BY LEE PFEIFFER
The Warner archive has released the 1972 crime comedy "Every Little Crook and Nanny" as a burn-to-order DVD. The film boasts an impressive cast with Lynn Redgrave top-lined as Miss Poole, a comically stereotypical prim and proper young British woman of good manners who operates an etiquette school for boys and girls. When she is evicted so that the school can be utilized as a site for nefarious doings by crime kingpin Carmine Ganucci (Victor Mature), Miss Poole is facing destitution and the loss of her livelihood. When she goes to Ganucci to explain her plight, she is mistaken for one of many young women who are applying to be the crime lord's family nanny. He is instantly smitten by her good manners and eloquent speech and hires her on the spot. Miss Poole devises a plan to take advantage of the situation. She accepts the position and is soon regarded as an indispensable employee of Ganucci and his wife Stella (Margaret Blye). It seems Miss Poole is the only one who can control the couple's independent-minded, pre-pubescent son Lewis (Phillip Graves.). The kid is a real handful. He's sassy, sometimes arrogant and not prone to following orders, even though he seems to idolize his father for being a feared Mafia don. When Carmine and Stella leave for a romantic vacation in Italy, Miss Poole enacts an audacious plot to stage a phony kidnapping of Lewis in the hopes that she can extort just enough money from Carmine ($50,000) to reopen her etiquette school in another location. To carry out the scheme she enlists her former piano player at the school, Luther (Austin Pendleton) to pose as the kidnapper. The perpetually tense, nerdy young man bungles virtually every aspect of the caper but manages to get Lewis back to his apartment, where the young "victim" forms an instant bond with Luther's doting wife Ida (Mina Kolb), who not only views Lewis as the child she always wanted but uses his presence to chastise her husband for their sexless marriage. Meanwhile, Miss Poole reports the kidnapping to one of Carmine's low-level mob guys, Benny Napkins (Paul Sand). Benny is less-than-happy about being chosen to help Miss Poole deal with the kidnap situation, especially since he knows Carmine will have him murdered if Lewis is not returned safely. Miss Poole assures him that, if they can devise a ruse to get Carmine to send the $50,000 to them, they can retrieve Lewis before Carmine even realizes a kidnapping has occurred. To carry out this aspect of the plot, she goes to Carmine's lawyers (Dom DeLuise and John Astin), who immediately realize that their lives are on the line if they don't get Lewis back safely. An unexpected plot device is introduced wherein Carmine, oblivious to his son's fate, enters a deal with some minor criminals in Italy that requires payment of a sum of money that coincidentally equals the ransom demand. From this point, everyone gets confused (including the viewer) as the main characters scramble about, often working against each other's interests in order to save Lewis as well as their own lives. One of the more off-the-wall elements of the film is dual personality of Miss Poole, who generally acts like a dowdy Mary Poppins-like personality, but who is willing to drop her knickers in order to keep Benny Napkins in line.
The cleverest aspect of the film is it's witty title. Unfortunately, the screenplay, based on the novel by Evan Hunter, doesn't carry through on a promising scenario despite (or because of) the fact that it was developed by three writers. The director, veteran screenwriter Cy Howard, who had enjoyed a recent success with Lovers and Other Strangers, keeps the pace brisk and sometimes frantic, and gets spirited performances from a fine cast (Austin Pendleton is most amusing). However, the film never delivers the belly laughs the scenario seems to promise and the movie ends up being more likable than genuinely funny. The DVD includes an original trailer that amusingly plays up the return of Victor Mature as a leading man ("The ORIGINAL Victor Mature!"). Mature, who hit it big in the 1940s and 1950s, had only appeared sporadically on film in the decade prior to this movie. The film does afford him a rare opportunity to show off his skills with light comedy, and he delivers a very funny performance.
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