AndrewBloom
CONTAINS SPOILERS7/10 4 years ago
[7.3/10] I slated 2018 *Mary Poppins Returns* as being little more than a pale remake of its 1964 predecessor, with little in the way of originality despite its modern update. It’s interesting, then, to realize that Disney cashing in with a quasi remake of the original *Mary Poppins* isn’t a new phenomenon. 1971’s *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* is a chip off the ol’ chim-chiminee, in more ways than one.
The similarities are easy to see even if you don’t know about the behind-the-scenes goings on at Disney. Both movies see a magical caretaker looking after a set of moppets. Both feature that mystical mistress striking up a friendship with a friendly show-off of a street person. And both involve trips into an animated world, robust special effects, and songs filled with nonsense words before pivoting to a touch of melancholy and sweetness in the finish. The overlaps between the two movies are plain before you dig any deeper.
But the resemblance becomes particularly noteworthy when you learn the spate of behind the scenes details that tie the two movies together. *Bedknobs* was essentially Walt’s back up plan in case his long-running efforts to secure the rights to *Mary Poppins* proved fruitless. Star Angela Lansbury was a runner-up for the role of Mary. The same writer, director, composers, and even several actors reunited here after the 1964 production wrapped. Heck, even “Bobbing Along” and the ensuing underwater sequence were originally envisioned for *Poppins*. Disney’s attempt to recreate the magic of its first supernatural babysitter movie isn’t exactly hidden here.
And yet, *Bedknobs and Broomstick* is a notably weirder movie than *Mary Poppins*. For whatever the magical elements of the 1964 film, it is, at heart, a fairly down-home and domestic little romp, filled with flights of fancy and yet seemingly localized and low-stakes. It’s a tale of fixing a broken family, like one mends a rumpled kite, with most of the conflict being internal. The outside adventures, by contrast, are lessons that help the various members of the Banks family to reunite in their hearts.
*Bedknobs and Broomsticks*, by contrast, is about finding the talisman that will allow a budding witch to learn the right spells so she can help her old English hometown defend itself against the Nazis. That premise alone is bonkers. While eventually, the movie makes a late, not entirely earned toward turning the witch-in-training, her huckster of a professor, and the three orphans she takes in from The Blitz into makeshift family, it’s a much shaggier, looser, and all around goofier film than its Cherry Tree Lane-based predecessor.
That’s to its benefit though. Don’t get me wrong, *Bedknobs* can’t match the heights of *Poppins* (no pun intended), whether in terms of songs, set pieces, or sentiment. But for a movie that is clearly calling plays out of the same playbook, that distinct energy gives it enough of a different flavor to feel like its own uniquely enjoyable adventure, however derivative it may be. You’ll laugh at the comparatively ridiculous and nonsensical happenings *Bedknobs*, but you’ll laugh with the film as much as you’ll laugh at its eccentricities and indulgences.
Besides, the movie can boast some technical achievements of its own. The underwater sequence attempts to top Poppins’ “Jolly Holiday” in the live action/animation hybrid department, and largely fails, while still being amusing enough. In the same vein, Professor Emlilus reffing an animal kingdom soccer game feels like a thin excuse to bust out some retreaded character designs and Looney Tunes-esque antics, which is amiable enough without really having a point.
But the live action escapades are much more impressive. Each “Substitutiary Locomotion” sequence still wows in the present, with various household articles coming together to dance and jive along with our heroes in a triumph of puppetry and greenscreen effects. Even better, the legion of animated armor not only interacts with opposing soldiers with remarkable acuity, but manages to seem both hilarious in the slapstick scenes and utterly frightening in the attack scenes. Aside from a few obvious cat puppets and dummy stand-ins, the seams don’t show and the movie finds all kinds of creative uses for its hollow knights of the realm.
The songs and dances are amusing as well, even if they don’t quite match up to the Sherman Brothers’ best tunes from the film’s spiritual cousin. “The Old Home Guard” has a touch of “Spoonful of Sugar” in its hummable melody. “Substitutiary Locomotion” presages “Hakuna Matata” with its repeating backup vocals. And while Portobello Road feels like a weird, oft-insensitive waste of time, the movie is at least light on its feet enough not to totally grind to a halt when the dance number erupts.
And the chemistry of the various players helps everything to snap in place. Angela Lansbury brings a very different vibe from Julie Andrews (effectively filling in for her with a legacy cameo in *Mary Poppins Returns*), but has her own proper-but-whimsical bearing to impart to the film. David Tomlinson sheds his Mr. Banks stuffiness and adopts a ruddy showmanship as Professor Brown, who has a rushed but potent enough arc in the film’s last act. And the kids range from annoying to adorable to pathos-ridden depending on the mood in the particular moment. It makes no sense that the five of them coalesce into a family after knowing one another for a day or two, but the play off one another well enough to be entertaining.
That’s the thing about *Bedknobs and Broomsticks*. If you think about it too hard for too long, it either makes no sense or comes off as downright bizarre. The whole macguffin chase for an amulet with the necessary magic words amounts to nothing. The familial dynamic practically comes out of nowhere. The movie starts with a woman learning witchcraft via a correspondence college and then unleashing what she’s learned, slapstick-style, on a platoon of invading Nazis. It is an out there, tonally strange, flight of fancy.
And yet, that’s its charm. What keeps the movie from feeling like a simple retread of *Mary Poppins* is that strange, almost surreal sensibility. The movie may not fly as high by broomstick as its predecessor did via umbrella, but it’s still a ludicrously fun and airy jaunt nonetheless.
