![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/TakeTheMoneyAndRun_Fr_poster.jpg\")
<\/a>‘Take the herb and recuse yourself’.<\/p><\/div>\n
Take the Money and Run<\/a> <\/strong>(1969), new on Blu via KL Studio Classics, marked Allen\u2019s first formal step as star \/ director \/ co-writer, and has him playing Virgil Starkwell, an idiot wholly incapable of robbing anything or anyone, but genuinely falling for a pretty girl (Janet Margolin) \u2013 for a while.<\/p>\n Take<\/strong> predates Allen\u2019s near-perfect mockumentary Zelig<\/a><\/strong> (1983), and contains a similar if cruder use of archival, faux archival, narration, and on-camera interviews.<\/p>\n Allen then carried over the format in a short film for PBS that was reportedly pulled close to its 1972 airing date, and remains commercially unreleased.\u00a0Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story<\/a><\/strong> (1971) has him playing a fake Nixon confidant and ridicules the then-President with assorted interpolation of real and fake news segments and interviews, culminating in a lengthy unflattering assessment of the leader\u2019s lack of \u2018facial trustworthiness.\u2019 You can see why PBS panicked, but it\u2019s peculiar how the short has never been showcased on home video; at present it remains viewable in that vast grey zone, YouTube, taken from an Italian subtitled print with a serious (deliberate?) scratch running down the middle.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/September1987_poster.jpg\")
Whereas Crisis<\/strong> is a portent of the magic to follow in Zelig<\/strong>, September<\/a><\/strong> (1987) marked Allen\u2019s more successful attempt to wade into Ingmar Bergman terrain with a drama about\u00a0 fragile woman (Mia Farrow) confronted by unwanted realities the night a power outage freezes a dinner party at her country house.<\/p>\n