BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS (Dir: Robert Stevenson, 1971).

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS (Dir: Robert Stevenson, 1971).

It was inevitable that, sooner or later, I would post a review of Walt Disney Productions’ Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I have watched this movie more times than any other, losing count when I hit three figures. I wouldn’t say it is the best film I have ever seen but I would say it has given me more pleasure over the years than any other.

Often compared unfavourably and, I feel, unfairly with Disney’s 1964 blockbuster Mary Poppins, it reunited most of the creative team and star David Tomlinson from the earlier film. It also shares with it a lengthy ‘Jolly Holiday’-esq animated sequence and a basic premise about a magical governess. Yet the plot, taken from yet having little in common with Mary Norton’s book, about an amateur witch’s attempts to repel a Nazi invasion in wartime Britain with the help of three cockney waifs is markedly different from Poppins and Tomlinson’s performance as a loveable charlatan magician is completely different from the repressed banker and estranged father he portrayed in Poppins.

To be honest, it isn’t as good a film as Mary Poppins. It has a messy, episodic narrative which zealous editing - there are at least five different official versions of the film - was not entirely successful at tidying up. The international and US re-release version, at roughly 100 minutes, has the most satisfying narrative but cuts virtually all of Richard and Robert Sherman’s excellent songs; those that do remain are butchered, the lavish Portobello Road suffering most noticeably. An attempt in 1996 to restore the film to its original, and sadly lost, premier length brings the runtime to 139 minutes but suffers from poor dubbing on scenes where the audio could not be found. In spite of narrative issues the standard, roughly two hour release print is the default and best version of Bedknobs...

Director Robert Stevenson is almost successful at recreating the ole Poppins magic; Ward Kimball’s inventive animated excursion to the Island of Naboombu is the undoubted highlight of Disney Animation’s 1970s output; the effects work, including some incredible puppetry of bodiless suits of armour in the epic climax, hold up well against modern CGI techniques and the performance from stars Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson and company are exemplary. The Sherman Brother’s songs, including The Age of Not Believing, Beautiful Briny and the spectacular Portobello Road are among their best, perhaps a shade down from their work on Poppins, but there is no shame in coming second place to arguably the greatest musical score ever written for the cinema!

I reiterate, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is not as great a piece of filmmaking as Mary Poppins, but as a child I enjoyed it more. I certainly watched it more often. While perhaps it doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts, I think it is highly entertaining, is rightly regarded a classic and should probably be regarded a masterpiece, albeit a flawed masterpiece.

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Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Dir: Robert Stevenson, 1971).  It was inevitable that, sooner or later, I would post a review of Walt Dis

As a change from watching movies I am at the theatre! Waiting for St Clere’s Players production of Oliver! to begin!

RIP Stanley Donen

SUSAN SLEPT HERE (Dir: Frank Tashlin, 1954).

Frank Tashlin made his name as an animation director at Warner Bros’ Termite Terrace before graduating to live action slapstick comedies of questionable taste such as The Girl Can’t Help It and this movie Susan Slept Here.

As with much of Tashlin’s work Susan Slept Here is very much anchored to the decade in which it was made. The convoluted plot concerns Hollywood scriptwriter Dick Powell and 17 year old juvenile delinquent Debbie Reynolds who is given to Powell as a ‘gift’ on Christmas Eve in order to keep her out of jail during the festive period.

Recalling such better comedies as Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor and the Preston Sturgess scripted Remember the Night, Tashlin’s middle age male fantasy remains just about on the right side of good taste. Were this movie made today it would certainly raise eyebrows and maybe it did in 1954. If it was made today I doubt the subject would be given the light and fluffy rom com treatment.

As it is the movie is far more palatable than expected, thanks to the appealing performances of Powell and Reynolds and the assured direction of Tashlin who could turn out this sort of material in his sleep. The highly saturated Technicolor photography shows off the 1950s decor in all its garish splendour and Reynolds gets the opportunity to show of her considerable dancing skills in a very much of its period dream sequence.

To fully enjoy Susan Slept Here requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, not least to accept 55 year old Powell as the 35 year old object of Reynolds’ desire. It is by no means a classic but neither is it the vacuum of good taste I was expecting. Fans of its director and stars, particularly Debbie Reynolds, will probably find much to enjoy.

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OLIVER! (Dir: Carol Reed, 1968).

Carol Reed’s movie adaptation of Lionel Bart’s blockbuster stage musical is a universally acclaimed, multi-award winning masterpiece.

Based, of course, on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, it is certainly a sanitised depiction of Victorian East End London; a film about child exploitation populated by thieves and murderers should probably not make for suitable family entertainment, and yet it does.

A top drawer cast includes unknown juveniles Mark Lester, winsomely appealing in the title role and Jack Wild gives a spirited and charismatic performance as Dodger. Of the adults, Ron Moody as Fagin, Oliver Reed as Bill Sykes and Harry Secombe as Mr Bumble are all impressive but perhaps the stand out is the previously little known Shani Wallis. As Nancy, Ms Wallis gives a genuinely moving, sympathetic performance. It’s staggering to think that Oliver! did not launch her to international movie stardom.

Bart’s outstanding score is easily one of the best to grace stage or screen; unusually for any musical all 13 songs taken from the show, from Food Glorious Food to Om Pah Pah have entered the public conscious and are all exquisitely staged, lavish production numbers.

In spite of the tremendous critical and commercial success of Oliver! by 1968 the big budget family musical was becoming a less commercially viable prospect for Hollywood. The previous year had seen the commercial failure of Disney’s The Happiest Millionaire and Fox’s Doctor Doolittle and in the half decade since its initial release few non-animated film musicals have had anywhere near its impact. Although the genre has undergone a successful revival, such recent examples as Mary Poppins Returns and the live-action Beauty and the Beast, as good as those movies may be, have not managed to match it for artistry or sheer entertainment.

It is easy to see why critics and audiences were so enamoured by Oliver! as 50 years on it remains a genuinely fantastic film that withstands many repeated viewings.

100+ movie reviews now available on my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME. Link below.

Movie number 33: Double Switch (David Greenwalt, 1987).

With the creation of The Disney Channel and the return of the Disney anthology series to the ABC network, the 1980s saw a renaissance in Disney made-for-TV movies. Ironically this was at a time when Disney branded cinema releases had all but ground to a halt; 1984 saw no new Disney movies save for Splash (Ron Howard) and Country (Richard Pearce) both distributed under their newly formed ‘adult’ Touchstone Films banner.

Double Switch premiered in two parts on the newly re-titled Disney Sunday Movie series. This contemporary take on Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper stars George Newbern in the dual roles of geeky high school student Matt Bundy and spoiled yet isolated popstar Bartholomew who switch places for some comedy hi-jinks and poignant life lessons. Elizabeth Shue is the only recognisable name in an otherwise no-star cast; the following year would see her breakthrough role in Adventures in Babysitting (Chris Columbus) and two years later she would inherit the part of Jennifer in Back to the Future Part II (Robert Zemeckis, 1989). With its synth rock soundtrack, legwarmer clad dancers and capitalist aesthetics, Double Switch is a movie which could only have been made in the Eighties, the decade of excess. Juxtaposing high school life and rockstar masquerades, Double Switch is kind of John Hughes lite meets Hannah Montana and one gets the feeling that were this made 20 years later we would be shopping for Bartholomew CDs, lunch boxes and backpacks at The Disney Store.

While barely remembered today, this movie isn’t half bad. Sure the music is a little generic and the comedy is somewhat laboured, but Newbern does well in the lead and if, like me, you enjoyed this when you were 12 you will probably get a nostalgic kick out of it now. Disney’s more faithful adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper (Don Chaffey, 1962) and their similarly themed classic The Parent Trap (David Swift, 1961) are both vastly superior movies. Double Switch is nowhere near as essential as those but is entertaining nonsense all the same.