FITZWILLY (1967)

Or, what exactly is a Christmas movie?

I'm sure I've mentioned in the past my obsessive concern with what makes something a Christmas movie. Years ago, I read an article that said it wasn't enough for a movie to be primarily set at Christmas; it should also have some element of magic. Think of movies like Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, or any version of A Christmas Carol. I like this criterion, though it’s not a foolproof test; A Christmas Story, The Holly and the Ivy, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and its ilk (stories of suburban holiday antics) may not have any magic or fantasy, but they are laser-focused on Christmas. For some viewers, any movie which features a Christmas scene or setting is a Christmas movie (see Die Hard fans); for me, defining a Christmas movie is like defining pornography: I know it when I see it. When I wrote my review of BEYOND TOMORROW, I realized that there are, more or less, two kinds of Christmas movies: those that are clearly striving for Christmas movie status, and those that have that status thrust upon them. This, like BEYOND, has become a Christmas movie by default for two reasons: the climax takes place in Gimbels department store on Christmas Eve, and the film is currently in the Turner Classic Movies library so they show it every December as a holiday classic. However, there really is little else about this that deserves the Christmas movie label.

Fitzwilly (Dick Van Dyke) is butler and head of household to the rich, elderly and philanthropic Victoria Woodworth (Edith Evans), but as we discover, she is no longer rich. Fitzwilly and his staff have been acting as Robin Hood and his merry men, engaging in theft and con games in order to support Woodworth in her charitable ways. Their well-intentioned larceny goes off smoothly until Victoria hires Juliet (Barbara Feldon) as a secretary to help her with a dictionary of misspelled words that she hopes to get published. After a prickly initial encounter, Juliet and Fitzwilly slowly warm up to each other. Juliet, without realizing it, begins throwing monkey wrenches into the plans for the staff's criminal behavior. When she discovers what they've been doing, Fitzwilly agrees to stop, but he has to pull one last big heist: steal all the cash in Gimbels department store at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Parts of this are fun, but overall it should be fizzier and looser than it is. One problem is Van Dyke; much as I love him on TV, he just doesn't have what it takes to come alive on the big screen (Bye Bye Birdie excepted). He feels pent up, like he wants to let loose with some slapstick but can't. He has more chemistry with the staff (including John McGiver, Noam Pitlik and a young Sam Waterston) than he does with Feldon, who herself comes off as absolutely charming. I'm not sure why Feldon didn’t have a bigger movie career–maybe because it seemed like she was always playing variations on her Agent 99 character on the 60s TV comedy Get Smart. The big Gimbels climax is lots of fun, but getting there is sometimes a bit trying. As for whether or not it's a Christmas movie, I don't think so, but I guess that really depends on the viewer. [TCM]