The Private Eyes

I saw this movie for the first time when I was eight years old, and loved it from the start. Even though at the time I wasn't old enough to get all the jokes, It still had a magic around it that was clearly evident.

Tim Conway and Don Knotts provide the comic base, and are excellent comic partners. They are backed up with great performances by the crazy and somewhat odd "staff" of the couple who's murder they are investigating. This one will have you laughing from start to finish. The comedy is also good, clean humor that the entire family can laugh at.

Another great thing is that the movie also is very suspenseful, as you the viewer don't know everything until the private eyes find it out.

This is a typical Don Knotts comedy in the same caliber as "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken". I actually went to the theater to see this when it first came out and was surprised to see that it was filmed in a very familiar location, The Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C. Don Knotts is the overbearing lead detective as Tim Conway is the clumsy assistant trying to solve a homicide at the huge mansion. Don Knotts is more cast as the character of Mr.Furley in "Three's Company" than he is Barney Fife. Tim Conway is typical Tim from the Carol Burnette Show but it really is both of them together that makes this movie so funny. The movie is clean and would be very enjoyable by the whole family as these two goof-balls are hilarious.

Growing up it was Andy and Three's company and so on that had campy humor. It was the same case that was "funny" for the slap stick type of humor of what was considered funny "in the 70's and 80's" and so on for other TV shows for their time. In my opinion watching this movie reflecting back to the time it was and remembering it as kid to now was just great. The humor that made me smile was nice and made me think back to the days when i watched those shows, as i often do on nick at night, to laugh as I did then and still do even on reruns. Tim Conway and Don Knotts do a great job of muddling thru trying to solve a mystery with a great supporting cast.

Any movie that features Don Knotts as a brilliant detective and Tim Conway as his faithful assistant certainly has courage going for it.

But "Private Eyes" is better than you might expect; the setting (Biltmore Castle) is beautiful, the supporting cast (Fox in particular) is hilarious and a lot, if not all, of the gags are priceless.

Then again, what would you expect from Knotts' above-it-all air of pseudo-intelligence and Conway's endless pratfalls and an overcoat full of pigeons (don't ask)? They're two of the old-school comedians who know what's funny and never try to go further than the jokes will go.

"Private Eyes" works because Knotts and Conway are, more or less, just being themselves. Definitely a film worth seeking out.

You'll laugh. Trust me.

Seven stars. And don't drink the ink.

OK, so maybe "The Private Eyes" is sort of a rehash of "Murder by Death", but it's still a laugh riot. It's essentially what would happen if Laurel & Hardy or Gilligan & the Skipper were detectives investigating a murder in an English mansion. In this case, Don Knotts is the irascible straight man and Tim Conway is his dimwitted assistant, looking into the killing of some aristocrats in a possibly haunted estate. The entire movie is basically an excuse for a series of gags, some clever and some cheap. It certainly made me laugh. As for the obvious plot holes...well, it's just a movie.

Yes, there's nothing special about the movie, but I still liked it. Also starring Trisha Noble, Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay on "Bewitched"), Grace Zabriskie, Irwin Keyes and Suzy Mandel.