Mary Poppins (1964) Director: Robert Stevenson
“Oh it’s a jolly ‘oliday with Mary…”
★★★★★
Despite Dick Van Dyke’s amusingly rotten cockney accent, Mary Poppins is a delightful, charming Hollywood musical that stands in stark contrast to the brooding modern cynicism that pervades our present-day Hollywood milieu. The script for Mary Poppins comes from an amalgamation of the various “Mary Poppins” book series by P.L. Travers (published between 1934-1988). Walt Disney’s daughters initially fell in love with the books and made their father promise to make a movie based on the stories. After much negotiation with P.L. Travers, the film rights were finally acquired and once produced it became a critical and box office success. The classic music for the film was completed by the Sherman Brothers (who are also known for Chittty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book among many other classic movies). Walt Disney used the proceeds from Mary Poppins to finance the construction of Disney World in Florida. Of course, Disney introduced a sequel in 2018 entitled Mary Poppins Returns. I have not seen it but my expectations could not be lower.
The beauty of Mary Poppins flows from its blend of live-action and cartoon animation, as well as its simple Disney studio backlot sets intended to represent Edwardian London of yesteryear. The year is 1910 and the Banks family, George and Winifred Banks, are having trouble maintaining a nanny for their unruly children. George advertises for a new “stern” nanny, while his children write-up a different advert for a “kinder, perfect” nanny, but George angrily rips it up and casts it into the fireplace. Meanwhile we learn that George’s wife, Winifred (Glynis Johns), is a suffragette (“votes for women!”). The brilliance of the satire of the Banks family in this film is most starkly apparent within the character of George Banks (David Tomlinson), a comically aloof banker with an extraordinarily high opinion of himself. He believes himself to be an impressive English aristocrat, even though his household is entirely dysfunctional and no one seems to take him seriously. He plays the role of a rule-setter, and he punishes his children by taking away their kite.
The following day after the advertisement, a long line of dour nannies form a line outside the Banks residence (17 Cherry Tree Lane), waiting for a job interview when a sudden gust of wind blows them away and a confident but kindly woman appears (in contrast to the character in the books who is a strict and uncompromising woman). She descends from the sky with an umbrella: Mary Poppins is iconically played by Julie Andrews after a successful stage career. Andrews was passed over for the role of Eliza Doolittle played by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and she was initially three months pregnant when approached for the role of Mary Poppins so production was delayed in order to retain her. At any rate, upon arrival at the Banks residence, Mary Poppins presents the torn-up children’s advertisement from the fireplace and awards herself the job to a stuttering, befuddled George Banks. She takes the children on all manner of magical adventures -tidying their nursery (“Spoonful of Sugar”), strolling through the park with an old friend named Bert (played by Dick Van Dyke) who is a street painter and musician (“Jolly Holiday”). His paintings come to life and they ride carousel horses off into a living painting of a race track (“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”), a tea party on the ceiling with Bert’s Uncle Albert who has laughed his way off the ground (“I Love to Laugh”), and at Mr. Banks’s workplace –a bank– which goes haywire inadvertently when an elder banker desperately persuades young Michael to invest his tuppence in the bank, but when he refuses at the last moment in order to feed the birds in a park, it causes a hilarious run on the bank which is followed by a visit to an old lady in the park (“Feed The Birds”). Dick Van Dyke also plays the elder partner at the bank in Mary Poppins –in the credits sequence his name is initially shown as an anagram “Navckid Keyd.” The children embrace the chaos with a dance on the rooftops among the chimney sweeps “Chim Chim Cheree” and “Step in Time.”
In the end, Mr. Banks is fired from his job but he suddenly finds joy in echoing the refrain “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” along with a rekindled desire to spend time with his children while they are still young. The next day the wind changes and Mary Poppins departs. Mr. Banks takes his children to the park with their newly repaired kite (“Let’s Go Fly a Kite”) and he is given back his job at the bank.
What was the name of his other leg?