Product Details

• Actors: Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Feldon, John McGiver, Edith Evans, Harry Townes
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304286856
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,650 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Late sixties comedy caper remains a sentimental favorite, January 4, 2003

By 

B.C. Scribe "trekviewer" (Brooklyn Center, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fitzwilly [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Dick Van Dyke and Barbara Feldon are absolutely charming in this lighthearted comedy fluff. Van Dyke plays the title character Fitzwilly (short for the more proper Fitzwilliam) who is the butler and head of the household staff for an eccentric but lovable philanthropist whom he addresses as Miss Vickie; Feldon plays Juliet a Columbia University graduate that Miss Vickie hires as a secretary for the purpose of assisting her in writing a "dictionary for illiterates" - listening to Miss Vickie's explanation will provide you with some genuine laughter. Miss Vickie is quite a charitable person, making sizable donations to nearly anyone who will call on her at home and ask her. Fitzwilly has kept his employer out of financial straits by resorting to pulling off some rather clever criminal thefts at nearly every upscale department store in New York City. He accomplishes these feats of derring-do with the assistance of the rest of the household staff who are expert con men and pickpockets. When Juliet joins the staff her nosy nature and honest desire to protect her new employer puts the whole scheme in jeopardy; when they're found out it's up to Fitzwilly to run interference on Juliet so the staff can keep Miss Vickie "cash rich" and keep themselves out of jail!

As I said this movie is a piece of fluff that has tremendous appeal if you are partial to either of the two stars or the kinds of comedy capers that the late sixties made so great back then. Not only are Van Dyke and Feldon fun to watch but the rest of the cast is rounded out with many familiar faces such as John McGiver as the footman and expert pickpocket (and former minister!) Albert; Norman Fell is quite funny as the neurotic head of finances at Gimbels; Cecil Kellaway appears briefly as the affable elderly gentleman who operates the "thrift store" the con men (and women!) use as a front; John Fielder is a gullible piano store salesman, a pigeon waiting to be plucked by Van Dyke; the household staff is cast with many faces you will recognize - most noticeably a very young Sam Waterston making his film debut. All of the capers that they pull off are great and will give you a smile each time they con someone. They range from the very elaborate to the very simplistic; early in the film one of the women reports that she was able to return a tie for a full refund at seventeen different stores with the same receipt - a new record Fitzwilly proclaims! But the showstopper involves a very daring and intricately planned Christmas Eve robbery at Gimbels department store that has to be seen to believed. One of the steps involves having one of the con men walk up behind unsuspecting ladies and pinching their rears. The women react, as one would expect them to, by turning and slapping the man nearest them! Great Fun! Another big plus is that Alan & Marilyn Bergman provide the perfect song "Make Me Rainbows" for the film.

For years I had been forced to get by with only a poor videotape copy of a cable TV presentation of 'Fitzwilly' filled with countless commercial interruptions. Then I happily discovered that it had finally been released on cassette and available at Amazon. This is the first movie my parents took me to see and all I could remember for years afterwards was Juliet finding the basement filled with the gang's ill-gotten booty and the great comedic finale at Gimbels. Now that I have a legitimate videotape of 'Fitzwilly' it has become my favorite film to watch on Christmas Eve...next to 'It's A Wonderful Life' that is.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bring Fitzwilly to DVD, December 21, 2005

By 

Kenneth E. Black (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fitzwilly [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a great caper movie, and my favorite one to see at Christmas. It deserves to be released on DVD in widescreen format. I hope the powers that be release it soon.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dick Van Dyke as a charming "Robin Hood" butler, November 16, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Fitzwilly [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Dick Van Dyke plays the title character of this 1967 comedy, a butler whose full name is Claude Fitzwilliam. He is in service to Miss Victoria Woodworth (Edith Evans), who comes from old money, which has now run out. Even worse, Miss Vicki is committed to a lot of philantrophic endeavors. However, Fitzwilly and the rest of the staff are dedicated to making sure she does not find out and towards that end they come up with creative (okay, criminal) ways of making money. Now, servants taking care of their mistress is an effrontery to Marxist thought if you are talking Karl, but if your leanings are more towards Groucho then you can appreciate the humor.

There is also a romantic subplot between Fitzwilly and Juliet Nowell (Barbara Feldon, in a credible first screen appearance for the co-star of television's "Get Smart"). But the part of this film that I remember most fondly is the "Dictionary for Dopes" that Miss Vicki is working on. Her idea is that people who do not know how to spell need a dictionary that makes it easier for them to find the correct spelling, working from all the possible phonetic spellings of a problematic word. The idea always appealed to me since my spelling is so atrocious that even spellcheckers are thwarted by my creativity, but there is also a nice little twist regarding Miss Vicki's dictionary as well. The project is what requires the hiring of Juliet, who cannot be entrusted to know what the rest of the staff is up to with their fun little capers.

This is an enjoyable film, mainly on the strength of Van Dyke's charming performance, which overcomes the dubious morality of the shenanigans that are going on. You will recognize a host of well-known character actors such as John McGiver, Cecil Kellaway, Norman Fell, Laurence Naismith and John Fielder. The score and song "Make Me Rainbows" are the work of young composer John Williams, who, for the last time, was credited as "Johnny Williams." Speaking of variations on a name, this film was known as "Fitzwilly Strikes Back" in the United Kingdom and was also released as "A Garden of Cucumbers."