MARY POPPINS
US, 1964, 140 minutes, Colour.
Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Glynnis Johns, David Tomlinson, Ed Wynn, Jane Darwell, Karen Dotrice, Matthew Garber, Hermione Baddeley, Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Treacher, Reginald Owen.
Directed by Robert Stevenson.
Mary Poppins has become one of the great classics from the Disney studios.
When Julie Andrews was not chosen by Jack L. Warner to be the lead in the film version of My Fair Lady – and she had starred on Broadway, creating the role of Eliza Doolittle – MGM invited her to be Mary Poppins. She won the Oscar for best actress for her performance. (And the film, nominated for many Oscars including best film and director, won for best special visual effects, editing, musical score by the Sherman Brothers and the song, ‘Chim-Chim-Cheree’.)
The film is based on stories by P.L. Travers. Mary Poppins is a nanny (in rather stark contrast to the more amiable nanny she played in The Sound of Music the following year). Mary Poppins is very exact, practically perfect. She is called in to take charge of problem children who have driven all their previous nannies away. However, they seem to be charmed by her sternness.
As the film goes on, she encounters chimney sweep Bert, played by Dick van Dyke (and criticised roundly for his false Cockney accent at the time). Van Dyke works very well with Julie Andrews in a number of entertaining fantasy songs and dance routines. Van Dyke also appears in disguise as the elderly banker. David Tomlinson and Glynis Johns were the parents of the children. The children are Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber. There is a guest spot for Jane Darwell as the Bird Woman and Ed Wynn as Uncle Albert.
The film combines fantasy with a sense of period England at the beginning of the 20th century. It shows the British classes, the nannies, the children, the role of the banks and economy in the British empire. It is also casting a slyly critical eye on all of these.
The film was directed by English director Robert Stevenson who had directed a number of films in the 1930s in England including King Solomon’s Mines. He went to Hollywood and made a number of striking films during the 1940s, especially Jane Eyre. He continued to make routine films as well as work in television but in the 1950s moved to the Disney studios with Johnny Tremain and Old Yeller as well as Darby O’Gill? and the Little People. During the 1960s and 70s he directed a number of Disney films including Kidnapped, The Absent-Minded? Professor, In Search of the Castaways, That Darn Cat, The Gnome-Mobile?, Blackbeard’s Ghost, The Love Bug.
I. This film is considered a classic. Why? For what audience and age was it made? The nature of its popularity? Its impact in the mid-60s, later?
2. How much was the style of the film influenced by the Disney studios? What are the characteristics of Disney films? As seen here? The strengths of the Disney style, weaknesses?
3. The importance of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke for the impact and success of the film?
4. The importance of London as background: the real city of London and its history, the fantasy London of the big city in the Edwardian period: the house, the park, banks, St. Pauls, chimney-sweeps, nannies etc? How well was this visualized? How did it create atmosphere and influence the characters and themes?
5. The importance of the animated sequences? Their blending with the live action? The fairytale aspects, the picnic and holiday aspects, the humour and comedy? How important for the enjoyment factor of the film?
6. The contribution of the songs: "Chim Chiminey", "Sugar", "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", "Feed The Birds", "The Bank", "Suffragettes", "Happy Holiday With Mary" etc.?
7. How are the basic ingredients of the film fairy-story ingredients: the children, their parents, the nanny, the magical nanny, the learning, the final message about growing up and happiness?
8. How attractive were the children? Could children in the audience identify easily with them? A boy and a girl, their natural charm, their goodness and badness. their letter for a nanny, their delight with Mary Poppins, their response to her, their sharing in her holidays and adventure, the changed relationships with their----parents, the important sequence of their being frightened by their father's wanting, their money, the final learning and farewell to Mary Poppins?
9. How credible were the parents? Father with his song about the bank? The mother involved with the suffragettes? Their very adult behaviour compared with the children's world? Their desperation for nannies? Their reliance on Mary Poppins? The finale and the significance of flying a kite?
10. The supporting characters and their contribution: the maids and their work in the house, Nanny at the beginning and the nannies who came for the interview, the Captain on his rooftop, the uncle who laughed?
11. How attractive was Mary Poppins? Within this atmosphere? As a nanny who fulfilled dreams? As a nanny who looked after and taught children? Her niceness, yet her strictness? Her kindness an training? The fact that she did not so often unbend? Her wisdom and love? Her explanation of her strictness? The lessons that she taught to all the characters? The necessity of her leaving?
12. How attractive and enjoyable was Dick van Dyke? The contribution and enjoyment of the songs, his different jobs around London, for example with the one-man band, painting, chimney-sweep? As a help to Mary Poppins? Taking the children on enjoyable outings? The laughter with Uncle Albert? The dance of the chimney-sweeps?
13. The contribution of the dancing: in the animated sequence, in the rooftop sequence?
14. The humane aspects, for example the story about the woman feeding the birds?
15. The contribution of the humour even, for example, in the bank sequence, the old men singing, Dick Van Dyke as the bank manager, his laughing at the riddle? Flying the kites at the end?
16. What are the values of children's stories which remain popular? The magical aspects of the characters and situations? The values and the lessons to be learned?
