The plot is as follows: Jack Albany --comic actor who ironically usually plays heavies-- walks off the set of stereotypical gangster TV movie still wearing his mobster outfit costume. He meets a young punk, named Florian, who confuses Jack for a hit man the former was expecting but has never seen. Jack calls upon his best acting skills to pretend to be the hit man (known only as Ace Williams). He and Florian hightail it back to cultured gangster Joe Smooth's mansion. There, while still pretending to be Ace, Jack learns of a Smooth-plot to steal a painting from the Manhatten Museum of Art the next day. "Ace" has the task of killing one or two Museum guards to make the theft possible. Jack makes the acquaintance of Smooth's comely female art instructor. A romance quickly develops between the two. To sum it all up Jack and the instructor then manage to foil the heist, get Smooth and all his henchmen arrested and the new couple live happily ever after (with Jack BTW getting favorable heist-foiling publicity which will undoubtedly help his acting career).
Now to the misunderstanding part I wrote of in the title. This film is slightly dull--but on purpose. Ironic to its title. It is supposed to be about the difference between stereotypical-film gangster situations and real life gangsters. When the film opened up taking place on the set of a gangster movie the film Jack and the other actors are making looks all clichéd with a big, melodramatic shootout at the end of the story. There are no such theatrics when Jack is foiling the "real" gangster heist at the Museum --just a lot of talk and clumsy chasing and stumbling (perhaps more like it would really happen). The "real" gangsters are superbly drawn out (even to the point of some of them (like "Cowboy" Schaefer) possibly being slightly boring but hey they are supposed to be more like real life hoods and they aren't supposed to exist for just two hours to entertain us). In short, the misunderstanding was that no viewers who commented on here before seemed to realize it was all supposed to drag (once Jack leaves the movie set) in the name of realism. The realism is also heightened and contrasted by the very small, enclosed movie set Jack was on early versus the very large, ceiling-included mansion he later finds himself in while pretending to be Ace. Also, when the real Ace Williams actually later shows up he is wearing a then-modern 1960's two-piece business suit--contrasting sharply with the stereotyped gangster way Jack is dressed (see above).
(What is wrong with Dick Van Dyke (Jack Albany) being mistaken for Jack Elam (the real Ace Williams)? Nobody in the film was supposed to know in the slightest what the authentic hit man looked like.)
Now to the misunderstanding part I wrote of in the title. This film is slightly dull--but on purpose. Ironic to its title. It is supposed to be about the difference between stereotypical-film gangster situations and real life gangsters. When the film opened up taking place on the set of a gangster movie the film Jack and the other actors are making looks all clichéd with a big, melodramatic shootout at the end of the story. There are no such theatrics when Jack is foiling the "real" gangster heist at the Museum --just a lot of talk and clumsy chasing and stumbling (perhaps more like it would really happen). The "real" gangsters are superbly drawn out (even to the point of some of them (like "Cowboy" Schaefer) possibly being slightly boring but hey they are supposed to be more like real life hoods and they aren't supposed to exist for just two hours to entertain us). In short, the misunderstanding was that no viewers who commented on here before seemed to realize it was all supposed to drag (once Jack leaves the movie set) in the name of realism. The realism is also heightened and contrasted by the very small, enclosed movie set Jack was on early versus the very large, ceiling-included mansion he later finds himself in while pretending to be Ace. Also, when the real Ace Williams actually later shows up he is wearing a then-modern 1960's two-piece business suit--contrasting sharply with the stereotyped gangster way Jack is dressed (see above).
(What is wrong with Dick Van Dyke (Jack Albany) being mistaken for Jack Elam (the real Ace Williams)? Nobody in the film was supposed to know in the slightest what the authentic hit man looked like.)