Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Release Date: December 13, 1971

Watch Date: April 3 – April 5, 2024

“Hold on tight for a magical, musical, fun-filled journey! When young Charlie, Carrie and Paul move to a small village during World War II, they discover their host, Miss Price (Angela Lansbury), is an apprentice witch! Although her early attempts at magic create hilarious results, she successfully casts a traveling spell on an ordinary bedknob, and they fly to the fantastic, animated Isle of Naboombu to find a powerful spell that will save England!”

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   Some people, most people, had ‘Mary Poppins’. A lady of indiscriminate age, but with a sense of youthfulness to her, that took a couple of kids that were having a hard life on a magical adventure. I had Ms. Price. And despite what some people, most people, might think, I’m still not convinced I got the worse end of the deal.

   Does ‘Mary Poppins’ have Nazis? I think not. Does ‘Mary Poppins’ have a ragged black cat named Cosmis Creepus? No sir. Does ‘Mary Poppins’ have an unexploded bomb sitting in someone’s front yard? Why she would never consider it! And would ‘Mary Poppins’ ever enter into a relationship with Mr. Browne/Mr. Banks? I highly doubt it.

   I’m just saying, Ms. Price is a far more practical magical woman for your every day child, not your spoiled children of rich bankers whose only complaint is that their father won’t play with them.

   Now where ‘Mary Poppins’ has had a lot of staying power is her songs. And I’m going to be honest, yes, even I can agree that ‘Mary Poppins’ songs are more catchy, well-known, and in some cases emotionally hard hitting. People will sing ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’, ‘Feed the Birds’, ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’, ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ and ‘Super-cali-fragil-istic-expi-ali-docious’ just as they go around their normal lives. But I argue that’s because more people know about ‘Mary Poppins’ than Ms. Price and I think that ‘Old Home Guard’, ‘The Beautiful Briny’, ‘The Age of Not Believing’, ‘Portobello Road’, and ‘Substitutiary Locomotion’ could be just as popular if more people gave it a chance.

   And look, I don’t mean to spend this entire write up comparing the two films, and it’s leading ladies, but it’s hard not to. They’re basically 1:1 when it comes to making a comparison. Both are based off of films. Both have a magical woman changing some children’s lives. Both have an animated component with real life actors going into a magical world. Disney was clearly trying to recapture the magic of ‘Mary Poppins’ and you can’t blame them, not really. But because they didn’t let this movie breathe and be it’s own thing, Ms. Price and her bedknobs and Nazi fighting got regulated to the sidelines with Mary Poppins with her touch of Disney magic reigns supreme.

   In the end, I guess what I’m advocating is for more people to give this film a chance. Yes, there’s some racism, yes there’s an evil book collector who believes in magic enough to want to find a spell, but not enough to think that spells will work and then is never mentioned again, and yes, the Nazis don’t come in until the end of the film. But what this does have, is special. And on top of all of that you’ve got Mr. Banks acting the exact opposite of how he did in his Mary Poppins debut, and Mrs. Potts singing and dancing and flying on broomsticks, and it just feels like a fun Disney get together. With Nazis!

   So be like my husband, and give ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ a chance, ideally not because someone is forcing you to watch it because it’s their birthday month, but because it really is an underappreciated film that could make more peoples’ childhood just a little bit more magical if only more older people were aware of it. I know I’ll be showing our kids…once they seem at all interested and not obsessed with Easter candy and new Minecraft games.