Never a Dull Moment Movie Review (1968)

I’m a big fan of Dick Van Dyke, so I was excited when I saw that he had another movie. Unfortunately after watching it, I’m not surprised that I hadn’t seen it before. For this project, I’m focusing on the story itself, including dialogue, character development, any subplots, how a story presents itself, the speed at which it moves, if it slows down unnecessarily, etc.

A Brief Summary

(Taken from D23)

Mistaken for a hired killer, television actor Jack Albany impersonates the man to save his own life. However, he is forced to join a gang of hoodlums attempting to heist an enormous 42-foot-long painting, “A Field of Sunflowers, ” from the Manhattan Museum of Art. Then the real killer shows up. But Jack outwits him, thwarts the robbery, and also finds time to fall in love. Released on June 26, 1968.

What works

The entire museum portion, including an Eleanor Audley cameo at the museum party just before the heist, was fun, moved well (pace-wise), and didn’t take too long (like the house scenes before the museum scenes started).

What may or may not work

I like the cast, but I don’t like the script. Frankly, the writing was a letdown, and it seemed like they wrote the script with the expectation that Dick Van Dyke’s comedy skills would carry the script through.
- And it’s not like the other cast members were lacking, they had talented actors (including Edward G. Robinson, whom I love for his performance as Dathan in The Ten Commandments), but actors can only do so much with the written material they have.
The balance of the movie is off. Only 20 minutes or so (closer to 15) is spent from the time they get to the museum party, with the rest of the movie (around 80 minutes) spent at Joe Smooth’s house. They didn’t need to spend so long at Smooth’s house, especially since a lot of it was unnecessary to the plot. There were fluff portions.
I can appreciate Jack’s (Dick Van Dyke) efforts to pretend to be a hitman, in order to survive being stuck in Smooth’s house and on the heist job, but the script seemed to depend far too much on his efforts. So, instead of the script setting him up to shine, it seemed that he was going above and beyond the script. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his best performance, though not for lack of trying.
Not that I didn’t the scenes with the wife, Melanie Smooth (played by Joanna Cook Moore), but they didn’t really do anything to move the plot forward. I would have kept part of them, like when Dick Van Dyke was on the windowsill outside of her window, but the rest of it could have been shortened.
Everything just moves slow. So even if every single scene does build upon each other to keep the story moving forward (which they do in a way, even the above-mentioned wife scenes), the pacing is so slow, that even with 30 minutes left in the movie, the plot is still not even to the museum heist yet.
The museum scenes feel a lot longer than the 15 minutes that they actually are (the 15 minutes including the ending scene), yet no where near as long as the entire first 80-85 minutes of the movie.

Honorable Mentions

I do quite love when Jack gets caught on the windowsill by Smooth, and starts fake crying about his Aunt Gladys. It is most definitely one of the highlights of the movie for me.
Eleanor Audley’s cameo in the party. I love her, and this was one of her final roles (this was also an uncredited role for her).
I’m pretty sure that they used a stunt double in the final museum scene when Dick Van Dyke and the remaining henchmen were on the large art piece. I hadn’t noticed it during the earlier viewing, but when I was watching it again (and taking notes). It had me laughing when I started seeing when the stunt double appeared.

Side Questions

I wonder what the aftermath of Smooth’s arrest at the end was like. Specifically the real Ace back at Smooth’s house. Did he make Smooth pay up for sticking him in the cellar, or did they just all agree to never speak of it again?

Would I watch this movie again?

As much as I liked the cast, it’s just not one that I really need to see again. I like that I’ve seen it, but for a movie called ‘Never a Dull Moment’, there were a lot of dull moments.