''Fitzwilly'' is a 1967 American

romantic comedy film Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Romantic comedy e ...

directed by

Delbert Mann Delbert Martin Mann Jr. (January 30, 1920 – November 11, 2007) was an American television and film director. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film '' Marty'' (1955), adapted from a 1953 teleplay which he had also directed. ...

, based on Poyntz Tyler's 1960 novel ''A Garden of Cucumbers'' (the title refers t
Isaiah 1:8
and adapted for the screen by

Isobel Lennart Isobel Lennart (May 18, 1915 – January 25, 1971) was an American screenwriter and playwright. She is best known for writing the book for the Broadway theatre, Broadway musical ''Funny Girl (musical), Funny Girl'' which premiered in 1964, althou ...

. Its title refers to the nickname of its protagonist, Claude Fitzwilliam, an unusually intelligent and highly educated mastermind of a

butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments, with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantr ...

played by

Dick Van Dyke Richard Wayne Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. Dick Van Dyke on screen and stage, His work spans screen and stage, and List of awards and nominations received by Dick Van Dyke, his awards includ ...

, who commits robberies to maintain the luxurious lifestyle of his employer. The film co-stars Barbara Feldon in her first feature-film role.

Plot

Claude Fitzwilliam serves as butler to Miss Victoria Woodworth, an elderly heiress whose tremendous wealth is a myth fostered by Fitzwilliam; unbeknownst to her, her financier father actually left her $180. "Fitzwilly" has been leading the household staff on numerous thefts, raids and swindles — including the operation of the fictional charity and thrift shop, St. Dismas — to maintain "Miss Vicki" in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed. The staff's secret operations threaten to unravel when Miss Vicki hires an assistant, Juliet Nowell, to assist with her creation of a dictionary that contains all possible phonetic misspellings of words. Juliet is surprised to learn from Miss Vicki that Fitzwilly graduated with honors from

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

, and she opines that he should be doing something more "worthy" than being a butler, like joining the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an Independent agency of the U.S. government, independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to communities in partner countries around the world. It was established in Marc ...

. After Juliet inadvertently foils several minor operations, Fitzwilly becomes determined to get rid of her. He conceives a plan to court her in order to induce her to quit; this becomes complicated when they fall in love. Still unaware of Fitzwilly's secret life, Juliet does quit when Fitzwilly refuses to discuss ending his life in service. Juliet stumbles upon evidence of Fitzwilly's past crimes, and returns to the mansion to confront him. Fitzwilly proposes marriage and agrees to end the criminal operations and tell Miss Vicki everything, but there is a problem: due to Juliet's past interference, the household is $75,000 short of funds, and they have to raise the money by Christmas Day. This leads to a complex

setpiece In film production, a set piece is a scene or sequence of scenes whose execution requires complex logistical planning and considerable expenditure of money. Origin and usage of the term In its original meaning, the term is used to label scene ...

in which the Woodworth staff orchestrates the robbery of

Gimbels Gimbel Brothers (known simply as Gimbels) was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the comp ...

department store on Christmas Eve. Although the operation is initially successful, one of the household, Albert, a former minister, allows himself to be caught to "atone" for his sins. He steadfastly refuses to implicate anyone else. Miss Woodworth casually blackmails the assistant district attorney ("the son of my oldest friend") into engineering a suspended sentence on a lesser charge, and blithely offers to write a counter check to the store to cover the amount of the take, money that she does not know she does not have as part of that supposed inheritance. Believing that the entire household is destined for prison, Fitzwilly uncomfortably toasts his and Juliet's engagement with Juliet, her father and Miss Vicki. His discomfort is alleviated when it is revealed that Miss Vicki's dictionary has been rewritten as a screenplay, and sold to a Hollywood studio for $500,000.

Cast

as Claude Fitzwilliam * Barbara Feldon as Juliet Nowell *

John McGiver John Irwin McGiver (November 5, 1913 – September 9, 1975) was an American character actor who made more than a hundred appearances in television and motion pictures over a two-decade span from 1955 to 1975. The owl-faced, portly character ac ...

as Albert * Dame Edith Evans as Miss Victoria Woodworth * Harry Townes as Mr. Nowell *

John Fiedler John Donald Fiedler (February 3, 1925 – June 25, 2005) was an American actor. Recognizable for his high, flutey voice, Fiedler's career lasted more than 55 years in stage, film, television and radio. Fiedler was typecast beginning ear ...

as Mr. Morton Dunne * Anne Seymour as Grimsby *

Norman Fell Norman Fell (born Norman Noah Feld; March 24, 1924 – December 14, 1998) was an American actor of film and television, most famous for his role as landlord Mr. Roper on the sitcom '' Three's Company'' and its spin-off, '' The Ropers'', and his ...

as Oberblat *

Cecil Kellaway Cecil Lauriston Kellaway (22 August 1890 – 28 February 1973) was a South African character actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, for '' The Luck of the Irish'' (1948) and ''Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' ...

as Buckmaster * Stephen Strimpell as Byron Casey *

Helen Kleeb Helen Kleeb (January 6, 1907 – December 28, 2003) was an American film and television actress. In a career covering nearly 50 years, she may be best known for her role from 1972 to 1981 as Miss Mamie Baldwin on the family drama ''The Walto ...

as Mrs. Mortimer * Paul Reed as Prettikin *

Albert Carrier Albert Carrier (born Alberto Carrieri; October 16, 1919 – May 23, 2002) was a Canadian film and television actor, active in Mexico and the United States. He was perhaps best known for playing Pedro Quinn in the 1983 film '' Scarface''. He was ...

as Pierre * Nelson Olmsted as Simmons * Dennis Cooney as Assistant D.A. Elliot Adams *

Noam Pitlik Noam Pitlik (November 4, 1932February 18, 1999) was an American television director and actor. In 1979, Pitlik won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for his work on the ABC sitcom '' Barney Miller''. Early life The son of ...

as Charles *

Anthony Eustrel Anthony Eustrel (12 October 1902 – 2 July 1979) was an English actor. Biography Eustrel made guest appearances on television programs such as '' Perry Mason'', '' Maverick'', ''Peter Gunn'', '' 77 Sunset Strip'', ''My Favorite Martian'', ...

as Garland *

Sam Waterston Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television, and film. He has received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actor ...

as Oliver *

Billy Halop William Halop (February 11, 1920 – November 9, 1976) was an American actor. Early life Halop was born to Benjamin Cohen Halop and Lucille Elizabeth Halop on February 11, 1920. Halop came from a theatrical family; his mother was a dancer, and ...

as Restaurant owner ''(uncredited)''

Soundtrack

The film features an early

symphonic A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning ...

score by

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...

, credited both on the album and on screen as "Johnny Williams". Notably the score includes "Make Me Rainbows", the film's love theme and

end credits Closing credits, aka end credits or end titles, are a list of the cast and crew of a particular motion picture, television show, or video game. While opening credits appear at the beginning of a work, closing credits appear close to or at the ve ...

song and Williams' first collaboration with co-writers

Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...

and

Marilyn Bergman Alan Bergman (born September 11, 1925) and Marilyn Keith Bergman (née Katz; November 10, 1928 – January 8, 2022) were an American songwriting duo. Married from 1958 until Marilyn's death, together they wrote music and lyrics for numerous celeb ...

. The score was released commercially at the time by

United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...

(and re-issued in 1980 by

MCA Records MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc. established in 1972, though MCA had released recordings under that name in the UK from the 1960s. The label achieved success in the 1970s through the 1980s, often by acquiring other ...

), and was referred to as the film's "original motion picture score" and not as the "original motion picture soundtrack recording" because instead of performances that had actually been heard in the film Williams opted to release arrangements designed for separate listening. In 2004 a limited edition

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...

was released by

Varèse Sarabande Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, owned by Concord Music Group and distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and cast recording, original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums, as ...

's CD Club which paired the scores of ''Fitzwilly'' and

Robert Altman Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer, producer. He is considered an enduring figure from the New Hollywood era, known for directing subversive and sat ...

's 1973 film '' The Long Goodbye'', another Williams credit. The soundtrack, including the re-recording album and the original complete soundtrack, composed by

was released on the Music Box Records label.

References

External links

* * *
Music Box Records entry for ''Fitzwilly''
{{Delbert Mann 1960s American films 1960s Christmas comedy films 1960s Christmas films 1960s crime comedy films 1960s English-language films 1960s heist films 1967 films 1967 romantic comedy films American Christmas comedy films American crime comedy films American heist films American romantic comedy films Fictional butlers Films about the upper class Films based on American novels Films directed by Delbert Mann Films produced by Walter Mirisch Films scored by John Williams Films set in department stores Films set in New York City Films shot in New York City United Artists films English-language crime comedy films English-language romantic comedy films English-language Christmas comedy films Christmas romance films

Plot

Cast

Soundtrack

See also

References

External links