Happy Father's Day! - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

United Artists, 1968
Starring Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Frobe
Directed by Ken Hughes
Music and Lyrics by Richard M and Robert B Sherman

We salute all fathers with this elaborate family musical from the late 60's. The success of Mary Poppins made both epic, super-long musicals and family-oriented musicals all the rage in the mid-late 60's. This may be the closest anyone came to replicating that film's success...and a close father-child relationship is at the heart of the story of an inventor who spins a crazy yarn about his newly-repaired car. Let's head to the races in the early 1900's to find out how well this story works nowadays...

The Story: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was once the most decorated race car in Europe, until its career ended in a fiery crash. Two children, Jeremy (Adrian Hall) and Jemima (Heather Ripley), regard Chitty as their own playground at the local junkyard and are horrified when the owner intends to sell it for scrap. They run into the lovely Truly Scrumptious (Howes) on the road, who takes them home to their doting father, Cartaculous Potts (Van Dyke). Potts is an inventor whose creations tend towards the fantastic side, like the candies he'd been working on with holes in them. He tries to market them to Truly's father Lord Scrumptious (James Robinson Justice) as a candy you can play, but the whistling sound brings dozens of dogs into the factory. He does manage to raise the money dancing with a folk group at a fair after his hair-cutting machine doesn't work out.

A day out with Chitty, Cartaculous, the kids, and Truly turns into an opportunity for the rousing tale of how the family dodged the child-like Baron Bombhurst of Vugaria (Frobe) and his spoiled and silly wife (Anna Quale) and rescued Cartaculous' father (Jeffries) from his dungeons and the children from the tower and the terrifying Child Catcher (Robert Helpmann).

The Song and Dance: Van Dyke and Howes make a charming couple in this fantastical tale. I think I like Van Dyke's performance even better here. He's warm with the kids and hilarious with Jefferies, the imagined explorer who wishes his son would do something concrete with his life besides tinker. Quale and Frobe are also very funny as the royal couple who care more about playing with toys than with each other. The lavish production includes widescreen cinematography with filming locations England, France, and Germany and lovely, colorful costumes ably depicting the early Edwardian period in Europe.

Favorite Number: "Toot Sweets," with its dancers whirling around a stark Victorian candy factory, plays almost like a warm up for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory three years later. The Oscar-nominated title song is performed several times, including as they're going to the beach for the picnic after Chitty was finished. The children sing the sweet and charming "Truly Scrumptious" to Truly at the beach to tell her how much they appreciate her joining them. "Me Old Bamboo" is the folk dance Dick Van Dyke joined in on at the fair. His sheer energy level there is amazing; he keeps up well with the other dancers. He sings the lovely lullaby "Hushabye Mountain" twice, the second time as a duet with Howes when they're trying to comfort the hidden children of Vulgaria. Grandpa has two great solos, "Posh" when he's been kidnapped, and "The Roses of Success" with a group of scientists trying to invent a flying car.

Frobe and Quale's "Chu-Chi Face" sounds like something a loving couple would perform, but it's really the darkest song in the movie as the Baron continues to attempt to kill his wife.

Trivia: This was based the book of the same name by Ian Fleming of James Bond fame, but didn't really use much besides a few character names and the idea of a flying car.

It was a big hit in 1969, the tenth-most-popular film of that year.

What I Don't Like: First and foremost, it's way too long at over two hours, especially for a musical intended for families. The sequence with the goofy spies and the entire second half of the film in Vulgaria feel like obvious padding. The special effects, which were much-touted at the time, haven't really dated that well. Chitty going over the cliff is some of the most obvious green-screen I've ever seen in a movie. Howes' solo ballad "Lovely, Lonely Man" is notoriously dull and only serves as a buffer between the first and the second half. It's not hard to tell Road Dahl worked on the screenplay; there's a dark undercurrent to the film's antics, especially in the Vulgaria sequence, with the creepy Child Catcher, child-hating royalty, and the Baron gleefully attempting to kill his wife.

Did this really need to be set in the Edwardian era? The costumes are appropriate, but the story just doesn't feel that historical.

The Big Finale: If you can get your kids to sit for it and they can handle some of the darker elements, this is a fun ride with some great songs and catchy musical numbers.

Home Media: As one of the most beloved family musicals ever created, this is easily found in all major formats, including streaming.

DVD
Blu-Ray
Amazon Prime