SMALL TIME CROOKS
"Small Time Crooks" is a return to the absurdist style of comedy that first endeared Woody Allen to audiences with movies like "Take the Money and Run" (1969) and "Bananas" (1971). Woody wrapped his visual and verbal puns in a basic premise, the life of a chronic thief in the first, and a revolution in a Banana Republic in the second with often hilarious results. The thought of Woody walking into a deli and ordering over a hundred sandwiches with specific condiments on each for a rag tag army of guerillas hiding in the mountains still makes me chuckle.
Now he has a small platoon of cronies (Tony Darrow, John Lovitz, and Michael Rappaport) in "Small Town Crooks" who manage to botch a bank heist that never has a chance to off the ground or, in this case, out of the underground. Ex-con (shades of "Take the Money and Run"), Ray (Woody Allen), is tired of living hand to mouth and decides to rent a store a few doors down from a bank so he can tunnel into their vaults. The cover? - A cookie store run by his wife, Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) and the near sighted, dimwitted, and totally clueless May, (an hilarious Elaine May). The problem? - Frenchy’s cookies are so good, she can’t keep people away. You can’t stem a basement flood and drill a tunnel into a bank from the cellar of a store that has people lined up around the block who attract the Evening News to find out what all the fuss is about. So! What to do? Go into the cookie business full time, open up a national chain and have the sharks clamoring for your money - and try to get some class! Meanwhile, Ray can’t break some of his old habits. Once a thief, always a thief. That’s the plot. Within its parameters, Woody Allen manages to lampoon big business, the news media, the rich, and the cultural sharks who hide behind a facade of dignity and good manners. All this, without undermining the sweetness of his love for Frenchy and the affection he has for his cadre of losers. And that’s what really makes "Small Time Crooks" a winner for me.
Some suggested Video Pix
"Larceny, Inc." (1942) - Edward G. Robinson spoofs his tough guy image in this comedy about an ex-con who opens up a luggage store with his buddies to tunnel through to the bank next door. Sound Familiar?) The store becomes a huge success, but a local gangster gets wise to their original scheme and wants in on the action. The plot was used, almost verbatim, for an equally hilarious episode of the hit TV show, "Maverick," with James Garner.
Some personal favorite Woody Allen movies and why!
"Love and Death" (1975) - This spoof of Tolstoy’s War and Peace proved he could cover any subject from any period from any source and make it hilarious. At the end he dances off with death - taking on Ingmar Bergman’s "The Seventh Seal" and introduced me to music from Prokofiev’s Lt. Kije Suite. Thank you Woody!
"Stardust Memories" (1980) - A more serious film that emulates Fellini’s "8 ½" and pulls it off. In a chilling scene that foreshadowed John Lennon’s death in New York City, a character walks up to Woody in his dream, says "I love you," and shoots him.
"Broadway Danny Rose" (1983) - Woody is the title character who has a talent for picking people without talent to represent in the entertainment business. Some old time Borscht comedians sit around, reminisce, and bring the story of Danny Rose to life, with Mia Farrow, gangsters, and an over the hill singer.
"Another Woman" (1988) - Gena Rowlands plays a professional academic who used her career to shield herself off from the problems of the world, only to have her world come crashing down around during a set of emotional crises. I can’t explain it, but I loved this movie. However, I have to say I hated his similar-in-feel, Ingmar Bergman inspired "Interiors" a few years earlier because I could practically see Woody at the typewriter mouthing every one of his characters lines, as if each were separate parts of himself speaking in tongues. With "Another Woman," he got it right.