Fitzwilly (1967)

This has been my on my list for years, but I kept tabling it in favor of movies that were better regarded or where the holiday connections were (based on the synopses) less dubious. I didn't doubt there'd be Christmas elements in Fitzwilly, but in my experience movies made prior to the '80s where Christmas doesn't feature heavily in the description are often edge cases.

This one... no, this is very much a Christmas movie. Unambiguously, unquestionably Christmas.

Also, I'm going to deviate from the consensus and say, in my opinion, it's a very good Christmas movie. I'm honestly a little surprised to find this is widely considered somewhat of a middling film. I'm not seeing much online concerning its release, and only a handful of critics seem to have considered it worth reviewing it retroactively. Reviews I skimmed on Letterboxd tend to lean towards "underwhelming," though several acknowledge it was fun. While I can understand where its detractors are coming from, I had a far more positive reaction.

The premise centers around Fitzwilliam, a New York City butler played by Dick Van Dyke, who - with the help of the rest of the staff - orchestrates a series of heists, cons, and other crimes to maintain the lifestyle of their unwitting employer, Victoria, a kindly elderly heiress who doesn't realize she didn't actually inherit much of anything. Their victims are the city's wealthy households, high-end stores, and the insurance companies covering them. The thefts are complex, ridiculous capers; they don't employ violence, and no one is ever hurt (or even threatened).

They're in the middle of a particularly elaborate caper with a sizable payout when Victoria decides to hire a new secretary to help with a book she's been working on for years: a reverse dictionary pointing users from alternate spellings to correct ones. Juliet, the new secretary played by Barbara Feldon (Agent 99 on Get Smart), intuits something is strange about Fitzwilliam. The two clash initially, but in the tradition of the screwball comedies this evokes, fall in love.

By the time Juliet discovers Fitzwilliam's secrets, she's inadvertently created some complications by interfering with the team's efforts to prevent Victoria from making several sizable charitable donations. Naturally, it seems their only hope is one final job big enough to solve the household's financial issues. Fortunately, it's just about Christmas, when department stores will be cash heavy. Fitzwilliam masterminds a plan to steal the entire take.

Things naturally work until they don't. The flaw isn't in the plan itself, but rather the conscience of one of their conspirators, a former minister who attempts penance by confessing to the robbery to take the blame. This, of course, fails miserably, as it draws attention to his employer, who goes in to sort things out. Victoria winds up cutting the store a check for the amount taken in exchange for charges being dropped (it turns out she can be quite persuasive herself). However this means the household is set to lose the entire take, which will also leave them in debt and in jeopardy.

Or it would if Juliet hadn't connected Victoria to a publisher. Turns out, she's just been handed half a million dollars by a Hollywood producer eager to turn her book into a movie (I'm not entirely sure how you adapt a dictionary, but that's part of the joke). So everything ends well, with Fitzwilliam and Juliet able to marry.

Most of the fun in the movie is in the heists; just be aware this is comedy, not suspense. The point of all this is breezy fun - while this is using elements drawn from heist films, it's not one of them. Perhaps that's part of the reason this isn't more respected. If you watch this looking for, say, the intensity of Mission Impossible or Ocean's Eleven, it's going to seem trivial in comparison. But taken on its own merits, it's a whimsical, ridiculous romantic farce.

The entirety of the film is set around the holidays, as evidenced by decorations appearing throughout. The movie reiterates this with a timeline connected to one of their schemes counting down towards January 3rd (though this gets moved up to Christmas Day by the end of the film). From a plot standpoint, the holidays are significant both as a season of giving (which paradoxically poses a danger to the protagonists) and a season of shopping (which the finale hinges on). The Christmas Eve shopping rush is exploited as a distraction by Fitzwilliam and a source of comedy by director Delbert Mann. The mayhem the team of criminals magnifies feels a little like a precursor to comedies about holiday shopping (such as Jingle All the Way), as well as countless portrayals of Black Friday.

I had a blast watching this one. It's not trying to be dramatic or say anything profound, though there's certainly some subtext around the absurdity of wealth and capitalism. This is aiming for charm above all else, and the presence of the holidays magnifies this effect. This is a joyful, absurd comedic romp offering a different story than you typically see in Christmas movies. I definitely recommend giving it a shot over the holidays. It's a lot of fun.