Small Time Crooks

A Woody Allen comedy set in New York. Ray is an ex-convict now washing dishes. He comes up with a plan: rent the empty shop next to a bank, have his wife Frenchy sell cookies in the front, and dig a tunnel from the basement. The tunnel does not work. They dig in the wrong direction and come up somewhere else each time. But the cookies work. Frenchy's cookies spread across the city and within a year the two are very rich. The second half is the real subject. Frenchy now wants to appear cultured: she buys art, moves into society and hires an art adviser. Ray wants to remain the same man and hates his wife's new circle. The target is not money but how far acquired taste can be learned. The film mocks the newly rich and the circle that looks down on them equally. Woody Allen plays Ray, Tracey Ullman plays Frenchy, Hugh Grant the adviser and Elaine May her sister. Woody Allen directed. An enjoyable example for anyone who likes light comedy and satire about class. For a viewer expecting the director's heavier films, this one is plainly kept light.