5/13/17 Take the Money and Run

Take the money and Run was a dazzling debut because Allen created one of the best mockumentaires of all time. Many people point to "This is Spinal Tap" as the best but I found Spinal Tap uneven in its parody. It didn't capture mood of a real documentary.

In Take the Money and Run, the delivery of the super serious narrator reminds me of many super serious documentaries I have watched as a kid like Hinterlands Who's Who Unlike those documentaries, the narrative is super silly but the narrator never breaks character. This delivers the gag.

In addition to the documentary format, Allen does a wonderful parody of many gangster/prison films like White Heat, Cool Hand Luke,and I am a fugitive from a Chain Gang. After watching this movie, it is hard to take those cliche elements seriously again.

Allen rivals himself a decade later with the movie Zelig which will be coming up on movie night