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So much average

Lack of good storyline.

Better Late Then Never

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

"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.

I've got a slight bone to pick. I remember seeing this. back in '67 in a Saturday afternoon matinée. Twenty-eight years later I began working for the Treasury Dept. There is no Mint in Washington D.C. Jim Hutton works for the Bureau of Engraving & Printing which ain't the Mint. The Mint produces coins, but I suppose having the ever-scheming Hutton walk out of the Mint with a 52 lb bag of quarters wrapped in fudge would suspend disbelief a little too far. The under-rated director, Howard (Ernest T. Bass) Morris did a pretty decent job with the material and it sort of plays like a somewhat less frenetic It's a Mad, Mad, Mad (etc.) World. 3 out of *****.

It's a smaller-scale "Mad Mad Mad etc World" with some crafty veteran gagsters (Gilford, Berle, Buono, Brennan, Bishop et al) doing their shtick. Small improbabilities build and build until you end up with a string of boats with wildly-costumed characters sailing in an improbable location from an impossible caper. Total on-screen madness, yet it made sense at every small plot step along the way. Tightly-constructed and very much a late-60s comedy. It's one of those favorites you're slightly ashamed of.

Like other reviewers here, I have always wondered why this wonderful film has been forgotten. Not only is it a great parody of the 'anatomy of a crime' films that were popular in the 1960's, it showcases some marvelous comedy talent. One little quibble: the title is a misnomer; the conspirators do NOT break into the US Mint. They break into the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the facility in Washington, DC which prints our paper currency).