For my money, one of the funniest films Woody Allen ever made is the crime parody Take the Money and Run (1969), which combines a sappy love story between bungling career criminal Allen and lovely laundress Janet Margolin, great gags regarding life behind bars and on the chain gang, a darkly humorous exploration of a painful childhood leading to a life gone bad and hysterical deadpan narration by the great Jackson Beck.

Allen mixes sight gags (the chain gang escapees all chained together) and verbal gems (“He never made the ‘ten most wanted’ list.  It’s very unfair voting; it’s who you know.”) with great acuity in his first film as a director, which was lightened in tone and tightened in pace by editor Ralph Rosenblum, who consequently became Allen’s editor of choice.

Take the Money and Run is filmed in a semi-documentary style and as such is the first “mockumentary,” a term popularized after the release of This is Spinal Tap in 1984.  Even back then, Woody was ahead of the curve, developing fresh comedic material from a genre recently reborn with the great Bonnie and Clyde and running wild with it.  It’s interesting to think about how Woody would have treated the same material a decade later, after the gangster movie explosion had passed, yet I doubt if he would have captured the same raw, gut-busting humor that makes this film a comedy classic.  My rating:  ✪ ✪ ✪.  (9:2).