Woody Allen: writer, director and star of Small Time Crooks

"Don't look back, something might be gaining on you," said the legendary Satchel Page, hero of baseball's Negro leagues and of Woody Allen's too. True to his idol, Allen has never slowed his film career to look over his shoulder, to gauge public opinion, or to let any lynch mobs catch up. The only thing gaining on Woody is time itself. Now looking every day of his 64 years, when he rages and shakes his fist Ralph Kramden style at his movie wife Tracy Ullman, it's both funny and sad. In recent interviews Allen has said he intends Small Time Crooks as part homage to Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners" and to caustic couples everywhere who find a way to keep love alive, even if it's just for spite. It's also a relief that, for this movie at least, Woody hasn't cast himself as a neurotic intellectual misfit lusting after an ingénue one-third his age. I guess you can only play yourself so many times.

Allen plays Ray Winkler, a wisecracking ex con who longs for a better life for himself and his sarcastic ex-stripper wife Frenchy, played to the hilt and beyond by Tracey Ullman, who has the most obvious and obnoxious New Yawk drag since Tyne Daly in "Cagney and Lacey." Ray's dishwashing and Frenchy's manicurist jobs barely keep them in beer and turkey meatballs. As the movie opens, with Woody's trademark Louis Armstrong background music and black-and-white credits, Ray is buying Belgian chocolates in hopes of sweet-talking Frenchy into financing his decidedly undercooked recipe for a bank job. She, of course, is unmoved by Ray's sugar-coated coaxing or the appearance of dim-bulb buddies Denny and Tony (played with idiotic delight by Michael Rapaport and Tony Darrow), Ray's partners in what is sure to be hard-time. Together they make Larry, Moe and Curly of the "Three Stooges" look like Edison, Einstein and da Vinci.

Tracey Ullman as Frenchy

Small Time Crooks isn't big on believability or subtlety and with Ullman's mega-mouth and brassy chassis the comedy couldn't be much "broader." Of course, nothing goes according to plan, but somehow the gang that couldn't think straight is left rolling in an entirely different, but no less valuable, kind of dough. What Ray and Frenchy make of their surprise success takes up the rest of the film. Frenchy wants to travel, appreciate art and memorize the dictionary. Hugh Grant comes along at this point as David, a refined gallery owner who tutors Frenchy on high culture. Grant's manners are perfect for his Henry Higgins-styled character and Ullman certainly puts the 'pig' in Pygmalion. Meanwhile, all Ray dreams of is moving to Florida where he can swim and go to the dog track everyday, though he does confess a secret desire to learn to spell Connecticut correctly.

Also worth mentioning is "Saturday Night Live" alumnus Jon Lovitz as Benny, an arsonist and former cellmate of Ray's whose main concern with their new cookie factory is that the building is fireproof. Noted comedy writer/director Elaine May (The Heartbreak Kid, Heaven Can Wait) stars as Frenchy's "dumber as a dog" cousin May who becomes the sixth member of the senseless team. May's lines are probably the movie's most ridiculous, but she delivers them so sincerely all you can do is shake your head in pleasantly suspended disbelief.

The frenetic pacing and slapstick shtick of Small Time Crooks is a throwback to Woody's freewheeling early '70s movies like Bananas, Sleeper and particularly Take the Money and Run, the latter of which also concerned the comedic misadventures of a bank robber who was more schnook than crook. "What I was going for was a funny movie," Allen said recently. If there's a theme to the film, it might be: Be careful what you wish for." Though not nearly as dark as Allen's Ingmar Bergman-influenced dramas like Interiors and Crimes and Misdemeanors, Small Time Crooks does touch on serious themes such as trust, betrayal and the proper use of heavy drilling equipment.

But as Woody says, Small Time Crooks isn't all that serious. It's a well-acted absurd comedy about an over-the-hill gang of lifetime losers who aren't the smartest cookies in the jar. Ray and Frenchy are as dumb as they come, but still get to spend a few minuets waltzing in high society, if only to have the red carpet pulled out from under them. It is a comedy though, so of course all is not completely lost and they still manage to snatch a bit more than their share of life's crumbs before the final reel has run.