Dick Van Dyke was a well known actor at the time of this movie. He was a year removed from his tv show, and and a few years from Mary Poppins. He has a screen presence as Claude R. Fitzwilliam, AKA Fitzwilly. His presence doesn’t make this movie click. The presence of Judith Anderson doesn’t even help. She was the most famous woman of the stage, when this movie was released. The theme involving thievery, doesn’t peak interest.
Fitzwilly and the domestic staff, engage in theft, in between their day jobs. It is done mainly to help their employer, Miss Victoria Woodsworth, (Edith Evans). She is a philanthropist, who is unaware that she has no money. Fitzwilly loves her so much, that he works outside the law, to keep up the illusion of wealth. He has planned a major robbery of a department store on Christmas Eve. This will keep his employer solvent for the rest of her days.
The heist seems like a good plan. A wrench is thrown into the works, when a secretary, Juliet Nowell, (Barbara Feldon) is hired. She is going to help Victoria Woodsworth with a dictionary. Fitzwilly has been working cons for awhile. He has difficulty hiding his second job from Juliet. It becomes even more difficult when he falls in love with her.
Barbara Feldon does well as Juliet. Its just not enough. Feldon had talent. She was twice nominated for her role in the show, Get Smart. There are many good supporting actors in this movie. The best is Norman Fell as the clutzy and mostly incompetent head of security, Oberblatz. Fell does give the film needed comic relief.
The movie does have good scenes in the department store. These are ones that depict chaos. This is contrived when customers find out that the store is giving away color tv’s. This allows the thieves to get to the safe. There are a few other scenes, but this is the highlight. Delbert Mann was an academy award winning director. His skills can’t make this into a good movie. It was released during the Christmas season. Fitzwilly wouldn’t make the grade as a Christmas movie. Its a shame, particularly with the talents involved in it.