses has not yet developed at this point, and Janet Margolin is forced to play Louise quite passively despite her beauty. For a movie that is supposed to take place between the 1940's through the early 1960's, it certainly looks and feels like hippie-era 1969, especially with the Austin Powers-style music over the chase scenes. Allen's first wife Louise Lasser (yes, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) has a funny cameo as an early girlfriend. There are no extras with the 2004 MGM DVD package.
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