Fitzwilly

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Fitzwilly is a 1967 film directed by Delbert Mann and starring Dick Van Dyke as the title character Claude Fitzwilliam and Barbara Feldon as Juliet Nowell. Miss Victoria Woodworth (Edith Evans) is a wealthy elderly heiress, living a peaceful life with a large household staff and frequently engaging in philanthropy. There is, however, one rather large problem with her lifestyle: She doesn't actually have any money. Her wealthy father left her a mere $200, and her servants, led by Fitzwilliam, have been engaging in elaborate schemes and scams in order to facilitate her lifestyle. All this threatens to unravel, however, when Miss Woodworth brings in Juliet Nowell, an outsider to their servant network, to help compile a dictionary with all possible phonetic misspellings. Trying to prevent Juliet from discovering their crimes, Fitzwilliam courts her in order to persuade her to leave. However, things become complicated when he begins to fall for her for real...


Tropes used in Fitzwilly include:
  • The Atoner - Former priest servant Albert, who, consumed with guilt over his crimes, turns himself in after the Christmas job.
  • The Con - The specialty of the servants.
  • Crime-Time TV
  • Impoverished Patrician: Miss Woodworth, unknowingly.
  • Land Poor - Miss Woodworth doesn't have the money to support her family home.
  • Mock Millionaire - Miss Woodworth, not that she's aware of it.
  • Uncle Pennybags - Miss Woodworth, who is very generous with her philanthropy. Very generous. She's also not afraid to lightly blackmail the district attorney to go soft on her servant.
  • Wealthy Ever After - In the end, the dictionary is turned into a screenplay and is sold to Hollywood, solving the household's financial problems.