ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Dan-13 "Who's Minding the Mint?" has to rank as one of the funniest movies that sadly most people have probably never seen. Director Howard Morris does an amazing job of juggling comedy with caper, thanks in no small part to having a brilliant ensemble of second bananas who make the whole thing seem effortless. As the hapless U.S. mint employee who accidentally destroys $50,000 in freshly minted bills and then has to replace them with the help of some of the most inept accomplices imaginable, Jim Hutton is the perfect straight man to this assortment of loonies. Tops among them are Jack Gilford who's a riot as a hard-of-hearing safe cracker, Victor Buono as former Navy man turned amusement park ride operator and Milton Berle as a pawn shop owner. There are also great bits by Dorothy Provine as a naive mint worker smitten with Hutton, Jamie Farr as a lookout who can't speak English, Joey Bishop as Berle's best customer whose entire apartment is in hock, Bob Denver as an ice cream vendor and Walter Brennan as a former mint worker who has to take along his expectant beagle Icky on the night of the big heist. Icky, played by Peanuts, holds her own with these pros, and earns big laughs as she searches throughout the Mint for a spot to have her puppies.The movie is perfect family entertainment and a million laughs from beginning to end. If you're looking for a real feel-good movie, "Who's Minding the Mint?" is money in the bank.

JasparLamarCrabb As bubbly as a movie can be without being a Disney film...and it's a lot of fun. Jim Hutton stars as an employee of the US Mint who plots to "un-rob" the place with a rag-tag assortment of helpers. Hutton is terrific as always. Nobody played light comedy like him in the sixties...he's clearly a lot more comfortable at it than counterparts like James Garner and Rock Hudson. It's directed by Howard Morris so it has an almost burlesque quality to it. Morris has a comic touch that's like a less edgy Mel Brooks. The supporting cast could have easily made up a late 60s episode of "Hollywood Squares": Bob Denver, Joey Bishop, Jack Gilford, Milton Berle, Walter Brennan. The love interest is played by the effervescent Dorothy Provine. Harmless entertainment to be sure.

ccthemovieman-1 This low-key comedy features a wonderful cast which is generally fun to watch. There are not a lot of laugh-out-scenes and definitely not as funny as adversed, but still enjoyable. Although mostly greedy, most of the characters are still likable enough. I particularly enjoyed Jack Gilford and Milton Berle's roles, the latter when he played George Washington!The rest of the cast includes such names as Dortohy Provine (there's a '60s actress that seemed to disappear quickly), Walter Brennan, Bob Denver, Victor Buono, Joey Bishop and Jamie Farr.In all, a pleasant lightweight comedy which probably deserves to be better known.

theowinthrop This film and "The Busy Body" are the two forgotten comic gems of the 1960s in that genre of films where all the prominent comedians appeared together. We recall "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming?", "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines", "Monte Carlo, or Bust?", and "The Wrong Box". But these two films not recalled, probably because the settings are not as colorful as the other films. Several of them are period pictures, one is set on Nantucket Island, and one is a type of cross-country chase based on greed. Greed plays a part in "Who's Minding the Mint?" and "The Busy Body", but the settings (while unusual in both films - here with a government building at night, and a sewer transversed by row boats, the other one dealing with a barbecue on a skyscraper's terrace and a corpse set up on a bench with a woman trying to vamp it)are not quite as colorful.I like both movies, and this one is funny for reasons starting with it's cast and going through the routines and shticks they throw up. Victor Buono normally played villains or neurotics in films (even in comedies like "Four For Texas", but also "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, where he wasn't the actual villain). Here he is a sea captain, who has dreamed of building a great sailing boat. Unfortunately he captains the little boats on a kiddie ride in the park. Milton Berle is a successful pawn shop owner, who lets his greed get the better of him - and neatly expands the complications of plotting in the film. Bob Denver, nominally an ice cream truck driver, turns into a sex idol. Jack Gilford is a great safe cracker, but he has gone deaf in prison (don't ask), and now needs a good hearing aide to hear the tumblers fall into place. So it goes on and on. Even Joey Bishop finally had a decent comic turn here as a man with a serious gambling problem. The Rat Pack films never served him as well. Jim Hutton and Dorothy Provine make a nice, appealing couple, with Walter Brennan as a type of fairy "godfather" to them. But there is a cute lesson about the true value of paper money. Supposedly the level of paper currency is watched to prevent inflation like that type which Weimer Germany had in 1922-23. But the plot involves reprinting much paper money to cover an error, and then some. As this would be included in the official records of the printing plant, it would be subsumed into the normal level of money printed each year. Nobody would ever notice the additional greenbacks that have been printed illegally. So if the record conforms perfectly, there is no actual counterfeiting. So much for the value of paper money...at least in this movie's point of view.