Virgil Starkwell was a product of his environment. Born into a poor family living in a rough community, Virgil soon finds companionship with a rough crowd and gets sucked into a life of petty crime from a very young age. An interest in the cello is not enough to set him straight and his acts continue into adulthood. Love, a powerful motivator, proves to be his undoing as he tries to rob a bank to fund his relationship.
We all talk about Allen's "earlier, funnier" films (even he does) but this probably doesn't extend the whole way to the very start of his film career because this, his second film, isn't up to the standard of Love & Death, Annie Hall and the like. The film is a mockumentary looking at the life and career of failing small-time criminal Virgil Starkwell and as such there is a basic narrative to provide some structure. Supposedly tightened up significantly in the editing room, the film is still pretty baggy at times and doesn't really have the material to carry it to even 85 minutes. However what the film does do well is produce plenty of imaginative moments that made me laugh out of nothing. I think of the scene where Virgil hires a car to run his blackmailer down, the spelling errors on the notes and others that are imaginative twists on what you expect and funnier for it. The one liners (and dialogue generally) is not as strong as Allen fans would hope for because the humour tends towards the sight gag.
This isn't a criticism because the sight gags are mostly good but the problem is one of consistency. I wasn't laughing anywhere enough for this to be a memorable comedy and there were quite a few lulls. These came particularly where the film had a section of narrative or dialogue rather than fast visual snippets under the narrator it is the latter that are the strongest parts of the film but they can't come quick enough and there isn't enough to support it in-between. Allen makes a good lead of course and I found him to be very good at delivering the visual comedy. Margolin is a bit too stiff; not good enough at the comedy or the dramatic stuff. The rest of the support cast does what they are required to do but the film does belong to Allen and his script. Credit should go to editor Rosenblum for making it as tight as possible and keeping the visual gags flowing as best as he can while limiting the weaker dialogue bits.
Overall then an amusing film that will appeal mostly to Woody Allen films. There are plenty of imaginative comedy moments but it is not as consistent as it needed to be to consider it on the same level as Allen's finest films (that would follow this in the 1970's in my opinion).
