The travesty of last year’s Saving Mr. Banks and a recent episode of “Drunk HIstory” got me thinking about Walt Disney a lot more, so the new Blu-ray release of the live-action/animated hybrid musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks seemed worth exploring. One thing Banks did get right was that P.L. Travers never allowed another Mary Poppins film to be made, so anyone looking for more of the Mary Poppins movie magic (Franchise Fred anyone?) would have to look elsewhere. Bedknobs would be that elsewhere. Not only was it directed by Poppins’Robert Stevenson with music by the Sherman Brothers, but Disney had it in development while working with Travers, as backup if they couldn’t secure Poppins. By the time Bedknobs got made, it seemed shoehorned into the Poppins mold, although with no resistance from author Mary Norton that I could uncover.
Perfectly charming, if a bit slight, Bedknobs and Broomsticks stars Angela Lansbury as an apprentice witch getting the hang of her first spells. She brings three children along on a magical adventure on their flying bed, with a magic bedknob, fueled by music and dance, plus an animated segment. It’s simple enough, and the dance sequences are impressive, and it explains WTF a bedknob is. Although I think more accurately it’s a bed FRAME knob.
I don’t know how faithful this is to Norton’s books, but the parallels to the Poppins movie are striking. One difference is that Miss Price (Lansbury) is an amateur who is learning magic for the first time, while Mary Poppins was clearly a pro. But both were fighting for a social cause. Mary Poppins got involved with women’s suffrage, and Miss Price is trying to help the Allies in WWII. With her magic. Obviously, the idea of blending live-action and animation comes from the success of Poppins, so too the musical stylings of the Shermans and the British settings and characters. Mr. Banks himself, David Tomlinson, is in Bedknobs and Broomsticks too as Price’s mentor magician.
Sequences like Portobello Road are impressive, despite some brown-face dancers that are a relic of political incorrectness. They’ve got the moves, though. While derivative of its predecessor, the animated Naboombu Lagoon sequence does elevate the form with a lot more interaction between live and animated characters, plus a wirework ballet in front of the animation. (Perhaps this was a precursor to The Matrix.)So too is a sequence of clothing hung on invisible dancers a marvel of old school special effects. Basically, the set pieces are awesome, even though the story thinly threads them together, but that fits my number one rule: “Because it’s awesome” is the only reason they need to exist.
Unfortunately, this isn’t like Grease 2 or Shock Treatment where you watch one of those maligned musical sequels and find out the music is awesome. Most of the music in Bedknobs sounds generic and unmemorable. You can hear attempts to harken back to “Chim Chim Cher-ee” or “Spoonful of Sugar” but the magic isn’t there. Even the one song that was leftover from Poppins, “The Beautiful Briny,” is not quite a showstopper. Still, to see these professional dancers put on a performance in front of these lavish sets is a good show. You can totally tell it’s a double when Miss Price goes crazy on the broom, but the double does a great job.
The Blu-ray only has the theatrical cut of the film. An extended cut was released on DVD, but I’m not sure I needed to see a longer version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I got the gist. The deleted scenes and songs are in the bonus features, and actually transferred in smoother clarity than the film itself. The extended Portobello Road number would be worth reinstating, and all the other bonus features from the DVD are included.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks was released along with four other animated Disney movies this week: The Three Musketeers, Tarzan, Hercules, and The Legend of Ichabod and Mr. Toad/Fun and Fancy Free. I chose to focus on Bedknobs but all the animated films in particular have outstanding Blu-ray transfers. The ‘90s traditional animation of the other films is the top of its form with colors and shading that stun in HD. Comparing them to the earlier animated features shows off the advancements made in animation, although the Ichabod/Fancy era still looks wonderful with their solid colors and sharp lines in HD.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
