Bedknobs And Broomsticks - Tumblr Posts
When I was younger I used to watch a DVD of Bedknobs and broomsticks(it's this kid movie from the 70's set during WW2), and never will I forgive Disney+ for changing the funny German lines which were translated in caption to "speaking German"
Once again I'm remembering how Disney Plus replaced the very funny German caption in Bedknobs and Broomsticks with "speaking German"
You already had the captions?
Why replace??
RIP My All Time Favourite Actress. A True Icon of The Screen and Stage
Dame Angela Lansbury
16/10/25-11/10/22
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.
Visit my blog JINGLE BONES MOVIE TIME for more reviews of Disney classics! Link below.
THE WARE CASE (Robert Stevenson, 1938).
The Ware Case is a creaky crime drama from the early days of the Ealing Studios; the second release from producer and studio head Michael Balcon’s tenure.
It features none of the hallmarks and belongs to none of the genres of filmmaking generally associated with later Ealing. Not a comedy in their classic mould, nor a wartime drama or social-realist piece, and is presumably a holdover from the Basil Dean era.
Based on the play by G P Bancroft, The Ware Case opens with a courtroom sequence set in the Old Bailey where we find society scoundrel Sir Hubert Ware (Clive Brook) on trail for the murder of his brother-in-law, the events leading up to which are subsequently told in flashback.
It’s lighthearted enough and some of the dialogue is humorous but a romp this ain’t. The central character of Ware is an unlikable fellow and the rest of the characters are all a little too one dimensional to really relate to. As an example of embryonic Ealing it certainly has curiosity value but, to be honest, I found the whole thing rather dull.
Robert Stevenson directs with efficiency but shows little of the flair for the fantastic he would display in his later career association with Walt Disney Productions. Responsible for Mary Poppins (1964), The Love Bug (1969) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) among others, he would become the most commercially successful film director in Hollywood.
Check out my blog jinglebonesmovietime.blogspot.com for more reviews of vintage Ealing Studios classics!
Never thought I’d find a connection between Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Fallout. Well played, Tumblr, well played.
*Imagines Sole somehow animating suits of all types of raider and supermutant armor and full sets of power armor to go take over the Institute while the synths and their advanced security can’t detect shit because there are no life signs, and can’t destroy them because they just keep going* *we wreck shop and use the Institute tech for good rather than blowing it up* *headcanons ahoy matey*
say no to chems, kids
Never thought I’d find a connection between Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Fallout. Well played, Tumblr, well played.
*Imagines Sole somehow animating suits of all types of raider and supermutant armor and full sets of power armor to go take over the Institute while the synths and their advanced security can’t detect shit because there are no life signs, and can’t destroy them because they just keep going* *we wreck shop and use the Institute tech for good rather than blowing it up* *headcanons ahoy matey*
say no to chems, kids
When someone attacks your favorite show/movie/game:
When someone attacks your favorite show/movie/game: