Fitzwilly

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Fitzwilly
Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Delbert Mann
Produced by	Walter Mirisch
Written by	Screenplay: Isobel Lennart Story: Poyntz Tyler
Starring	Dick Van Dyke Barbara Feldon Edith Evans John McGiver Harry Townes
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Joseph Biroc
Editing by	Ralph Winters
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	December 20, 1967
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Fitzwilly is a 1967 film by Delbert Mann, based on Poyntz Tyler's novel, A Garden of Cucumbers, adapted for the screen by Isobel Lennart. Its title refers to the nickname of Claude Fitzwilliam, an unusually intelligent and highly educated mastermind of a butler played by Dick Van Dyke.

[edit] Story

Fitzwilliam is the butler to Miss Victoria Woodworth (Edith Evans), a formerly wealthy heiress who has given all her money to charity and does not realize it. Miss Woodworth has hired an assistant, Juliet Nowell (Barbara Feldon), for her creation of A Dictionary for Dopes, which contains all possible phonetic spellings of words so that one can look up a correct one. Hints of romance emerge between Claude and Juliet, who tries to get him to go to night school, but he informs her that he already has a degree, and that she would be surprised how much intelligence it takes to be Miss Woodworth's butler. The audience knows long before Juliet does that Fitzwilly has been leading the household staff on numerous raids and swindles so that less generous rich people can fund Miss Woodworth's charitable actions, as well as barroom tricks such as betting that Delilah did not cut off Samson's hair--"I'm in a room full of heathens--Judges 16:19."

The film's finale setpiece has the Woodworth staff orchestrating a complex robbery of Gimbel's Department Store, with Fitzwilly in old age makeup, highly resembling Van Dyke's appearance in Diagnosis: Murder.

[edit] Soundtrack

The film features an early symphonic score by John Williams, transitioning out of his more big band influences with a song he co-wrote with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the end credits titled "Make Me Rainbows". The album, for which he was credited as "Johnny Williams", was known as the "original motion picture score" because it did not contain the performances used in the film, but rather arrangements designed for separate listening, such as he would do for later albums like Jaws. The album was released commercially by MCA Records, but a compact disc was released as a limited edition from Varèse Sarabande's CD Club with Williams's score from The Long Goodbye. The similarity between cues in this film and cues in Return of the Jedi for the Ewoks and Jabba the Hutt have been noted.