Take the Money and Run (film)
Crime has never been this silly.
On December 1, 1935, Mrs. Williams Starkwell, the wife of a New Jersey handyman, gives birth to her first and only child. It is a boy, and they name it Virgil. He is an exceptionally cute baby, with a sweet disposition. Before he is 25 years old, he will be wanted by police in six states, for assault, armed robbery, and illegal possession of a wart.—The opening narration
Take the Money and Run (1969) is a Mockumentary co-written by Woody Allen and Mickey Rose, and marked Allen's full-fledged directorial debut[1]. It chronicles the life of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Protagonist Virgil Starkwell and his wife Louise. Through exclusive interviews with his family, friends and teachers, we learn more about Virgil’s past, upbringing, and his love of crime and the cello.
Take the Money and Run was a monumental turning point in the shaping of the mockumentary; while earlier mocumentaries attempted to film a fictional story and pretend it was true, Money went out of its way to emulate the style of documentaries at the time, even hiring veteran narrator Jackson Beck to serve as The Comically Serious narrator. Scenes play out with individual gags strung together by a thin story, with plenty of Visual Gags and Inherently Funny Words being used to deliberately rid the movie of any dramatic tension.
The film received critical acclaim, cementing Woody Allen’s Auteur License that he has enjoyed for the rest of his career.
Tropes used in Take the Money and Run (film) include:
- Appliance Defenestration: Virgil's cello is thrown out a window, presumably by someone fed up with his horrible skill with the instrument.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Several criminal characters are given rap sheets that follow this pattern. At the very beginning, the narrator says that Virgil is wanted for "robbery, attempted murder, and illegal possession of a wart". Later, as Virgil assembles a gang to rob a bank, the narrator reveals what each of them has served time for--one was "bank robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and getting naked in front of his in-laws"; another was just "dancing with a mailman"; the third was "arson, robbery, assault with intent to kill, and marrying a horse".
- Blatant Lies: Virgil tells Louise he’s in the Philharmonic when he first hits on her. Virgil later notes that she probably saw right through his ruse because he didn’t know who Mozart was.
- The Comically Serious: The narrator.
- Determinator: Virgil simply cannot give up crime or escaping from prison. The last shot of him is carving a bar of soap to look like a gun. Again.
- Dreadful Musician: Virgil, according to his cello instructor, had “no concept of the instrument...he was blowing into it.” Virgil does, however, end up being good enough to play... in a local marching band.
- Film Felons: Virgil stages one bank robbery to look like a movie shoot, complete with a camera and a very eccentric man as "the director".
- Identity Amnesia: After getting hit in the head with a baseball at a Washington Senators game, Virgil's grandfather thinks he's Kaiser Wilhelm.
- Incredibly Obvious Bug: Virgil devises a way to take a hidden camera into a bank he is scouting out for a planned robbery. It's hidden in a loaf of bread, which Virgil repeatedly holds up to his face as one would an ordinary camera.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Pretty much the only reason we’re rooting for Virgil is because he keeps getting beaten up and humiliated in a Charlie Brown-esque way.
- Informed Judaism: Virgil’s father seems to think so about his son; he says he tried to “beat God into him” but it didn’t work.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Virgil’s parents are constantly bickering throughout their interview. Justified because they’re, you know, an old married couple.
- Multiple Endings: Woody shot about a half-dozen different endings for the movie, all of which were bittersweet at best. The ending ended up being completely rewritten during the initial retooling.
- The Not-So-Harmless Punishment: Played with. A pretty nasty punishment turns out to be even more harmful. As the narrator states, "Food on a chain gang is scarce and not very nourishing. The men get one hot meal a day... a bowl of steam." This is shortly followed by the inverse of the trope, a man who didn't give a good day's work is hauled into another room, and the warden takes Virgil over to show him "what he's got to look forward to". We see the the shadow of what appears to be the man tied to the ceiling being whipped by another guard (and sounds of whipping and the prisoner wincing seem to confirm this), but after Virgil and the warden walk through the door, we find out that the guard is whipping the prisoner's shadow, instead.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Virgil’s parents refuse to show their faces on camera when interviewed, but hide their identities with Groucho Marx glasses.
- Parental Neglect: Virgil was raised by his grandfather because his parents were never around for him. At least, until said grandfather got a Tap on the Head.
- Punishment Box: Virgil is locked in one of these at one point... with an insurance salesman.
- Running Gag: Virgil getting his glasses stomped on. It slowly escalates throughout the film, starting with some kid gangster, then a garbage man, then adult gangster, and finally a judge getting in on the action.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: All the time.
- It even becomes monologue dissonance at one point during Louise and Virgil’s "Falling in Love" Montage. The music is very appropriate, but it’s dubbed over with a speech from Virgil about how he knew he was in love because he was “slightly nauseous.”
- Stupid Crooks: Virgil can't ever commit a successful crime, and is usually foiled by stupid mistakes, like misspelling a holdup note.
- Working on the Chain Gang: Virgil is sentenced to a chain gang after a failed bank robbery. At one point, his chain gang decides to make an escape. Hilarity Ensues.
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