Take the Money and Run — Woody Allen’s Early Crash‑Course in Criminal Absurdity

 If Bananas is Woody Allen at his wildest, then Take the Money and Run is Woody Allen at his most historically mischievous — a spoof stitched together from every old‑school crime cliché you can imagine. It’s not the funniest thing he ever made, but it is one of the earliest examples of Allen grabbing the documentary format, shaking it like a snow globe, and letting the flakes fall wherever the joke lands.

Allen plays Virgil Starkwell, the lovable loser who can’t catch a break even when he’s trying to commit a crime. He’s the kind of guy who would rob a bank with a note so poorly written the teller needs clarification. He’s the guy who gets the raw deal, the wrong turn, the bad luck — and somehow still finds love in the middle of all the chaos. You can practically see the DNA of Larry David’s “no good deed goes unpunished” attitude forming right here. Virgil tries, fails, tries again, fails harder, and the universe shrugs.

Unlike Bananas, which is fueled by romantic motivation and political lunacy, Take the Money and Run is a string of bits — rapid‑fire gags that don’t give you time to breathe. And honestly? That’s okay. The movie isn’t trying to be deep; it’s trying to be a scrapbook of silliness. A museum of misfires. A guided tour through the clumsy criminal underworld where every crook is incompetent and every plan collapses like wet cardboard.

The style of Woody Allen is already there — the neurotic charm, the self‑deprecating humor, the “I’m doing my best but life won’t cooperate” rhythm. It’s not my favorite of his, but it is a piece of comedy history. A reminder of how the spoof genre evolved, how documentary parody became a playground, and how a simple joke about a bank robbery could become a whole movie.

Check it out for the history of it all — and for the joy of watching a man who can’t even steal properly somehow steal the show.