Dick van Dyke (or his agent, who passed, without van Dyke's knowledge, for him on "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines") made some howling bad choices on movies. Too bad. He had a good personality for movies. Had he made better movies "Fitzwilly" might have been better, too.
The story: a butler for a dotty old lady tries to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed (including giving large sums to charity) even though she's broke. He and his staff spend most of their time cooking up schemes to bilk people out of money (or whatever else they need), some of them pretty darn clever. But a new secretary, kept out of the loop, begins to wonder what's going on . . .
A good cast including Barbara Feldon ("Get Smart"), Edith Evans and an impossibly young Sam Waterston give the star all the support he needs. And John Williams (billed as "Johnny") provided a suitable score (though the song that plays over the action at about the 1 hour mark is a real dog). And the movie did give me some laugh-out-loud moments, and I'm pretty jaded.
But this is one of those comedies that relies on a light atmosphere rather than laugh out loud moments, and that doesn't cut it these days. One can see William Powell or Cary Grant pulling it off had it been made 30 years earlier (it's a lot more enjoyable to me than "My Man Godfrey.")
van Dyke is their heir. Van Dyke saw himself as the heir of silent comics like Keaton and Lloyd. In both cases he was simply too late. Neither silent nor William Powell movies were being cranked out in the mid- to late 1960s.
A good movie, but not a great one. Had van Dyke not made so many AWFUL movies after "Mary Poppins" it might have been a minor van Dyke vehicle. That it's one of his better features makes it a pretty poor showing for his career. With a different agent he might not, these days, have been relegated to TV.
It's a pleasant time-waster and I like it. But it's not the classic it might have been with a better script, tighter direction and a few more bizarre characters.
BTW it has some strong language and the theme is one of constant theft.
The story: a butler for a dotty old lady tries to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed (including giving large sums to charity) even though she's broke. He and his staff spend most of their time cooking up schemes to bilk people out of money (or whatever else they need), some of them pretty darn clever. But a new secretary, kept out of the loop, begins to wonder what's going on . . .
A good cast including Barbara Feldon ("Get Smart"), Edith Evans and an impossibly young Sam Waterston give the star all the support he needs. And John Williams (billed as "Johnny") provided a suitable score (though the song that plays over the action at about the 1 hour mark is a real dog). And the movie did give me some laugh-out-loud moments, and I'm pretty jaded.
But this is one of those comedies that relies on a light atmosphere rather than laugh out loud moments, and that doesn't cut it these days. One can see William Powell or Cary Grant pulling it off had it been made 30 years earlier (it's a lot more enjoyable to me than "My Man Godfrey.")
van Dyke is their heir. Van Dyke saw himself as the heir of silent comics like Keaton and Lloyd. In both cases he was simply too late. Neither silent nor William Powell movies were being cranked out in the mid- to late 1960s.
A good movie, but not a great one. Had van Dyke not made so many AWFUL movies after "Mary Poppins" it might have been a minor van Dyke vehicle. That it's one of his better features makes it a pretty poor showing for his career. With a different agent he might not, these days, have been relegated to TV.
It's a pleasant time-waster and I like it. But it's not the classic it might have been with a better script, tighter direction and a few more bizarre characters.
BTW it has some strong language and the theme is one of constant theft.