That was an excellent one.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

To me, only two films of his are better from this period and they are Love and Death(which is one of his best) and Sleeper. Bananas is also very good with some of the funniest stuff in any of his films(ie. the courtroom scene) but the story and pacing for me were more even in Take the Money and Run. Take the Money and Run is not quite among Allen's best, but it apart from a cloyingly written romance that bogs the pacing down, a rather draggy last 10 minutes and the somewhat passive performance of Janet Margolin is a very strong second film of his(as writer, director and actor), a vast improvement over What's Up Tiger Lily? Take the Money and Run is skilfully made and while there is understandably still a finding-his-feet feel at times Allen keeps things on a tight leash and in command of the material. The dialogue is so funny that you're in danger of missing something from laughing so much, a lot of it is quotable too. Jackson Berk's voice-over is just superb with some of the funniest material coming from the narration alone. But what's going on on camera is every bit as funny, the chain gang and bank robbery scenes as a matter of fact are just hilarious. The mockumentary style of the story is very cleverly done and structured if not as ground-breaking as Zelig, and the pacing very rarely sags(it's only with the romance when it does), never feeling confusing or simplistic. The music fits the film very well indeed, appropriately slapstick in tone, and is catchy, enough though Allen has had better music in his films. Allen looks like he's having a ball and there's nothing drastically wrong with the rest of the acting either. Overall, a strong second film and while not one of Woody Allen's very best it's one of the better films of the pre-Annie Hall period. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Before we got introduced to movies with the brand of humor like "Blazing Saddles" or "Airplane!" there was "Take The Money and Run." As reviewed by others in documentary style it follows the bumbling life of "Virgil Stalkwell," played flawlessly by Woody Allen. I absolutely love this movie and it has always been a favorite. It has so many funny scenes that you really have to watch it a few times to catch everything as you're not done laughing at one thing before they throw something else at you.I've read some negative reviews here but the majority are like me and think it's a Woody Allen classic. You have to like Woody Allen to appreciate the movie to its fullest. Personally, I think it's his best, before he got stuck in New York, not that there's anything wrong with that. Made with a storyline like prison classics of "Cool Hand Luke" it's a must-see side-splitter about a bumbling wannabe famous criminal who's sent to prison, but the whole movie doesn't stay there. Don't expect some deep plotted movie that follows any rules, it's made for laughs and that's what you get plenty of. It's great to have comedies that stay comedies. It's still played well by the entire cast and I love the music, especially the theme by Marvin Hamlisch. So take a break and enjoy a funny movie that puts you in a good mood. You don't have to be a hardcore Allen fan but if you are one (as I am) you'll love it even more.

The only real Woody Allen movie of the 60s, it's sometimes a wonder his impressive career ever got started with such inauspicious beginnings. After working in TV as a writer since 1950, his first break into the movies came with 1965's overdone and incredibly dated What's New Pussycat (4). Although he wrote the screenplay and had a role in it, it's not regarded as a Woody Allen film for the very valid reason that he didn't direct it. However, the fact that a great number of people tend to misremember the similarly non-Allen directed Play It Again, Sam (7) from 1972 as a Woody picture is perhaps a reflection on its relative worth.After this there followed a couple of TV movie scripts and 1966's What's Up, Tiger Lily? (5) a Japanese spy film dubbed to turn it into a comedy. Reputedly the idea of behind it was from AIP president Henry G. Saperstein, with Allen hired as gag writer and one of the voices doing the dubbing. Certainly, despite his "Associate Producer" credit, Allen didn't have a great deal of control over the picture, with an impersonator performing some extra lines as Allen and scenes of The Lovin' Spoonful crudely grafted in to extend the runtime. There are some nice one-liners in Tiger Lily ("He lives in that piece of paper?") but ultimately you'd expect something more substantial for what was, after a fashion, Allen's official directorial movie debut. Yet if nothing else, the studio interference on Tiger Lily did make Woody pledge to have greater creative control for his future works. After this we got uncredited rewrites and a role in the appalling Casino Royale (q.v.), a couple of Woody Allen TV specials and the script to the film Don't Drink The Water, a film Allen held in such low regard he remade it 25 years later. It's a messy, patchy start, and Allen wouldn't really begin to see his true potential until the 1970s.So with Take the Money and Run as, for all intents and purposes, the first "Woody Allen movie" then it's interesting to see his art originate here. It's actually quite surprising, for a film in which he unusually plays someone uneducated and working class, how many of his themes are right there at the start. We get psychotherapy, atheism, relationship comedy... there's even the first signs of someone being forced to kill to protect their own lifestyle. That's not to say that Take the Money and Run gave us Crimes and Misdemeanors (and two partial remakes in the late 2000s) but that the seed of the idea was there from the start of his career. There's also the mock documentary format, reused again in his work, most famously of course in 1983's Zelig. Although taken for granted today, this was still a relatively groundbreaking format for the time.Comedy is subjective, but there are parts where Take the Money and Run may be too broad and self-consciously "kooky" today, as with all of his 60s work. If you enjoy jokes like being "in illegal possession of a wart" or a man being turned into a rabbi by taking experimental drugs then it could be for you. But often the jokes are subtler, more inventive and wittier, and sometimes the two forms collide. Witness the scene where Allen, at a job interview, is asked what kind of office he used to work in. "Rectangular" comes the reply, an amusing adjoinder that works in the incongruous surroundings. Except, as the vignette goes on, we find he's playing a game of "What's My Line?" with a fellow colleague, and so the initial gag has been rendered meaningless. This happens repeatedly throughout, some pseudo-realistic moments rendered inert by the fantasy trappings. The one time it actually happens in reverse is when Allen is surreally holding a man at gunpoint while having a polite conversation with him... only for it to emerge that the man is a policeman who is allowing him to think he's getting away with it.However, there are also lots of genuinely inventive sequences in this film, co-written with Mickey Rose (who also co-wrote Tiger Lily and 1971's Bananas). A scene with a gun made out of soap caught in the rain, a cellist in a marching band, a domestic chain gang and a scene with an illegible hold up note are all inspired, even if the latter goes on a little too long. Adding to this is the ending, which contains arguably the most perfect punchline in any Woody Allen picture. Credit to this is given to editor Ralph Rosenblum, who convinced Allen to scrap the downbeat ending where the lead character died in a hail of bullets.In all, watching these first forays into cinema is an interesting education into the work of Woody Allen. It's a world away from the likes of Another Woman, and shows just how varied his career was, before he began to stagnate in the 90s. The Woody Allen of today still produces watchable films, but the works of a man in his 70s with a long career behind him naturally lack the zest and hunger of a writer in his 30s who was just starting out. They're also a telling reminder that the oft-misquoted "early, funny ones" were really just a very small part of his output and far from representative of the body of his work.

A brilliant mock-documentary on the life of a criminal - played by Allen - with some of the funniest lines and sight gags I've ever seen in a film. It's important to remember that 'mockumentaries' weren't common when Allen made this, and it was actually seen as quite experimental in it's own crazy, low budget way.This isn't the deep, brilliant film-maker of 'Annie Hall', etc, but an amazingly smart and funny young Allen capturing the spirit of cinema anarchists like the Marx Brothers.The only small drawbacks; a sometimes cloying musical score and a couple of slow sections around the love story. But these are very small flies in the great ointment.A couple of minor points - there's an interesting debate as to whether the correct aspect ratio is 1:66 or 1:85. I remember it as 1:66 when it was out in the theaters, but that's a looooong time ago now.Also, the budget is cited on IMDb as $1.5 million. Small, but not tiny for its day. I believe the budget was actually much smaller, at least per producer Charles H. Joffe. This was really indie film-making of its day.