Small Time Crooks
Short description
Ray Winkler is a dishwasher and small-time crook with grand ambitions. Tired of scraping by, he dreams up a scheme to rob a bank by digging a tunnel from a neighbouring storefront. To cover the excavation, he and his wife Frenchy open a cookie shop next to the bank, with a crew of similarly hapless associates helping out. The plan hinges on the business staying quiet, but the cookies prove unexpectedly popular, drawing crowds that make the secret work below increasingly difficult to hide. Frenchy takes to the enterprise with unexpected flair, and the couple's fortunes change in ways neither anticipated.
Woody Allen directs and writes, and this is the twenty-eighth of the forty-eight films he has directed, arriving between Sweet and Lowdown and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. He plays Ray, with Tracey Ullman as Frenchy, and Michael Rapaport, Tony Darrow, Jon Lovitz and Hugh Grant among the cast, which numbers fifty-five credited performers and eighty credited crew. Jean Doumanian produced through Jean Doumanian Productions and Sweetland Films.
Released in May 2000, the film runs 94 minutes and cost about 25 million dollars, returning roughly 30 million worldwide. On IMDb the rating sits at 6.5 from 773 votes, while the critics' score is 6.4 from 101 reviews, leaving the two closely aligned.
What's left behind the scenes
- Woody Allen used a large gumball machine in one of the early scenes to create a connection between the character, Winkler, and his clumsy colleague Starkwell from the film "Take the Money and Run" (1969).
- The film's poster is based on a campaign by the New York City Police Department in the 70s, with their slogan "Never Give a Criminal an Even Break."
- The character Tony Darrou is sometimes called Tommy Walker, and sometimes Tommy Bill.
- The film contains several allusions to Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Red-Headed League," including the infiltration of a bank through the basement of a neighboring store and Francis's attempt to memorize the contents of a dictionary.
- In the house of writer Henry James, during a "cultural" argument, Francis says that James was the author of "The Heiress." In reality, this was the title of the film adaptation and play based on the novel, while the novel itself was called "Washington Square."
- It is noticeable how Danny manipulates the dynamite box to have its bottom fall off.
- The box of "Belgian" chocolates at the very beginning of the film is, apparently, a box from the Italian brand Perugina.
- When Danny, Ray, Tommy, and Benny start digging a tunnel, during a conversation about the drill, Danny calls Ray (played by Woody Allen) – Woody.
- This film was Woody Allen's first of five films under contract with DreamWorks Pictures.
- The film's plot partially repeats that of the 1942 crime comedy "Fraud and Co." Allen is a fan of that film and before "Small Time Crooks" had already made several references to it in his work.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
