Fitzwilly

1967

This is a story about a butler and the other servants if you will who work for a woman named Miss Victoria Woodworth. and for all intensive purposes will now be miss w.

The movie opens with essentially a heist occurring to discover that the people working the heist are all her employees, why they are stealing and swindling you do not know yet. Fitzwilly aka Claude R. Fitzwilliam aka the butler, is the ring leader.

Now you must assume that miss w is wildly rich as this is set a many years ago and she has a mansion along with I'd say 12 people running her household. 

All of a sudden a young woman shows up at the door saying she has an appointment with miss w, she wants a typist to help her write a different kind of dictionary. This will list all the ways most people spell a word-that are wrong-along with the correct way to spell it. But before being hired the young woman-Juliet- must be approved by the butler. Now why you ask would a butler decide on who will be staffed? Apparently he is Claude R. Fitzwilliam II, the son of her original butler and has been living with miss w essentially his entire life, almost as a mother. 

The butler says he doesn't want to hire her, then the woman eggs him on about why so to prove her wrong he hires her. Why would this be an issue you ask? Oh because they cant really pay for her. But I thought miss w was wildly rich? No no no, her father was and when he passed away he left her virtually no money. Why? We never know, but apparently the heists have been performed to pay all her bills and charity donations without the frail old woman realizing she doesn't have an honest dime to her name. 

Of course Juliet slowly figures out that something isn't right and to throw her off the scent Fitzwilly asks her on a date. 

They of course decide they are madly in love with each other after a few brief kisses throughout the night, and Juliet confesses she knows about the stealing but wants to know why they do it. All is explained and of course loving eyes see no problem with this as long as it ends before the wedding, yes thats right, with/in 24 hours they decide with no discussion necessary they are engaged. 

However theirs still the issue of miss W having no money so one last ELABORATE heist is planned, to rob a dept. store much like Macy's. They station boy scouts in front of 2 doors and throw money or something of that sort in front of the 3rd. Then post signs in all windows saying "free color tv with any purchase no matter how small" so of course rioting quickly ensues. 

Fitzwilly changes into a disguise-which ironically looks much like he does now everyday, and convinces the man watching the vault that he's with the insurance company and all the money should be given to him for safe keeping and avoiding potential robbery. He then mails the money to himself so that he wont be walking out of the building with anything.

However no one accounted for the footman who is a religious fellow and confesses to a crime, but not where the money is, and says he acted alone. 

Miss w is called and brought in to discuss the consequences and (thinking she's wildly rich) writes a check for the amount that was stollen as if it's pocket change. Everyone now is at square one. 

Then as everyone feels hope is lost, you discover miss W sold her "dictionary" for a series of screen plays and will now have limitless money coming in, in a 5 year plan, and they all lived happily ever after.

In all i give it a high rating. It's full of unrealistic love stories and an outlook on how easy it was to rob rich people back when security was a very different thing. You must remember when watching it that these were very different times then now, and can make you giggle as to what was considered normal then. Of course Dick VanDyke does a wonderful performance per all of his roles. I recommend it for a lazy sunday or a night in with your significant other, your lady friend will be impressed that you picked a movie that didn't involve blowing things up.