The new documentary ‚Starring Dick Van Dyke‘ honors the actor as he turns 100 through interviews with former cast mates and contemporaries.<\/b>
\nDick Van Dyke turns 100 on Saturday, an event so eagerly anticipated that for him not to do so would seem cosmically wrong. It may be generationally vain of me to imagine that the beauties of \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show\u201d and \u201cMary Poppins\u201d are known and loved by those after their time, but as they remain available to watch and are still shared by parents with their children, it seems likely.
Although Van Dyke\u2019s professional schedule isn\u2019t what it was \u2014 a canceled public appearance in June made headlines, sending waves of concern throughout the nation \u2014 he has remained visible over the last decade in interviews and social media posts, often dancing or exercising, and the odd acting job. In 2023, he appeared on \u201cThe Masked Singer\u201d as \u201cThe Gnome\u201d and guested for a four-episode run on \u201cDays of Our Lives\u201d as a man with amnesia. (It won him \u2014 another \u2014 Emmy.) He marked his 99th birthday by appearing in a Coldplay video, shot at his Malibu home, dancing to \u201cAll My Love\u201d as Chris Martin sings at the piano. (They went on \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d together.) His latest book, \u201c100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist\u2019s Guide to a Happy Life,\u201d came out last month, following \u201cMy Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business\u201d (2011) and \u201cKeep Moving: And Other Tips and Truths About Aging\u201d (2015).
Friday brings a PBS special, \u201cStarring Dick Van Dyke,\u201d appearing as part of the \u201cAmerican Masters\u201d series \u2014 and who would deny that he has earned that title? (An unconnected film, \u201cDick Van Dyke 100th Celebration,\u201d will play exclusively at Regent Theaters on Saturday and Sunday.) Directed by John Scheinfeld (\u201cReinventing Elvis: The \u201968 Comeback,\u201d \u201cThe U.S. vs. John Lennon\u201d), it\u2019s a celebration of a man and an artist easy to celebrate, a bringer of joy whose signature song \u2014 from \u201cBye Bye, Birdie, \u201c which made him a Broadway star and led to his becoming a movie star and a TV star \u2014 is \u201cPut On a Happy Face.\u201d Though the actor\u2019s alcoholism is addressed here, in a long excerpt from a 1974 Dick Cavett interview \u2014 he\u2019s been sober since 1972 \u2014 dark times are generally elided. The end of his first marriage, to Margie Willett, the mother of his four children, is expressed only by the words \u201cdrifting apart\u201d and digitally erasing her from a family photo; it should be said here that Van Dyke has no official connection to this film and is not newly interviewed here.
Gathered together among the performance clips that are the main reason to watch the film are testimonies from famous friends and fans, which amount to: Van Dyke was a delight to know, to work with, or to watch. We hear from Carol Burnett, seen with him in pre-fame clips from \u201cThe Garry Moore Show\u201d and together again in his own 1976 variety show \u201cVan Dyke and Company\u201d (brilliantly improvising an unplanned slow-motion fight between a couple of oldsters). Julie Andrews, his \u201cMary Poppins\u201d co-star, does not think that Van Dyke\u2019s controversial Cockney accent is all that bad, \u201cand he was so rivetingly entertaining, funny and sweet, one really didn\u2019t get bothered by it.\u201d
Steve Martin awards him \u201ca likability factor of 10,\u201d and Martin Short (seated inevitably next to Martin) recalls scribbling \u201cDVD\u201d in a script meaning \u201cdo Dick Van Dyke.\u201d Ted Danson, another long-limbed actor, on whose sitcom \u201cBecker\u201d Van Dyke guested in a run of episodes as his father in \u201ca serious turn,\u201d says that \u201che did all the human things but in such an elegant way.\u201d Jim Carrey \u2014 himself noted for a certain Van Dyke-like rubberiness \u2014 thinks the star\u2019s famous trip over an ottoman in the opening credits of his sitcom, is \u201cnot a pratfall, it\u2019s a metaphor; if you tumble, you got to pop right up and laugh at yourself, because you\u2019re ridiculous \u2014 we\u2019re all ridiculous \u2014 and life is an obstacle course of unforeseen ottomans.\u201d
Conan O\u2019Brien compares him to Gumby and dances with him on his TBS talk show. Larry Mathews, who played son Ritchie on \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show,\u201d pronounces him \u201cchill.\u201d We also get Pat Boone, on whose late \u201850s variety show Van Dyke appeared; Karen Dotrice, who played little Jane Banks in \u201cPoppins\u201d; NPR media analyst Eric Deggans, providing context; and Victoria Rowell, from Van Dyke\u2019s 1993 mystery series, \u201cDiagnosis: Murder,\u201d which ran three seasons longer than \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show\u201d and may, in some circles, be what he\u2019s best known for.
And there are, of course, archival interviews with the late Carl Reiner, who created \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show\u201d and calls its star \u201cthe single most talented man that\u2019s ever been in situation comedy,\u201d and co-star Mary Tyler Moore, whose sexual chemistry with Van Dyke, as Rob and Laurie Petrie, was something new for television in 1961 and rarely equaled since. (They were perhaps the only sitcom couple who danced and sang together.) That series, which ran until 1966, when Reiner and company, not wanting to get stale, pulled it from the air, was the perfect frame for the star\u2019s gifts, an unusually lifelike workplace\/family comedy that made room for Van Dyke\u2019s silent-movie physical comedy and reactions.
Purely as a film, \u201cStarring Dick Van Dyke\u201d does suffer some from the challenge of tracking a 100-year life and a career that runs back more than eight decades; it\u2019s something of an unwieldy hodgepodge whose flow, like many such documentaries, depends on who agrees to talk, what they have to say, what photos and films are available (and affordable) and, of course, what interests the filmmakers. Disappointingly, there are no clips from the 1971 sitcom \u201cThe New Dick Van Dyke Show,\u201d which Van Dyke dismisses here but I quite liked, and surprisingly, no mention of the 2004 reunion, \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited,\u201d written by Reiner and featuring all the surviving cast members. (I also have some issues with the kooky framing graphics.)
But there\u2019s so much to see (and hear), going back to a snippet of the future star on local radio in Danville, Ill., where he started working as a teenager, and footage of him in the Merry Mutes, the lip-syncing double act that started his nightclub career in the late 1940s; various unsuccessful stints as a morning show anchor (with Walter Cronkite), a cartoon show host and a game show host; and performing \u201cPut on a Happy Face\u201d alongside Broadway castmate Susan Watson.
Appropriately, the most time is dedicated to \u201cThe Dick Van Dyke Show\u201d and \u201cMary Poppins\u201d (along with \u201cMary Poppins Returns,\u201d in which Van Dyke, as the aged son of the aged banker he surreptitiously played in the first film, danced on a desk \u2014 at 93. The production and rehearsal photos are delightful \u2014 and a gift to Moore and Andrews fans as well \u2014 with everyone looking young and beautiful. He paints himself as \u201clazy\u201d and \u201clucky,\u201d not driven (except to earn a living for his family), \u201cnot an actor.\u201d But the world decided for itself.
Apart from the 1968 \u201cChitty Chitty Bang Bang,\u201d a sort of \u201cPoppins\u201d redux that has a considerable consistency of its own, and the Reiner penned-and-directed \u201cThe Comic,\u201d a 1969 drama about a silent film comedian reckoning with the talkies, his post \u201cPoppins\u201d theatrical films are relegated to a single description and a collage \u2014 not even a montage \u2014 of posters. More attention is paid to \u201cThe Morning After,\u201d a 1974 TV movie in which Van Dyke played an alcoholic businessman; it was around then that he went public with his own drinking problem.
Toward the end, the documentary sometimes has the air of a promotional piece, with accounts of charities Van Dyke supports. But two hours of Van Dyke performances cannot help but be entertaining. All you need to do is set up the clips and get out of the way. A man desperately searching for a handkerchief while trying to stifle a sneeze, the world\u2019s oldest magician making a comeback \u2014 these hilarious bits require no context.
Inevitably, it is also a story of time, given a century of photos and films marking every stage of life. His long arms, his long legs and his overall all length are not what they used to be. But the long (which is not to say sad) face is as recognizable and expressive as it ever was.<\/p>\n