Dick Van Dyke

[charliechaplinfan]

Here I am starting a thread for my daughter. I had a month of endless repetitions of Mary Poppins. Next week her school are going to have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at their school fair. She's very excited. Now we have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on a loop. She's nutty about Dick Van Dyke.

I'm quite pleased because I like Dick Van Dyke. he's very nice. I have watched Step In Time and It's A Jolly Holiday With Mary countless times and My Old Bamboo and the title song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I leave the kids to it for the rest of the films but for me when I hear those songs starting it's a bit like when Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly are on the screen, I have to watch him dancing. Especially to 'Me Old Bamboo'

I think he has quite a unique quality in these two films that I haven't seen in anyone else. Fatherly for the kids and quite nice for Mums. This is the concensus down at the school gate, we're all having to watch it as all the kids are excited.

We showed Libby Dick Van Dyke on Diagnosis Murder but she doesn't believe it's him.

I've tried looking on imdb for details about him but there isn't much there.

Does anyone know, was he a dancer, or singer or all round entertainer before he hit the big time with Mary Poppins.

[knitwit45]

Alison, try You Tube for clips from "The Dick Van Dyke Show." He, Mary Tyler Moore, Morey Amsterdam, Carl Reiner, and all the others were very, very funny.

Nancy

[Ollie]

One of my favorite "missing from DVD production, O DVD Gods" titles is the 1965 ART OF LOVE with Dick Van Dyke and James Garner, Elke Sommers, Angie Dickinson, Ethel Merman and Carl Reiner. I've suspected the French may have seen it as too heretical (portraying a starving American artist in Paris) and thus destroyed all prints! ha ha...

But it's a great teaming for Van Dyke and Garner.

I never cared for CHITTY because it paled in comparison to POPPINS, I thought. He's also great as the wife-killer in a Columbo episode. Peter Falk is just too darned tricky! Of course, Wifeypoo doesn't let me watch THOSE episodes. We do get to see Susan Clark episodes... Deborah Kerr episodes... Vera Miles episodes... Janet Leigh episodes...

Gee - ya think she's trying to tell me something? Hmmm... what could it be?

[ChiO]

Alison,

Dick Van Dyke won a Tony for Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway, which preceded his appearance in MARY POPPINS. What I find fascinating is that he and his brother, Jerry (who has had some good turns on U.S. TV), grew up in a small town, Danville (his character Rob Petrie's hometown), about two hours south of Chicago that is also the hometown of Gene Hackman and Bobby Short (late cabaret singer and marvelous interpreter of Cole Porter songs). Something in the water?

[MissGoddess]

"The Dick Van Dyke Show" is my all-time favorite TV program. I have ALL of the episodes on DVD and I really do watch them frequently.

I think his comedic style is remarkable in that he's a throwback to the old days of physical comedy but he also possesses a real elegance and lightness which enables him to deliver dialogue with wit. A rare combination.

Of his movies, THE ART OF LOVE is by far my favorite. I grew up watching it on TV!! What happened to it? I've wondered about it's disappearance.

[knitwit45]

I love him in Bye Bye Birdie, but my favorite movie of his is "Fitzwilly". He is absolutely sexy in that one, but his best scene is in the restaurant, gently teaching a nervous young man how to serve wine.
Charming movie, and he never looked better! Dame Edith Evans and John McGiver just about steal the movie.

Nancy

[klondike]

Van Dyke is undeniably a comic genius; but I still maintain that anyone wishing to appreciate his true dramatic range should strive to find & watch Stanley Kramer's controversial The Runner Stumbles; critics of the day (right up through our own Lenny Maltin) panned it - personally, I found it profound, unique & very thought-provoking, with DVD's work in the lead role therein absolutely groundbreaking.
But that's what makes horse races, right?

[movieman1957]

It is probably tough to find but his performance in "The Morning After" is very good. He plays an alcoholic. (He has sufferred that in life as well.)

A gifted actor, comic, dancer, singer and host of other talents. He also does a great Stan Laurel.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'd love to see his Stan Laurel impression.

I too am fed up of his accent being criticised in Mary Poppins. To me great as Julie Andrews is it's Dick Van Dyke who steals the film.

Dick Van Dyke and James Garner, I never knew they had a career togather.

Thanks for filling in this thread, Libby will be very pleased.