God, I loved this movie when I was a kid! Haven’t seen it in years, but I found it completely magical.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks 1971
Angela Lansbury as an apprentice witch in a fantasy from the Disney studios set in Second World War England. It’s a big, mongrel production, combining live action and animation and with an elaborate ballet in a mockup of Portobello Road, and a sequence, perhaps influenced by Russian and Central European movie fantasies, that is magical animation in a tradition different from the usual Disney work. Lansbury, on a broomstick, commands a ghostly army of knights on steeds against the Nazis. There’s no logic in the style of the movie, and the story dribbles on for so long that it exhausts the viewere before that final magical battle begins. The story is suffused with patriotic sentimentality circa Mrs. Miniver. Lansbury gives up witchcraft when she gets a man, David TRomlinson, who twinkles like a sexless pixie, and, of course, the movie includes the Disney inevitable — this time in the shape of three lovable Cockney orphans. The director, Robert Stevenson, found an appallingly simple solution to the problem of enabling Americans to understand the children’s Cockney intonations: every time one of them speaks we get a closeup, so that our full attention is focused on the piping little speaker and we can practically read the lips. It’s as if a TV show had been cut into the movie every few seconds. This whole production is a mixture of wizardry and ineptitude; the picture has enjoyable moments but it’s as uncertain of itself as the title indicates.
hahaha with the random closeups. I actually remember that!!
I have to say, too, that I would “give up witchcraft” if I got a man, sure I would, it makes total sense. I don’t think I would “give up witchcraft” for a man who was a “sexless pixie”, though.
Some day I need to do a post about my childhood fascination with Cockney orphans. I think it began with Oliver Twist, which I read when I was 11, but it may go back further than that, and would actually be interesting to investigate. Any movie that starred cute little Cockney orphans was o-kay by me! They set my imagination free, un-loosed powers of creativity in me … it was an endless fascination.
Okay, I have to say I’m not a fan of this movie. I love me some Magic, I love me some Angela, I love me some singing fish, but all together in the same movie? Not so much.
The movie doesn’t work on a variety of levels for me. It’s long, it’s rambling, and….it’s not particularly funny. I was never enamored with it. It lacks charm and sadly, it lacks a script.
If you’re going to do a fantasy film, you’re going to be compared with Mary Poppins, and unfortunately, the Grand Daddy: The Wizard Of Oz. If you can’t at least come close to the performances (which is near impossible) at least give is a script.
Magical heroines don’t fight the Nazis. They just don’t.
I’m not crazy about it either. But my son loved it. He must have watched it at least once a week when he was little. Can’t say I saw what he saw.
I was completely obsessed with this movie as a kid. I loved it to no end. It defined magic, for me, and the underwater sequences transported me. Heh. Transported.
I wanted a bed like that. Still do. Though these days I’d rather it went some different places.
Yeah, I haven’t seen it since I was a little kid … so it may be one of those things that do not withstand the growing-up process.
But, all I know is: I was also “transported” by this movie – like Linus. And I also wished I had an old-fashioned bed with bedknobs. I wanted to be a Cockney orphan. You know. I just basically wanted to live in that movie.
I think you have it right Sheila, not one that withstands the growing up process.. Strangely, I can remember being intrigued by this movie as a kid.. clips of the film would appear in various sources over a series of years.. always looking magical and exciting.. but I never did get to see the whole movie during that time (Outer Mongolia, dont-cha-know).. and then, when I must have been into my teens, I did watch the entire movie… Pauline Kael got it absolutely right with – “There’s no logic in the style of the movie, the story dribbles on for so long that it exhausts the viewer before that final magical battle begins.”
Oh God, again with the mongolia reference? I have no idea what we’re even referring to anymore. Is it my joke? Can I take it back?
In the same vein: I also grew up in a small town, before cable, with one local movie theatre. I didn’t see a lot of this stuff until after its original release. I think I saw Bedknobs at my cousin’s house for the first time.
Sorry, one more thing – I can think of a lot of movies which enraptured me as a kid which don’t quite hold up. That would be kind of a fun post, come to think of it.
Oh God, again with the mongolia reference?.. Is it my joke? Can I take it back?
Ermm.. sorry, Sheila.
I was just trying to note a situation where I saw more of this movie in edited clips on TV before I managed to see the movie itself.. for whatever reason.. the soccer[?] game was used more often than most, IIRC.
Oh God, Pete – no, I was kidding and it fell flat. I was referencing back to the “yurt” joke – when I said you always mention your yurt in every comment … so … it was supposed to be a joke … i was trying to refernce back … and it failed miserably ………….
“I can think of a lot of movies which enraptured me as a kid which don’t quite hold up.”
Exactly the way I feel about 9 1/2 Weeks.
No, my apology, Sheila. My follow-up comment was intended to be lighter in tone than it ended up.