Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

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This article is about the film. For other uses, see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (disambiguation).
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chittychittybangbangposter.jpg
Original cinema release poster.
Directed by Ken Hughes
Produced by Albert R. Broccoli
Screenplay by Roald Dahl
Ken Hughes
Based on Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang
by Ian Fleming
Starring Dick Van Dyke
Sally Ann Howes
Lionel Jeffries
James Robertson Justice
Robert Helpmann
Music by Songs:
Richard M. Sherman (lyrics)
Robert B. Sherman (lyrics)
Score:
Irwin Kostal
Cinematography Christopher Challis
Edited by John Shirley
Production
company
Warfield Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release dates
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  • 16 December 1968 (1968-12-16)
Running time
 144 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Budget $10 million[1]
Box office $7.5 million (US/ Canada rentals)[2]

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 British musical film loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car. The film's script is by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes and its songs by the Sherman Brothers. The song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was nominated for an Academy Award.[3]

The film stars Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts, Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious, Lionel Jeffries as Grandpa Potts, James Robertson Justice as Lord Scrumptious and Robert Helpmann as the Childcatcher. The film was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli (co-producer of the James Bond series of films, also based on Fleming's novels). John Stears supervised the special effects. Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music, while the musical numbers were staged by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood.

Plot

Set in the 1910s, the story opens with a montage of European Grand Prix races in which a particular car appears to win every race. In the final race, the car swerves to avoid a girl and a dog, loses control, crashes, and catches fire, bringing its racing career to an end. The car ends up in an old garage in rural England, where two children, Jeremy and Jemima Potts, have grown fond of it. They are told by a junkman that he intends to buy the car from the garage owner for scrap. The children (who live with their widowed father Caractacus Potts, an eccentric inventor, and his equally peculiar father) implore their father to buy the car before the junkman does, but he does not have the money. While playing truant, they meet Truly Scrumptious, a beautiful upper class woman with her own motorcar. She brings them home to report their truancy to their father. Truly shows interest in Caractacus' odd inventions, but he is affronted by her insistence that his children should be in school.

One day, Caractacus discovers that the sweets produced by a machine he has invented can be played like a flute. He tries to sell the "Toot Sweets" to Truly's father, Lord Scrumptious, a major confectionery manufacturer. He is almost successful until the factory is overrun by dogs responding to the whistle. He takes his automatic hair-cutting machine to a carnival to raise money, but it accidentally ruins the hair of a large, angry customer. He eludes the man by joining a song-and-dance act, accidentally stealing the show; he earns enough in tips to buy the car. Potts rebuilds the car in his own eccentric way, using such materials as an old boat hull and a chimney breast. He nicknames the car "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" for the noises its engine makes. In the first trip in the car, Potts, the children, and Truly go for a picnic on the beach, where Truly becomes very fond of the Potts family and vice versa. Caractacus tells them about nasty Baron Bomburst, the tyrant of fictional Vulgaria, who wants to steal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for himself.

As Potts tells his story, the quartet and the car are stranded by high tide, and find themselves under attack by pirates working for the Baron. Chitty suddenly deploys huge flotation devices and transforms into a power boat, and they escape Bomburst's yacht and return to shore. The Baron sends two comical spies to capture the car, but they briefly capture Lord Scrumptious then Grandpa Potts, mistaking each for the car's creator. Caractacus, Truly, and the children see Grandpa being taken away by airship, and they give chase. When they accidentally drive off a cliff, Chitty sprouts wings and propellers and begins to fly. They follow the airship to Vulgaria, and find a land without children; the Baroness Bomburst abhors them and imprisons any she finds. Grandpa has been ordered by the Baron to make another floating car, and he bluffs his abilities to avoid being tortured. The Potts' party is hidden by the local toymaker, who now works only for the Baron. Chitty is discovered and taken to the castle. While Caractacus and the toymaker search for Grandpa and Truly searches for food, the children are captured by the Baron's Child Catcher.

The Toymaker takes Truly and Caractacus to a grotto far beneath the castle, where the townspeople have been hiding their children. They concoct a scheme to free the children and the village from the Baron. The Toymaker sneaks them into the castle disguised as life-size dolls for the Baron's birthday. Caractacus snares the Baron and the children swarm into the banquet hall, overcoming the Baron's palace guards and guests. In the ensuing chaos, the Baron, Baroness, and Child Catcher are all captured. The Potts and Truly fly back to England. Jeremy and Jemima finish the story themselves: "And Daddy and Truly were married and lived happily ever after!" Truly seems to find this suggestion appealing, but Caractacus is evasive, believing that the class difference between them is too great. When they arrive home, Caractacus is surprised to find his father and Lord Scrumptious playing a lively game of toy soldiers. Scrumptious surprises him with an offer to buy the Toot Sweet as a canine confection. Caratacus realises that he will be rich. He rushes to tell Truly the news. They kiss, and Truly agrees to marry him. As they drive home, he acknowledges the importance of pragmatism, as the car takes to the air again.

Cast

The main cast after landing in Vulgaria.

The cast includes:[4]

The part of Truly Scrumptious had originally been offered to Julie Andrews, to reunite her with Van Dyke after their success in Mary Poppins. Andrews rejected the role specifically because she considered the part too close to the Poppins mould.[5] Dick Van Dyke was cast after he turned down the role of Fagin from another 1968 musical Oliver! (which ended up going to Ron Moody).

Musical numbers

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  1. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" - Caractacus Potts, Jemima, Jeremy and Truly
  2. "Truly Scrumptious" - Jemima, Jeremy and Truly
  3. "Hushabye Mountain" - Mr. Potts and Truly
  4. "Me Ol' Bamboo" - Mr. Potts and chorus
  5. "Toot Sweets" - Mr. Potts and Truly
  6. "The Roses of Success" - Grandpa Potts and Inventors
  7. "Lovely Lonely Man" - Truly
  8. "You Two" - Potts, Jemima and Jeremy
  9. "Chu-Chi Face" - Baron and Baroness Bomburst
  10. "Posh!" - Grandpa Potts
  11. "Doll on a Music Box" - Truly
  12. "Doll on a Music Box / Truly Scrumptious" - Truly and Mr. Potts
  13. "Come to the Funfair"

"Doll on a Music Box" is sung near the end of the musical by Truly and is a musical counterpoint, also being sung simultaneously with Caractacus' rendition of the song "Truly Scrumptious". Two songs apparently intended for the film but ultimately relegated only to instrumental background music are "Come to the Funfair" and the "Vulgarian National Anthem"; they were published with lyrics in the sheet music along with the other film songs when the movie was released. The stage version restores these two as vocal numbers. The Sherman Brothers also were hired to write several new songs for the stage production including "Think Vulgar!", which was replaced in 2003 with "Act English", "Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies", "Teamwork" and "The Bombie Samba".

Production

The Caractacus Potts inventions in the film were created by Rowland Emett; by 1976, Time magazine, describing Emett's work, said no term other than "Fantasticator...could remotely convey the diverse genius of the perky, pink-cheeked Englishman whose pixilations, in cartoon, watercolor and clanking 3-D reality, range from the celebrated Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway to the demented thingamabobs that made the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a minuscule classic."[6]

At a 1973 auction in Florida, one of the Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang cars sold for $37,000, equal to $197,232 today.[7] The original "hero" car, in a condition described as fully functional and road-going, was offered at auction on 15 May 2011 by a California-based auction house.[8] The car sold for $805,000, less than the $1–2 million it was expected to reach.[9] It was purchased by New Zealand film director Sir Peter Jackson.[10]

Locations

Reception

Box office

The film was the tenth most popular at the US box office in 1969.[12]

Critical

Time began its review saying the film is a "picture for the ages—the ages between five and twelve" and ends noting that "At a time when violence and sex are the dual sellers at the box office, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang looks better than it is simply because it's not not all all bad bad"; the film's "eleven songs have all the rich melodic variety of an automobile horn. Persistent syncopation and some breathless choreography partly redeem it, but most of the film's sporadic success is due to Director Ken Hughes's fantasy scenes, which make up in imagination what they lack in technical facility."[13]

During her brief period as chief film critic for The New York Times, Renata Adler reviewed the film, saying: "in spite of the dreadful title, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ... is a fast, dense, friendly children's musical, with something of the joys of singing together on a team bus on the way to a game"; Adler called the screenplay "remarkably good" and the film's "preoccupation with sweets and machinery seems ideal for children"; she ends her review on the same note as Time: "There is nothing coy, or stodgy or too frightening about the film; and this year, when it has seemed highly doubtful that children ought to go to the movies at all, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sees to it that none of the audience's terrific eagerness to have a good time is betrayed or lost."[14]

Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed the film (Chicago Sun Times, 24 December 1968). He wrote: "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang contains about the best two-hour children's movie you could hope for, with a marvelous magical auto and lots of adventure and a nutty old grandpa and a mean Baron and some funny dances and a couple of [scary] moments."

Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin considered the picture "one big Edsel, with totally forgettable score and some of the shoddiest special effects ever."[15] In 2008, Entertainment Weekly called Helpmann's depiction of the Child Catcher one of the "50 Most Vile Movie Villains."[16]

As of March 2014, the film has a 65% "Fresh" rating (17 of 26 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.[17]

Soundtrack

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The original soundtrack album, as was typical of soundtrack albums, presented mostly songs with very few instrumental tracks. The songs were also edited, with specially recorded intros and outros and most instrumental portions removed, both because of time limitations of the vinyl LP and the belief that listeners would not be interested in listening to long instrumental dance portions during the songs.

The soundtrack has been released on CD four times, the first two releases using the original LP masters rather than going back to the original music masters to compile a more complete soundtrack album with underscoring and complete versions of songs. The 1997 Rykodisc release included several quick bits of dialogue from the film between some of the tracks and has gone out of circulation. On 24 February 2004, a few short months after MGM released the movie on a 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, Varèse Sarabande reissued a newly remastered soundtrack album without the dialogue tracks, restoring it to its original 1968 LP format.

List of tracks:

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b Dialogue track, only included on the Rykodisc release.
c Tune and background lyrics only, as entire song was cut from film.
d First vocal performance from the film.
e Second vocal performance from the film.

In 2011, Kritzerland released the definitive soundtrack album, a 2-CD set featuring the Original Soundtrack Album plus bonus tracks, music from the Song and Picture Book Album on disc 1, and the Richard Sherman Demos, as well as six Playback Tracks (including a long version of international covers of the theme song). Inexplicably, this release was limited to only 1,000 units.

In April 2013, Perseverance Records re-released the Kritzerland double CD set with expansive new liner notes by John Trujillo and a completely new designed booklet by Perseverance regular James Wingrove.

Home video releases

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was released numerous times in the VHS format. In 1998 the film saw its first DVD release. 2003 brought a two-disc "Special Edition" release. On 2 November 2010, 20th Century Fox released a two-disc Blu-ray and DVD combination set featuring the extras from the 2003 release as well as new features. The 1993 LaserDisc release by MGM/UA Home Video was the first home video release with the proper 2.20:1 Super Panavision 70 aspect ratio.

Novelisation of film

Novelization of the film by John Burke, published by Pan Books

The film did not follow Fleming's novel closely. A separate novelisation of the film was published at the time of the film's release. It basically followed the film's story but with some differences of tone and emphasis, e.g. it mentioned that Caractacus Potts had had difficulty coping after the death of his wife, and it made it clearer that the sequences including Baron Bomburst were extended fantasy sequences. It was written by John Burke.[18]

References

  1. ↑ http://flickfacts.com/movie/117/chitty-chitty-bang-bang
  2. ↑ "Big Rental Films of 1969", Variety, 7 January 1970 p 15
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the MGM website.
  5. ↑ Stirling, Richard. Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography. St. Martin's Griffin 2009. ISBN 978-0-312-56498-8
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ "The World's Top Twenty Films." Sunday Times [London, England] 27 Sept. 1970: 27. The Sunday Times Digital Archive. accessed 5 Apr. 2014
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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