Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Vintage)

Netflix is now showing CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (1968) I haven’t seen this movie since I was a child of 10 or so, but the music box song lives in my head always. It’s such a pretty, magical ditty, sung by Broadway great, Sally Ann Howes, who like Dick Van Dyke, is still alive! (May they both be protected from the Coronavirus). I couldn’t remember the plot at all, in my mind I could remember this music box scene and that the car flew, nothing else. It’s actually about a sweet, unsuccessful inventor Caractacus Potts (Dyke), whose inventions are more elaborate than useful. He’s a single father trying to raise two ragamuffin children Jemima (Heather Ripley) and Jeremy (Adrian Hall) in a Windmill house. His equally eccentric father Grandpa Potts (Lionel Jeffries) also lives with them. The children like to play in an old race car located at a junk dealer, only the dealer aims to sell it to a scrap metal collector. They convince the junk dealer to keep it for them until they can get the money. On the way home to convince their penniless father to somehow buy this for them, they meet the heiress to a candy fortune, Truly Scrumptious (Howes) she’s appalled the children aren’t in school and takes them home to have a word with their father, who is deep in the midst of a new invention.

If only the movie stayed in this world, it would remain a charming story, but instead it veers off into a make-believe fantasy involving a despotic, childish, Trump-like King of Bavaria (Gert Fröbe) , who hates and captures children, and takes whatever he fancies, in this case, the Caractacus refurbished race car now named Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He also captures Grandpa Potts assuming that he’s the inventor. So it’s up to Caractacus, Truly and the children to go and save him, and in turn free the people of this oppressed village.

I was always under the impression this was a Disney movie, I suppose because Dick Van Dyke was in Mary Poppins, but it was distributed by United Artist. And much to my surprise, the movie is based on a book written by none other than James Bond author Ian Flemming. Screenplay by Roald Dahl and director Ken Hughes.

The music was written by The Sherman Brothers (Robert B. and Richard M.), an American songwriting duo that also wrote Mary Poppins (another reason to think this was a Disney movie), The Jungle Book (except “The Bare Necessities”, which Terry Gilkyson wrote), Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Charlotte’s Web, The Aristocats. and “It’s a Small World (After All)”. The Oscar nominated titular song “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” the every spinning in my head “Doll On A Music Box”/”Truly Scrumptious” and the “”Hushabye Mountain” songs are stellar, but I’ve gotta say, the rest of this soundtrack – not very noteworthy. Certainly not up there with the score from Mary Poppins.

Regardless of the switching of tone from reality to fantasy, it’s still a lovely little romance between Caractacus & Truly. They also spared no expense on set design, shooting in several locations including East Sussex, Ilse of Wright and other English Countrysides, St. Tropez and Bavaria.

T &T LAMB Score: 3 outta 5