I was just talking to my wife about this hilarious movie from the mid-sixties and decided to look it up on the web. I first saw it on an afternoon movie show, "Dialing for Dollars" from the Bay Area of California.
The premise is nothing short of genius - an artist (Dick Van Dyke) pretends to commit suicide in order to make his paintings more valuable. His best friend (James Garner) helps him pull it off, but horns in on Van Dyke's girl. When Van Dyke finds out about it, he decides NOT to surface after his disappearance starts to look like a murder. His buddy is implicated and Van Dyke decides to let his "friend" sweat it out through a trial (where Van Dyke shows up in an "old man" disguise" a la his old man character from Mary Poppins) where Garner is sentenced for murder.
Others on this forum seem to remember the old lady who likes to watch be-headings murmur "Guillotine. GUILLOTINE!" while Garner is being led to his execution.
My favorite scene, though, is where Van Dyke is trying to make it to the execution in time to reveal he is not really dead in order to save his friend at the last minute.
He's riding in a cab and there is a traffic jam in a small town on the way there. Van Dyke nervously tells the cab driver to hurry because he has to get to his best friend's execution. The driver pulls the cab to a sudden stop, exits the cab, pulls Van Dyke to his feet by the lapels exclaiming, "What kind of a ghoul are you?", throws him on a dirt pile and drives off.
The hilarity of this scene is Van Dyke running around with his long lanky legs trying to find a way to the prison where Garner is about to be executed.
Kudos to the writer, director and actors in this madcap, scream of a movie!
The premise is nothing short of genius - an artist (Dick Van Dyke) pretends to commit suicide in order to make his paintings more valuable. His best friend (James Garner) helps him pull it off, but horns in on Van Dyke's girl. When Van Dyke finds out about it, he decides NOT to surface after his disappearance starts to look like a murder. His buddy is implicated and Van Dyke decides to let his "friend" sweat it out through a trial (where Van Dyke shows up in an "old man" disguise" a la his old man character from Mary Poppins) where Garner is sentenced for murder.
Others on this forum seem to remember the old lady who likes to watch be-headings murmur "Guillotine. GUILLOTINE!" while Garner is being led to his execution.
My favorite scene, though, is where Van Dyke is trying to make it to the execution in time to reveal he is not really dead in order to save his friend at the last minute.
He's riding in a cab and there is a traffic jam in a small town on the way there. Van Dyke nervously tells the cab driver to hurry because he has to get to his best friend's execution. The driver pulls the cab to a sudden stop, exits the cab, pulls Van Dyke to his feet by the lapels exclaiming, "What kind of a ghoul are you?", throws him on a dirt pile and drives off.
The hilarity of this scene is Van Dyke running around with his long lanky legs trying to find a way to the prison where Garner is about to be executed.
Kudos to the writer, director and actors in this madcap, scream of a movie!