Take the Money and Run

Allen's use of the fake documentary format has inspired countless filmmakers since Take the Money and Run. A search of the Internet Movie Database reveals more than 300 titles under the descriptions "mockumentary" or "fake/pseudo-documentary," most of them since the 1969 release of Take the Money and Run. Like Allen's film, many of them are humorous and satirical, from Tim Robbins's Bob Roberts (1992), about a corrupt right-wing folksinger who goes into politics, to the horror movie The Blair Witch Project (1999) and all its subsequent comic spoofs and rip-offs, to Sacha Baron Cohen's controversial savaging of American culture and politics in Borat (2006). Actor-filmmaker Christopher Guest has made a career out of the style, using a stock company of actors to create some of the most inventive and funny works in the genre: This Is Spinal Tap (1984, directed by Rob Reiner but written by Guest), Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), For Your Consideration (2006). The style has also been used successfully on television: The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978), Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm (1999), and both the British and American versions of the series The Office. Allen himself revisited the style, creating perhaps the most complex and artistic example of it in Zelig (1983). The story, and the reference inherent in the character's name, were inspired in part by Charles Starkweather, a notorious criminal and murderer of the 1950s. His crime and killing spree with his 14-year-old sweetheart Caril Fugate was the loose basis for the movies Badlands (1973), Kalifornia (1993), and Natural Born Killers (1994) and also the Bruce Springsteen song "Nebraska." Starkweather was executed in 1959 at the age of 20. Fugate, who claimed at the trial to be Starkweather's hostage and not accomplice, was sentenced to life imprisonment but paroled in 1976. She is still alive and living in Michigan. In addition to its direct take on the documentary style, Take the Money and Run contains a number of direct and indirect references to aspects of pop culture, from I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) to The Defiant Ones (1958). Allen expanded that movie's two escaped convicts shackled together to five. He also made a joke on its examination of racism by having Virgil and his four fellow fugitives, one of whom is black, pose as the cousins of an old woman they've taken hostage. The scenes of Virgil attempting to work in the prison laundry recall Chaplin's satire of man against mechanization in Modern Times (1936). And during a job interview, Woody does a direct parody of the 1950s TV game show What's My Line. Another possible film reference in Take the Money and Run occurs in the soft-focus sequence of Virgil courting Louise. Scenes like that were becoming a staple in romantic dramas and even in television commercials, thanks to the popularity of such films as Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman (1966) and Bo Widerberg's Elvira Madigan (1967). According to editorial consultant Ralph Rosenblum, however, Allen's intention was not to parody these romances but to utilize their style. The notorious Depression Era criminal John Dillinger was said to have fled an "escape-proof" Indiana jail by using a fake gun made of wood and blackened with shoe polish to look like the real thing. In this picture, Virgil attempts to escape prison by carving a gun out of a bar of soap and coloring it with shoe polish, but his plans go awry when an unexpected downpour turns his "weapon" to a handful of suds.` by Rob Nixon

While still a young man, Woody Allen began writing jokes for such TV comics as Sid Caesar, Art Carney, and Garry Moore. Apparently recognizing how much Ralph Rosenblum's recutting did to save Take the Money and Run, Allen hired him as editor on his next film, Bananas (1971), and four future projects: Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), and Interiors (1978). Virgil and his chain gang watch a movie within the film, "Trout Fishing in Quebec," which is credited as a Rollins-Joffe Production, using the real-life names of Allen's managers and producers. Executives of Palomar Pictures, the production company that backed Take the Money and Run, sat stone-faced on their first screening of the finished product and didn't want to release it. Charles Joffe persuaded them to make two prints and let it open at the 68th Street Playhouse, a small art cinema in Manhattan, in August 1969. The film ended up breaking all records for ticket sales at the theater, and after some positive reviews, was given a wider release. Playing on only 18 screens in 15 cities nationwide, Take the Money and Run performed quite well. It also was a surprise box office hit in Greece. United Artist executives were so impressed by Take the Money and Run that they approached Charles Joffe with a deal substantially better than their original paltry rejected offer of $750,000. Joffe asked for a $2 million budget per film, total creative control once the studio green-lighted the idea, and a three-picture contract. The studio agreed. Janet Margolin made her first big mark as a teenager when she was nominated for a Tony Award, leading to her critically acclaimed work as the schizophrenic girl in her film debut David and Lisa (1962). That performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer and Best Actress award at the San Francisco Film Festival. Major film roles eluded her, however, and she did most of her work in television guest spots. Allen used her again as one of his ex-wives in Annie Hall (1977). Her last feature appearance was in Ghostbusters II (1989). She died of ovarian cancer in 1993 at the age of 50. The narration in the film is spoken by Jackson Beck, who had a long, successful career as an announcer and voiceover artist. His first film job was as both narrator and the voice of Perry White in the animated movie Superman (1941). In the 1940s, he was heard on the March of Time newsreels, and throughout that decade and into the 50s, he was the voice of the arch-nemesis Bluto in more than 100 Popeye cartoons and also "appeared" occasionally as Little Lulu's father. In the 1960s, he was back working with Superman again as narrator, Perry White and Lex Luthor on various animated TV series, and he was a narrator for the G.I. Joe cartoon series into the 1980s. His last film work was with Allen again, providing the off-screen voice of a reporter in Radio Days (1987). He died in 2004 at the age of 92. Allen thought of using his then wife, Louise Lasser, for his leading lady (who is called Louise in the story), but she was a screen unknown, having appeared only on the TV soap opera The Doctors, in an uncredited bit in the Allen-scripted What's New, Pussycat? (1965), and as a voice in his What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966). He did, however, cast her in a comic interview scene in the picture as a neighbor stunned to learn that the "idiot" she knew was actually a criminal mastermind. Although they were divorced in 1969, she later appeared in his films Bananas (1971) and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask (1972). She is perhaps best known for the title role in the long-running TV soap opera spoof Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Co-scripter Mickey Rose appears as one of the men on the chain gang. Rollins and Joffe have produced all 36 of Allen's feature film releases to date, as well as some of his work for television. They have also produced television specials, the documentary The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell (1982), and the film version of Allen's play, Don't Drink the Water (1969), which was directed by Howard Morris. On his own, Joffe produced Herbert Ross's film of Allen's second play, Play It Again, Sam (1972), featuring Allen and Diane Keaton, and the non-Allen comedy Arthur (1981). Marvin Hamlisch also wrote the very effective and memorable score for Allen's second picture, Bananas. He has won or been nominated for many ASCAP, Grammy, Emmy and Academy Awards, among others, and won three Oscars in one year for both the original dramatic score and title song to The Way We Were (1973), and for Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation for The Sting (1973). After firing Fouad Said, Allen tried to hire veteran Italian cinematographer Carlo Di Palma, who had shot Antonioni's Red Desert (1964) and Blow-Up (1966), but Di Palma was not available. He eventually came to work for Allen nearly 20 years later on Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). He shot 11 feature films and one TV movie with Allen between that first assignment and Deconstructing Harry (1997). Memorable Quotes from TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN: MUSIC TEACHER (uncredited): (referring to Virgil's cello lessons) He had no conception of the instrument. He would blow into it. VIRGIL (Woody Allen): (taking a Rorschach blot test) That looks to me like two elephants making love to a men's glee club. VIRGIL: I knew I was in love. First of all, I was very nauseous. ... Real beauty makes me want to gag. VIRGIL: I was so touched by her that after 15 minutes I wanted to marry her. And after a half hour, I completely gave up the idea of snatching her purse. VIRGIL: The psychiatrist asked me...do I think sex is dirty. I said it is if you're doing it right. VIRGIL: (reading his hold-up note aloud) I'm pointing a gun at you. TELLER (uncredited): That looks like "gub." JOB INTERVIEWER (uncredited): Have you ever had any experience running a high-speed digital electronic computer? VIRGIL: Yes, I have. INTERVIEWER: Where? VIRGIL: My aunt has one. VIRGIL: I used to manufacture escalator shoes for people who get nauseous wearing elevator shoes. NARRATOR (Jackson Beck): Virgil complains and he is severely tortured. For several days, he is locked in a sweatbox with an insurance salesman. NARRATOR: Food on the chain gang is scarce and not very nourishing. The men get one hot meal a day-a bowl of steam. LOUISE (Janet Margolin): You know he never made the Ten Most Wanted list. It's very unfair voting. It's who you know. Compiled by Rob Nixon

By way of background to the genesis of this movie and the career it started, the filmmaker who has been a dominant force in American films for three decades started in the medium rather inauspiciously, failing a film course at New York University and dropping out after one semester. Woody Allen's distinctive comic take on life soon found its outlet in writing, first for television, then as a well-known stand-up on the Greenwich Village club circuit, records and college campuses. He made his feature film acting and writing debut with Clive Donner's farce What's New Pussycat? (1965). Shortly after, he took his first steps into filmmaking by writing new comic dialogue voiced by American actors and dubbed over the original soundtrack to a minor Japanese spy thriller entitled Kagi no Kagi; the result was What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966). He also co-wrote and acted in the James Bond spoof, Casino Royale (1967), a year after his first play, Don't Drink the Water, premiered on Broadway. His first film efforts as a director were two shorts he made for a 1969 Kraft Music Hall special featuring him and a young actress named Candice Bergen. Armed with greater bankability after his early acting and TV success, Allen was eager to exert more control over his film work and assume the risk of failure himself. "I won't feel half as bad as if I had had a good script and somebody else wrecked it," he said. "I'd rather do a good picture that didn't make a single penny than a horrible picture that broke all records. Money never interested me." For his first project, Allen set out to put on screen a comedy script he had written with his old friend Mickey Rose, one of several writers who also contributed to the script of What's Up, Tiger Lily?. Allen and Rose had grown up together and worked in tandem, line by line, in the same room with one typewriter on which they would take turns putting down their ideas. Although he would work differently later, whether in collaboration or alone, the process with Rose was the beginning of what would become Allen's typical writing method, diving directly into the script from ideas in his head, working very quickly without treatment, synopsis or notes. Right from the start of scripting Take the Money and Run, Allen was creating his now-familiar film persona. It was a refinement of what he had developed in stand-up and his first movie roles, that of a well-intentioned but ineffectual, clumsy, nervous person, a physical coward and a man who is driven by his desire for beautiful women. Allen's character evolved from similar traits in many of the classic film clowns, from Chaplin to Groucho to Bob Hope, but he gave it a contemporary urban edge. The script was tailored so specifically for his persona that in its initial drafts the character name was "Woody" instead of "Virgil Starkwell." Allen was encouraged and supported in his pursuit of the project by Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins, who started out managing his writing career. They pushed him to follow his urge to perform his routines on stage. When he started Take the Money and Run, it seemed natural that they would function as his producers and help him develop as a filmmaker. However, they were a little wary of him trying to do too much with his first feature. Writing the screenplay and starring in Take the Money and Run was one thing but to also direct it seemed too ambitious for a first effort. Rollins, in particular, was afraid Woody would be perceived as an egomaniac. Allen first gave the script to Val Guest, who had directed the segment of Casino Royale Allen had appeared in and written. Guest was interested, but negotiations bogged down with Charles Feldman, the producer of Casino Royale, who had taken an early option on the Take the Money and Run script in 1966. When Feldman died, the rights to the property were freed up. By some accounts, Guest was then busy elsewhere, although Allen later said "the film company" refused to hire the British director. The company he was referring to may have been United Artists, who expressed a willingness to put up $750,000 for the film, a sum Joffe said would have "killed the project." Allen next approached Jerry Lewis. Although he wasn't a huge fan of Lewis's self-directed comedies, Allen thought him "a hilariously talented man" who could be counted on for wonderfully funny sequences in a loose, episodic film structure. (That Allen was looking for someone to bring magic to isolated moments regardless of the overall quality of the film was an indication of some of the problems he would later run into on Take the Money and Run). Lewis expressed interest, but United Artists vetoed him as the director. After these first missteps, Rollins and Joffe had a change of heart and started shopping the project around with Allen attached as director. They eventually hooked up with a newly formed company, Palomar Pictures, a subsidiary of ABC that had backed Allen's Play It Again, Sam on Broadway. The company decided to give him the chance. With a small ($1.7 million) budget and assurances of creative control, he took the plunge. The pseudo-documentary approach of Take the Money and Run was already established in an early screenplay treatment. To give it more of a documentary feel, Allen wanted to shoot in black-and-white, but despite his creative control, he "wasn't allowed to," he later said. by Rob Nixon

The contract Allen had with Palomar Pictures gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted with Take the Money and Run, including final cut, setting the precedent for how he works to this day. "They never bothered me," he said. "It was a very pleasant experience. And from that day on I never had any problems in the cinema from the point of view of interference in any way." As a neophyte director, Allen admitted he sought very little help from more experienced filmmakers. "It never occurred to me for a second that I wouldn't know what to do," he said, and let the vision of the film in his head guide how to do it. He did have lunch with Arthur Penn who imparted some technical information (such as the process of color correcting shots) and some logistical details, but otherwise, he just dove in. Allen may not have known much about directing, but he knew what he liked, so he showed his crew some movies that would make more concrete his abstract thoughts about what he wanted: Blow-Up (1966) for the use of color, Elvira Madigan (1967) for its lyrical romanticism, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) for its sympathetic prisoner-on-the-run theme, and The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965) for its documentary approach to a subject. Most of Allen's production team was chosen for him, but he did pick the costume designer, cinematographer and art director. A few weeks into production, however, he encountered problems with his choices and fired both the costumer and cinematographer. San Francisco was chosen for location work after it was decided that using the first choices, either New York or Florida, would add $500,000 to the budget. The city had to double for locations as widespread as New Jersey, Ohio, Baltimore and Georgia. Principal photography on Take the Money and Run began in the summer of 1968. Allen later said he was not nervous about his first day but was so excited about shooting on location in San Quentin prison that he cut his nose shaving that morning. The mishap can be seen in the prison scene in the movie. He and his team found the inmates there to be very friendly and cooperative. The prison authorities also eagerly welcomed the production but issued a warning: cast and crew were always to be accompanied by guards and if taken hostage, the gates would not be opened to secure their release. Janet Margolin loved working on Take the Money and Run and got along well with Woody. She was delighted to be playing her first comic role and found it to be her best experience in front of the camera since her debut in David and Lisa (1962). Many of the cast members were non-professionals and were chosen because they would seem more authentic and real than character actors in the "documentary" approach Allen had in mind. Allen encouraged his cast to improvise, often shooting as many as three impromptu gags for each scene. Allen shot countless takes on Take the Money and Run and printed most of them because in his inexperience he assumed a good director must do many takes and protect himself with coverage from all angles. He continued the practice on his first few movies but then gained the confidence to do what felt more right to him - long takes, with little or no coverage and very few retakes. Fouad Said, the film's original cinematographer, who was replaced a few weeks into production, had recently invented the Cinemobile for the TV show I Spy, a vehicle that facilitates the transport of equipment on location shoots. Using this device, Allen was able to shoot as many as six locations per day, three times the usual for a Hollywood film unit at that time. As a result, he brought the picture in nearly a half million dollars under budget and a week ahead of schedule. The real story of the Take the Money and Run production began after shooting wrapped. Allen's attempts to cut the picture together were, by all accounts, disastrous. One of the main problems was that he had chosen to end the film on a very downbeat note, having Virgil die a bloody death in a hail of gunfire, a la Bonnie and Clyde (1967). This was followed by a brief humorous scene at his funeral when his wife hears him whisper from below ground, "Get me out." But even this last gag couldn't undo the humorless effect of that violent death scene. To test initial audience reactions to Take the Money and Run, Allen screened the rough cut for soldiers recruited from a USO club. Although he learned later from more seasoned directors that they always explain gaps, changes, and areas for future work in a rough-cut screening, at the time he just ran the film as is without comment. The young men at each of the screenings sat stone-faced all the way through. The worried producers turned for help to editor Ralph Rosenblum, who had cut Mel Brooks's acclaimed comedy The Producers (1968). Rosenblum found Allen to be reserved, despondent about the problems with his film, but not at all arrogant or demanding. He admitted to not knowing what he was doing and followed Rosenblum's suggestions. One of the first things Rosenblum did was to ask to see all the material that had been cut out. He found that Allen had removed many of his funniest bits. Another Rosenblum touch was to rearrange the film. Since it was so loosely structured anyway, with many scattershot visual one-liners, he was free to use the documentary style to change the order and pace of the film to better effect. He split the interviews with Virgil's parents into several segments that he could go back to in order to have something to cut away to, a bridge between other sequences. Rosenblum had Woody write new pieces of narration and voiceover to help bridge the disparate pieces. Allen displayed a virtuosic ability to go into a corner and whip out new pages in no time that fit perfectly with Rosenblum's suggestions. The new editor (listed in the credits as editorial consultant) also identified the music as a key problem with the picture. He found that Allen had put gloomy music behind some of the scenes to emphasize his character's sad life. Rosenblum substituted new, upbeat music-a Eubie Blake ragtime piece here, a bossa nova there - to show Allen the improvement, and offered the advice to always cut with music, even before scoring was done. This aspect of the picture was also helped tremendously by composer Marvin Hamlisch, a former rehearsal pianist new to the business who amazed everyone with his ability to take suggestions and compose just the right piece of music in virtually any style in an astonishingly short period of time. Despite their satisfaction with Hamlisch's work, everyone was driven slightly crazy by his personality. He would call constantly, obsessive and nervous, wanting to discuss the score, begging people to hear what he had immediately written. Sometimes he even insisted they listen over the phone, questioning what instruments they preferred to hear playing, asking for scenes to be extended to accommodate the motifs he had created. Hamlisch's melodramatic nature increased when he was around the calm and not very talkative Allen. At a recording session for the main title sequence, an original ballad with which Hamlisch was particularly pleased, Allen listened impassively, shrugged, and asked, "What was that?" The composer was so devastated that when Allen left the room, he lay down on the floor of the studio and wept. by Rob Nixon

SYNOPSIS: Virgil Starkwell, the only child of a New Jersey couple, is a sweet-natured, nerdy young boy who grows up to become a notorious criminal, famous for his botched attempts at robbery and his absurd prison escapes. Yet, despite his reputation, he wins the love and loyalty of a pretty young laundress who stands by him despite her anxiety over his criminal activities. If for no other reason, Take the Money and Run (1969) is important as Woody Allen's first official directorial effort (What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) doesn't really qualify since it was a Japanese spy thriller that Allen simply redubbed with new dialogue); the film marked the arrival of a major new talent on the cinema scene, bringing Allen's distinctive humor from his stand-up routines and his writing for television and print into a new medium for him. Primitive as it may be compared to his later works, the film contains much of the characteristic preoccupations, stylistic innovations, and satirical targets he would develop to perfection in his subsequent movies. It's all here from the start in an embryonic stage: the satires on success, fame, and psychoanalysis; the angst of modern life; the explorations into and comments upon film style and structure; the frustrated romance between the intellectual nebbish Jew and the beautiful "shiksa goddess" of his dreams; and direct asides to the audience. Allen would play out these themes and techniques with increasing complexity in all his films over the years, and knowing what we do of his life and work since then, it's fascinating and refreshing to see their beginnings, even in a context that many critics noted for a certain sloppiness and occasional lack of coherence. Take the Money and Run also marks the beginning of what is now commonly known as the "mockumentary," the pseudo-documentary style that has become increasingly popular through the years, particularly in the films of Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman [1996]) and Albert Brooks (Real Life [1979]). With this approach, and considerable help from such artists as composer Marvin Hamlisch and editorial consultant Ralph Rosenblum, Allen was able to string together isolated verbal and visual gags and plot elements spanning years into a whole that brought out the combination of humor and underlying pathos to best effect, given the restraints of budget and his own inexperience with film. It may not be Citizen Kane (1941), but like Orson Welles's audacious debut, Allen was involved in every aspect of the production. He not only wrote, directed and starred in Take the Money and Run but also oversaw the post-production of it himself. It also marks the beginning of Charles H. Joffe and Jack Rollins's long partnership as film producers and one of the first scores of Oscar®-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch. In all these respects, Take the Money and Run is a landmark, both for the filmmaker and for contemporary American cinema. Director: Woody Allen Producers: Sidney Glazier, Jack Rollins (uncredited) and Charles H. Joffe Screenplay: Woody Allen and Mickey Rose Cinematography: Lester Shorr Editing: James T. Heckert, Paul Jordan and Ron Kalish, Ralph Rosenblum (editorial consultant) Art Direction: Fred Harpman Original Music: Marvin Hamlisch Cast: Woody Allen (Virgil Starkwell), Janet Margolin (Louise), Jacquelyn Hyde (Miss Blair), Henry Leff (Mr. Starkwell), Ethel Sokolow (Mrs. Starkwell). C-85m. by Rob Nixon

AWARDS AND HONORS: Allen was nominated for both Male Comedy Performance and Male New Face in the Motion Picture Exhibitors' Laurel Awards, and the screenplay was nominated for Best Comedy by the Writers Guild of America. THE CRITICS CORNER "The nicest surprise of Take the Money and Run is that it shows [Allen] has been able to compliment visually the word-oriented humor of the writer-performer. ... Allen has made a movie that is, in effect, a feature-length, two-reel comedy-something very special and eccentric and funny." – Vincent Canby, New York Times, August 19, 1969. "Like a nightclub monologue, the movie has a sort of loose-leaf form. You have a feeling that scenes and, perhaps, entire reels could be taken out and rearranged without making much difference in total impact, which is good because it all looks so effortless. Allen and Mickey Rose...have illustrated in fine, absurd detail the world that Allen has been talking about all these years." – Vincent Canby, New York Times, August 24, 1969. "In all fairness, maybe I hit Take the Money in the wrong mood. But I doubt it. You keep wanting the movie to be funnier than it is-but it isn't. A lot of reviewers think it's the comic masterpiece of the decade." – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, October 6, 1969. "Its tale of the eagerly criminal career of Virgil Starkwell is as unpredictably structured as Annie Hall [1977], if not yet anything like as sustained in tone and mood. But it has plenty of hilarious jokes and concepts." – Tony Rayns, Time Out Film Guide (Penguin Books, 2000). "A torrent of middling visual gags, not the star's best vehicle." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide. "Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run" has some very funny moments, and you'll laugh a lot, but in the last analysis it isn't a very funny movie. It isn't really a movie at all. I suspect it's a list of a lot of things Woody Allen wanted to do in a movie someday, and the sad thing is he did them all at once....The blackouts before the credits are particularly good. And other scenes (notably Woody's tangle with a prison shirt-folding machine, and his escape attempt while chained to five other prisoners) are hilarious. But the editing should have been done more ruthlessly, to get rid of things that seemed funny at the time but aren't funny in the movie..." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times. "..an often hilarious parody of both old-style gangster movies and character documentaries...Picture has less structure than Allen's later films and there's only one major scene - when he prepares for his first date with Margolin - where he gets laughs by presenting a side of his soon to be familiar "Woody Allen" character...An auspicious debut, but nothing to prepare us for Allen's later masterpieces." - Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic. "Spiced up with a little of everything, it's clear that Allen intended Take the Money and Run as a showcase for his comical talents. Throughout he engulfs the camera in a torrent of passing jokes, good only for a laugh then disposed of without regret. These tend to stick to the traditional physical and visual lines established in other films of the genre, while Allen still places his personal spin on the proceedings. The contrast with his later, more cerebral, work is stark, though even here some of Allen's neuroses can be glimpsed in nascent form...Ultimately, Take the Money and Run is unsatisfying to audiences brought up on Allen's later works. It's full of good ideas but without the insight that has come with greater maturity, the movie's an empty ride. The chaos, satire and slapstick help of course, so overall perhaps Take the Money and Run is worth catching as a rare curiosity of Allen's formative years." - Damien Cannon, www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/ Compiled by Rob Nixon & Jeff Stafford