Please don't spend money on this.

hyped garbage

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

In this silly sixties flick, Dick Van Dyke is the butler to the wealthy Edith Evans—only she's not very wealthy. The truth is, she's practically broke. But, to keep his beloved mistress living in luxury, Dick and the rest of the household staff, including John McGiver and Sam Waterston, pull cons and robberies. When a new secretary, Barbara Feldon, is hired, will she ruin all their schemes? Without Dick van Dyke, the film would be pretty flat. He's easy to root for, even though he's a criminal, and his usual enthusiastic energy gives the film just enough pizazz to keep audiences interested. Barbara Feldon is pretty annoying, so I couldn't understand why the other characters liked her so much. Still, the script is pretty clever, and John Williams's music is cute and fitting, so if you like Dick van Dyke movies, check out this well-intentioned heist film on a rainy afternoon or during Christmastime, since one of their jobs takes place during the holiday.

A butler so competent he puts Marmaduke Ruggles to shame, Claude "Fitzwilly" Fitzwilliam is also a crook and con man who robs from the poor to fill the coffers of his dowager employer, Miss Vicky. It's hard to even begin to calculate the ethical problems in this movie, or to untangle the motivations.Fitzwilly is played by the multi-talented Dick van Dyke at the height of his powers, which are in evidence here, but even his talent can't carry this mess of a movie. Fitzwilly's white-collar crimes are intended to be both comical and admirable, but they are neither. Nor are they victimless. They include: (1) Conning dutiful and/or dim employees, sales clerks and middle managers and etc., out of goods and cash-- people who will probably be fired as a result. (2) Reneging on donations to charities by stealing back the checks that Miss V. issued. (3) Setting up his own fake charity, "Serenity through the Word," which sends lachrymose letters of condolence to mourners and receives donations in return. (4) Spending his ill-got loot on maintaining Miss Vicky's household-- which includes the whole staff (his gang) "living well." Champagne is the most common libation downstairs.None of the characters could be called admirable, let alone consistent. Barbara Feldon, playing an intellectual hired by Miss Vicky to help research her "Dictionary for Dopes," starts by idealistically defending servants, butlers, and secretaries against charges of inferiority. But when she takes a liking to Fitzwilly, she harasses and then dumps him because he isn't ambitious enough to rise above the status of a butler. Then of course, this being a putative romantic comedy, she reverses herself again to marry him, "I don't care if you're a butler or a chiropodist." As for the wonderful John McGiver, I won't detail his character, but trust me, his motivations twist into a Gordian knot that Hercules couldn't untangle.There is one redeeming feature in this Christmas casualty: Miss Vicky is played by the magnificent Dame Edith Evans. Her too few scenes are too, too fabulous. I offer a sampling of her best lines, but reading them without her pungent aristocratic delivery is like reading lyrics of "I Got Rhythm" without the music: "A psychiatrist is a doctor to whom you tell things you wouldn't tell your mother, and if you did she would have the common decency not to believe you.""He thought I needed a new interest in life after father died, because hating father had been my chief interest up to then, and I was lost without it."Here's to you, Dame Edith. Would that I'd seen you on the London stage...

This is one of the best comedy films I have ever seen. It really lifts my spirits when I am down. Dick Van Dyke and Barbara Feldon were great as well as having an excellent supporting cast. Of course the whole premise of the film is preposterous. Sooner or later Fitzwilly and crew would have been caught. But then I don't think being realistic makes for a very good comedy. As far as the comments one individual made about the film being "immoral" I will say that the film was never intended to be taken seriously. If it were to be taken seriously it would be a drama and not a comedy. Besides, Fitzwilly didn't steal to get rich or amass a fortune, but rather to support Miss Vicky out of gratitude for her kindness to him. Besides, Juliet reformed him in the end. Furthermore Fitzwilly only stole from the rich. The government and the rich steal from the average person every single day! In addition, the user who commented that it was Miss Vicky's father and not her husband who died and left her penniless was correct.

I was surprised by one review deeming it unethical. The butler was in the wrong though for unselfish reasons. The story both had romance (& like another reviewer I too had a crush on Barbara Feldon in my preteen 1960's years) and rebuke: she saw the butler's heart and insisted that he end his life of crime and help the old lady only through honest ways. Good heart & bad action was changed to good heart & good action, wasn't it. And it was great fun too. This is a film that I'm looking to get my hands on. Dick van Dyke has had some good films (eg Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and this is one of his best.