Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Why does this movie have such a low rating? This is a really good comedy. The acting is great, the characters are well developed, the story-line(plot) is very original, funny and well executed. I'd say this is a better comedy than any Jerry Lewis movie I've seen and I'm a Jerry Lewis fan. Dick Van Dyke was such a great comedic actor, James Garner and Elke Summers also, such great acting.

Norman Jewison is a top director with many credits. This is one of his least known films. Carl Reiner wrote the script and has a role in the film. James Garner and Dick Van Dyke are together in one of the rare times they would be. Garner's Cherokee Productions is involved here in this Universal Film. Elke Summer, Angie Dickinson, and Ethel Merman are all here. Even Roger C. Carmel is here just a year before he would do Star Trek and The Mother's In Law. Yet, this movie was destined to bomb with a large B. It is hard to understand why until you watch it. The plot is a bit of a stretch, and the ending goes beyond the pale. I love looking at this cast, but it is so difficult to understand why there is so much slap stick here and so little verbal comedy. Maybe Carl Reiner was writing too many other scripts for this one to get the dialog it needed. The opening credits, Animation from Freleng (Pink Panther) is cute. I just think that for one time too much talent got together and produced something that just did not click for audiences. The slap stick of the arrival just in time to save Garner from the guillotine at the end of the movie is a stretch here.At least the movie is short, and fans of this great cast should enjoy the short run. It is funny, but the dark comedy which dominates this one is done much better than this in other films. I do envy Garner making out with Angie Dickinson, and Van Dyke getting to know a really hot Elke Summer. Ethel Merman gets the only musical number. The dead artist theme is actually proved here, too much slap stick comedy is dead, in 1965. It could have been so much better.

This one needs to be out on DVD, with all the violent stuff Hollywood is putting out nowadays, this needs to come out so that we can laugh again. As one other poster commented, PLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEE! get this one out. Dick Van Dyke is just hilarious and the way he gets back at his long time friend James Garner is terrific. They don't come up with plots like this in Hollywood anymore. I hope more people can get their votes out on this fabulous movie. Its one of the classics that has been forgotten again, just like some of Danny Kayes classics like "KNOCK ON WOOD" or "MERRY ANDREW" or Bob Hope's "OFF LIMITS".

In 1938 Rene Clair directed a movie called BREAK THE NEWS where Maurice Chevalier and Jack Buchanan are in the shadow of an egotistical female star, and stage Buchanan's disappearance, and possible murder by Chevalier to build up publicity for both men - only to have the scheme blow up in their faces when Buchanan gets arrested on a capital charge himself, and is prevented from showing up in court to rescue Chevalier. Both men are almost executed - but saved at the last moment by the egotistical star who learns the truth. So she gathers all the good publicity in the end.There is also a short story by Mark Twain entitled "IS HE DEAD?" about a plot to make a reputation for a prominent 19th Century artist, Gustave Courbet, by him pretending to be dead, and his paintings being sold for larger and larger amounts of cash so that the still living Courbet and his friends make a huge profit.Those are possible keys to the plot genesis of THE ART OF LOVE, a 1965 film that starred James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Elke Sommer, Angie Dickenson, and Ethel Merman. There are some interesting supporting roles for Carl Reiner and Roger C. Carmel, as a French defense counsel and a questionable art dealer too. Garner gets the idea that Van Dyke's paintings are quite good, but would sell for more money if he was to be thought to be dead. Garner announces that Van Dyke has disappeared, and is believed to have committed suicide. But the janitor (Jay Novello) has seen Garner disposing of a dummy. Novello sees the legs being put into the furnace, and thinks it could have been a body.Van Dyke's existence is known to only two people: Elke Sommer (his girlfriend) and Ethel Merman, his landlady. He has to keep a low profile, dressing in disguise all the time. And he notices that Garner is living in luxury from the sale of the paintings by Roger Carmel (an art dealer who may have collaborated with the Nazis). Angered at the lack of interest by Garner, and the latter's opportunistic romancing of his former girlfriend Angie Dickinson, Van Dyke suddenly realizes that Garner has left himself open for suspicion of the "murder" of Van Dyke.So Van Dyke carefully sets up "evidence" of his murder by Garner, complete with bloodstained clothing and broken teeth (and Novello's witnessing of the incident with the furnace). Motive is there - Garner is benefiting from his dead friend's paintings, and he has taken the dead man's girlfriend. So Garner is arrested (as is Carmel, who is soon willing to assist the prosecution). And Van Dyke, in disguise, watches the criminal trial with glee. Reiner, Garner's lawyer, is more concerned with not being associated too much with Garner than with defending him.The end is a race to the guillotine, complete with a clone of Madame Defarge, and Marcel Hillaire as the public executioner who abhors the death penalty.It is a moderately entertaining comedy, with some funny moments. You will never hear the words "Don't touch!" again without thinking of Reiner's attorney. Not a great film, but good enough for a rainy afternoon.