Take the Money and Run
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Take the Money and Run is a 1969 American mockumentary comedy film directed by Woody Allen and starring Allen and Janet Margolin (with Louise Lasser in a small role). Written by Allen and Mickey Rose, the film chronicles the life of Virgil Starkwell (Woody Allen), an inept bank robber.
Filmed in San Francisco and San Quentin State Prison, Take the Money and Run received Golden Laurel nominations for Male Comedy Performance (Woody Allen) and Male New Face (Woody Allen), and a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (Woody Allen, Mickey Rose).
Plot
Virgil Starkwell's (Woody Allen) story is told in documentary style, using both stock footage and interviews with people who knew him. He begins a life of crime at a young age. As a child, Virgil is a frequent target of bullies, who snatch his glasses and stomp on them on the floor. As an adult, Virgil is inept and unlucky, and both police and judges ridicule him by stomping on Virgil's glasses.
Virgil falls in love with a young lady, Louise (Janet Margolin), a laundry worker, and they live together. They even have a baby.
Virgil is arrested for trying to rob a bank after handing to a teller a threatening note with the word "gun" misspelled. He is sent to prison, but attempts an escape using a bar of soap carved to resemble a gun. Unfortunately for him, it was raining outside and his gun dissolves. He does escape, but by accident. Joining a mass breakout plan, Virgil is the only inmate not warned that the scheme had been called off.
Outside but unemployed, Virgil finds no way to support himself and his family. Eventually he is rearrested and sent to a chain gang, where he is undernourished (the single meal of the day is a bowl of steam) and brutally punished (consigned to a steam box with an insurance salesman).
Virgil again escapes but is eventually captured when attempting to rob a former friend who reveals he is now a cop. He is sentenced to 800 years, but remains upbeat knowing that "with good behavior, I can get that cut in half". In the last scene, he is shown carving a bar of soap and asking the interviewer if it is raining outside.
Cast
- Woody Allen as Virgil Starkwell
- Janet Margolin as Louise
- Marcel Hillaire as Fritz the Director
- Jacquelyn Hyde as Miss Blair
- Lonny Chapman as Jake the Convict
- Jan Merlin as Al the Bank Robber
- James Anderson as Chain Gang Warden
- Howard Storm as Fred
- Mark Gordon as Vince
- Micil Murphy as Frank
- Minnow Moskowitz as Joe Agneta
- Nate Jacobson as The Judge
- Grace Bauer as Farm House Lady
- Ethel Sokolow as Mother Starkwell
- Dan Frazer as Julius Epstein the Psychiatrist
- Henry Leff as Father Starkwell
- Mike O'Dowd as Michael Sullivan
- Louise Lasser as Kay Lewis
