# Mary Poppins (1964) | Ep. 53 - Part 1

An episode of [All The Right Movies](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1471502633), 14 Feb 2025, 1 h 24 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO1545167239.mp3

Walt Disney spent twenty years trying to convince a deeply reluctant author to let him make this film at all. John, Westy, and Matt begin the story. In Part 1 we cover the film's opening, director Robert Stevenson, the cast, and the second act — including Julie Andrews's screen debut, Dick Van Dyke's much-discussed accent, and the groundbreaking blend of live action and animation. Practically perfect, but not quite finished. Part 2 floats in next: crew, finale, reception, legacy. Out now. Connect with ATRM: To join our fantastic community of film fans, support what we do, access our archive, listen to exclusive episodes, and a whole lot more, become an ATRM patron: Join the ATRM Community We're available on any podcast platform: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify YouTube: Subscribe to our channelWe're across all major social channels too: Twitter: @ATRightMovies Instagram: @allthe_rightmovies Facebook: Join our movie group Bluesky: @alltherightmovies.com TikTok: @alltherightmovies Website: alltherightmovies.com

## Transcript

[0:04] All the movies. Mary Poppins spread the word.
[0:08] The big word supercalifragilistic.
[0:13] It's Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke with the year's last and
[0:17] biggest word in motion picture entertainment, Mary Poppins.
[0:22] Walt Disney's finest and most unique achievement in magical,
[0:26] whimsical musical screen entertainment.
[0:29] Watch for Mary Poppins acclaimed by everyone as Walt Disney's
[0:33] greatest achievement, Mary Poppins was released in 1964 and
[0:37] became an instant classic. Disney's timeless tale of a
[0:40] musical magical nanny and Edwardy London.
[0:43] The film is an exploration of childhood wonder, family bonds
[0:46] and finding jog in life simple moments.
[0:49] My name is John and the dancing chimney sweeps with me are
[0:52] Westie. Close your mouth please,
[0:54] Michael. We are not a codfish.
[0:55] And Matt? It's all me pals.
[0:58] Step in time, step in time. From Cherry Tree Lane to the
[1:02] London rooftops, all the right movies are talking imagination,
[1:06] animation and Julie Andrews. So grab your umbrella, we're
[1:09] heading up to the highest height.
[1:31] Hello and welcome to All the Right Movies.
[1:34] Practically perfect in every way is something we're not, but we
[1:37] are practically a podcast on classic and hit films.
[1:40] I was going to say that's absolutely correct.
[1:41] But yeah, Carrier. Practically a podcast.
[1:44] Not quite there. Yeah, this episode, it's bound
[1:47] to bring the magic, isn't it? Of course.
[1:49] I'd have thought so. Yeah, Walt Disney and Julie
[1:52] Andrews, Hollywood royalty, as we step in time with the Disney
[1:57] classic that is Mary Poppins. Before we float up to the
[2:02] ceiling, though, should we plug our practically perfect patron
[2:05] offering? Now you're talking.
[2:06] Let's do. Yeah, that is perfect.
[2:08] So if you're a regular listener to our ATRM Classic podcasts,
[2:11] you can help support what we do by becoming an ATRM patron.
[2:15] Patrons get access to our bonus podcast episodes called Double
[2:18] Feature, where we talk about some films that may not feature
[2:21] on ATRM Classic. Yeah, and The Watch List, our
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[2:30] whole podcast archive full of bonus episodes and archive the
[2:33] ATRM Classic episodes. There's so much content in
[2:36] there, you need a bag like Mary Poppins to carry you around with
[2:39] you, of course. It will.
[2:41] Hundreds of hours of stuff. So to find out more and sign up,
[2:44] visit patreon.com/all the Right Movies or you can subscribe
[2:48] directly on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
[2:50] Easy as that, yes? Helps the medicine go down, if
[2:53] nothing else, it. Certainly does.
[2:54] It's certainly a big spoonful of sugar, that one.
[2:57] How many of these come a crowbar in?
[2:59] Lord, Mark, back in this episode and we are talking Mary Poppins.
[3:06] You put this one up, Matt. Did I?
[3:07] Obviously, Obviously. So why are we talking about it?
[3:11] It's the very definition of a timeless film for me.
[3:14] We've grown up with it, generations before us grew up
[3:17] with it, generations afterwards have grown up with it.
[3:19] And it doesn't matter how old your kids are, if you have kids,
[3:22] doesn't matter if they've been brought up in all the latest CGI
[3:25] animations. You put this on for them and
[3:27] they'll sit entrance through the whole thing.
[3:29] Now, am I sitting here as a 45 year old Manty and I watch this
[3:32] on a regular basis? No liar.
[3:36] Maybe you got away with that. Maybe you got away.
[3:37] With that, you see me time in there, just left it.
[3:41] But it is one of those classic films where if I'm going through
[3:43] the channels and it's on, then it's staying on whatever point
[3:46] it's at. So and then just from our
[3:48] perspective, it's great that, you know, we're kind of pushing
[3:50] the boundaries a bit. We're talking about a film from
[3:52] the the classic Disney era. We're talking the classic style
[3:55] of animation for the first time and our first ever proper
[3:58] musical. So we can finally take that box
[4:00] as well. Right.
[4:01] OK. Yeah, nice.
[4:02] Taking all the boxes. Not all of them, John, Not all
[4:05] of. Them, some of them, some of the
[4:06] boxes. I mean, like a lot of people,
[4:09] maybe most people, I've got vivid memories of watching Mary
[4:12] Poppins as a child. It seemed to be on every
[4:14] Christmas in the Uki think it still is.
[4:16] So it does have a kind of magical Christmas feel to me
[4:19] sometimes when I say it and still get that from it.
[4:22] Obviously as I got a bit older it went off the radar bit.
[4:24] I mean, imagine going to a school in South Shields in the
[4:27] 90s, buying one about Chim Chim Cherie.
[4:30] I wouldn't be here now. I did it once.
[4:33] Yeah, once was enough. Swiftly regretted this.
[4:35] Yeah. And one of the most mind blowing
[4:37] experiences of my life was when I was about 16 and found out
[4:40] that bird from Mary Poppins was the guy of diagnosis murder
[4:44] right mental. Yes, right.
[4:45] Yeah, yeah. But now older again.
[4:47] I watched Mary Poppins totally differently.
[4:49] The creativity on the show is kind of astonishing.
[4:52] I think the ambition and the scale I still find impressive.
[4:55] It's placed in Hollywood history and Disney history.
[4:58] It's about was iconic as films get.
[5:00] I mean, when one of Hollywood's biggest stars, like Tom Hanks is
[5:02] starring in a movie about how another film was made, like
[5:04] Saving Mr. Banks, yeah, you know, it must be a significant
[5:07] film. Yeah, that's the sequel to
[5:08] Saving Private Ryan, isn't it? What?
[5:12] You and that making of story is a fascinating 1 groundbreaking
[5:15] work. Problems, fallouts, funny
[5:17] stories, it's kind of got the lot.
[5:20] Obviously we'll be talking about all that and huge opinions as
[5:22] well, and I can't imagine this won't be a write or laugh.
[5:26] Yeah, sure it will. And we do love to laugh, so
[5:29] yeah. Let's go for it, OK?
[5:31] And Westie, don't slouch. Ah, Mary Poppins for you if.
[5:35] Any Austria are going to slouch to be a cynical person about
[5:38] this. I'm trying not to swear because
[5:39] it's Mary Poppins, so I'm trying to be.
[5:41] Feels wrong. I do love this film.
[5:44] I've always loved this film. It's got such a charm and it's
[5:46] got such a warmth and it's so inviting and every time you're
[5:49] in it, you just think, I want to finish this and then watch it
[5:51] again. It's just got the real sense of
[5:55] just adventure. And like you said, John, it just
[5:57] has this magic. I don't know, it just has this
[5:59] real warmth. Oh yeah, it's set my house on
[6:02] fire when I watched it did it. No, it's not that warm.
[6:07] But yeah, it's wonderful. It is wonderful.
[6:09] I'm looking forward to diving into it because there's a lot of
[6:11] behind the scenes things that I didn't realize that I wasn't
[6:14] really aware of because I don't think of it necessarily as a
[6:17] film. I just think of it as a memory.
[6:18] It's just feeling. And when I start going, well,
[6:21] this is actually a film and it has adop and it has
[6:24] screenwriters and it has people who've written this like, you
[6:27] know what I mean? It doesn't make that kind of
[6:28] sense. So for me, yeah, it's a real
[6:30] magical film. It does stand the test of time.
[6:32] Like Matt said, my kids loved it.
[6:33] I loved it when I was a kid. And however, I sure do, it's
[6:36] impossible not to really fall in love with it.
[6:38] So yeah, it's a great, great film.
[6:40] So Mary Poppins was produced by Walt Disney Productions,
[6:43] distributed by Buena Vista Distribution and released on
[6:46] August the 27th, 1964. Filmed entirely at the Walt
[6:49] Disney Studios in Burbank, CA, the film was directed by Robert
[6:53] Stevenson, written by Bill Walsh and Don Degrade, based on PL.
[6:57] Trevor's series of children's books, and stars Julie Andrews
[7:00] as Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke as Bird, David Tomlinson as Mr.
[7:03] Banks, and Clintons Johns as Missus Banks, Sister Suffragette
[7:08] indeed. That's it.
[7:10] Let's get ourselves to 17 Cherry Tree Lane then, should we?
[7:13] Let's do it. Let's go storm a Brune.
[7:16] It's London 1910, as we talked, the beginning of Mary Poppins.
[7:38] Mary Poppins carries us through the streets of London for almost
[7:40] 2 1/2 hours, but we're starting with the opening.
[7:44] The entrance of the titular nanny is coming, but we're
[7:46] beginning with some of that key character introductions.
[7:50] We are so the rooftops of London.
[7:51] Then Cherry Tree Lanes, where we begin.
[7:53] We meet Bert, sweeping and singing his way through the city
[7:56] like a mad mad. Then the Banks family in a state
[8:00] of chaos. Their nannies just quit, their
[8:03] children are missing, and a strange wind is blowing in from
[8:06] the east. What do you make of Suffragette
[8:09] City, Matt? I mean, I love Suffragette City,
[8:12] absolutely. Not the song.
[8:15] When I was a kid, I actually never really liked the song and
[8:18] I never understood the same because I just want Mary Poppins
[8:20] to turn up and I don't know why I'm watching the mother sing a
[8:22] song. But as an adult, it just makes a
[8:25] lot more sense because I think it is important to realize that
[8:28] these kids, they don't need, and I need because they've been
[8:30] abandoned or neglected. It's just the parents have
[8:33] prioritized other things and they've taken their eye off the
[8:35] ball. But those things are still
[8:36] important. Or certainly Missus Banks's
[8:39] causes, that line in the song. Our daughters.
[8:41] Daughters will adore us. Yeah, they will actually.
[8:44] Because obviously, decades down the line, women's rights are
[8:47] absolutely worth fighting for. So I think it works well in
[8:50] contrast with what Mr. Banks is prioritizing in his life, which
[8:53] we'll see in a bit, which is nowhere near as important.
[8:56] And one thing that I think has always been great, and I think
[8:58] she gets overshadowed a little bit in the cast, Glindis
[9:01] Johnson's Mrs. Banks, I think she's really excellent in this.
[9:04] She's really funny when she lifts a dress up mid song and
[9:06] that surfing the shrieks in horror, that's really funny.
[9:09] So yeah, it's a scene that as an adult I understand I enjoyed a
[9:12] lot more than I did as a kid. Yeah, everyone's blaming the
[9:16] kids, Jane and Michael, but it's adults who need to have a word
[9:19] with themselves. Exactly.
[9:20] Katie Nana is way out of our depth.
[9:23] Good riddance to her. And then Ellen, the maid trying
[9:26] to tell Mrs. Banks to her kids have gone missing, and she's
[9:28] just prancing about belting out sister.
[9:30] So forget. But something I love is the
[9:33] opening credits. I mean, always like a classic
[9:36] Hollywood opening credits sequence.
[9:37] And this one's great. The matte paintings of the
[9:39] London skyline by Peter Allen Shaw.
[9:41] They still look stunning. The font over the top is perfect
[9:44] for the subject matter. Yellow, too.
[9:46] So you like them West? Yeah, just.
[9:47] About to say take that one off. And then we end up Mary sitting
[9:50] in the clouds. Is that where she lives?
[9:52] Yeah, for now. How long should be there?
[9:55] It's fine. But then into the film and
[9:57] there's a lot to talk about. Like straight away.
[9:59] I love Bert shuffling about in his one man band here.
[10:02] Yeah, great. Admiral Boom.
[10:04] What's going on with Admiral Boom?
[10:06] Who is he? Doesn't matter, does it?
[10:08] Or random. Nothing in this film makes.
[10:10] Sense Who's the guy with? Where does he live?
[10:13] Who created this ship deck rooftop that they've got?
[10:15] It's insane. Master and commander.
[10:19] Blonde ponytail. It's been a weird.
[10:23] And why is everyone fine with the randomly firing is coming
[10:26] across London? It's insane.
[10:27] I do a little later on with his first mate though, when they're
[10:29] washing his windows and they're sitting in like a lifeboat.
[10:31] Yeah. Yeah, fantastic.
[10:34] And as character indros go, it's also well done with the Banks
[10:37] family and Bird especially. And he's likeable straight.
[10:39] Away. Oh, amazing.
[10:40] Yeah. Breaking the 4th wall first
[10:42] thing he does that's really ballsy as well.
[10:44] Say straight in oh, it's you. Yeah.
[10:46] That he knows who I am. Like when I was a kid, I'm like
[10:48] Bird knows who I am. It's amazing.
[10:49] Yeah, yeah, it's great. And in this introduction of Bird
[10:52] playing as the one man band, there's some references to the
[10:55] books in there as well. So the woman with the two tall
[10:57] daughters is called Missus Corey, and in the book she runs
[11:00] the local sweet shop. Right.
[11:02] Right. Yeah, Edwardian suites break
[11:04] your teeth on those things. Exactly right.
[11:07] Yeah, We've been introduced to Missus Banks.
[11:09] Let's meet Mr. Banks. I mean, let's he's a bit
[11:12] entitled, isn't he? Just a touch.
[11:14] Let's be honest. Sherry at six O 2, Bennett six O
[11:20] 3 for the kids season. For one minute a day.
[11:24] I was like, this is just poetry. This is a what a blueprint this
[11:28] is. How do I get involved in this?
[11:30] This is absolutely fantastic. This sense of entitlement, his
[11:33] sense of what's important, like Matt said, where he is the
[11:37] master of this domain. And you know, when you slippers
[11:40] and pipe and Sherry, it's all going to be ready for us.
[11:43] And I'm the kids are going to be ready for bed and I'm going to
[11:45] have it's outrageous. It is.
[11:47] This whole wealth is his identity, his class is his
[11:51] identity, and it really comes across that he is quite
[11:54] despicable and a really terrible parent.
[11:57] It's set up straight away because yeah, I don't think
[11:59] you're supposed to hate the guy. I think you're supposed to hate
[12:02] his outlook and hate his position and you're immediately
[12:05] on that when you're introduced to him.
[12:06] So I just think it's a fantastic introduction to this character
[12:10] and the way that he deals with situations that his kids have
[12:12] gone missing. And then he says do not cloud
[12:14] the issue with facts. I just love that because that's
[12:18] exactly what you need to do to get the problem solved.
[12:21] The police are at his beck and call.
[12:23] They're at the door. What great service.
[12:24] Thank you very much. Find a player or something very
[12:26] entitled, very good though, because you kind of like the guy
[12:30] but you wanted to change his mind immediately.
[12:33] Yeah, you're right. I mean, I think Mr. and Mrs.
[12:35] Banks might be the worst parents in movies.
[12:37] They're an absolute disgrace. They are up there.
[12:39] Mr. Banks comes in, you find out his kids are missing and just
[12:42] instantly calls the police copy a little fun of themselves.
[12:45] Where could the be? Doesn't know where the hang out?
[12:47] Nothing exactly. It's like Home Alone in 1964.
[12:51] And then Jane comes in with a little letter that she's written
[12:53] about finding a new nanny. She sings it, for God sakes, and
[12:57] Mr. Banks takes an offer, rips it up, goes that's enough of
[13:00] that nonsense. The man's a monster.
[13:05] Is. Absolute monster.
[13:07] It's actually quite refreshing, I think, watching a big
[13:09] mainstream film that isn't moving like 1,000,000 miles an
[13:12] hour. Yeah.
[13:13] Allows the story to unfold with a plot around Jane and Michael
[13:15] going missing and the fact this whole thing was shot in doors,
[13:18] which we'll talk about. That's crazy because the scale
[13:20] of it is huge from the start. It's.
[13:22] Great how he questions valuables as well because the police says
[13:25] just some valuables. He's like valuables.
[13:26] Yeah. It's like your kids are
[13:28] valuable, you know, like we are worth something.
[13:30] And he's just, oh, that's not valuable.
[13:31] The bank's valuable men is valuable.
[13:34] He's called Mr. Banks for a reason.
[13:35] Exactly. Yeah, and I mentioned Glenda
[13:37] Strands, who plays Missus Banks. Walt Disney had wanted a cast of
[13:41] From the Off, and one of the composers, Richard Sherman, said
[13:44] Johns initially thought she was up for the part of Mary at
[13:47] first. So when she found out it wasn't
[13:49] and it was Missus Banks, she said she would still do it, but
[13:51] with the condition should get a song to sing.
[13:53] So Disney told her they were right.
[13:55] When she left, he turned to Sherman and said, Yep, you have
[13:57] to write a song now. So I had written a song called
[14:00] Practically Perfect But the distance named A Sister
[14:03] Suffragette. Right.
[14:05] Lovely. Yeah.
[14:05] Career went back to the 1930s. Glynis Johns.
[14:08] She'd be in films and on Broadway.
[14:09] So she kind of had the chops for this.
[14:11] Yeah. And I like Mrs. Banks.
[14:13] She's off her head. Yeah.
[14:15] She's a. Great mother, but doesn't know
[14:18] how to be one. Yeah, like all her feelings are
[14:20] there, but she doesn't know how to move forward.
[14:22] She just needs permission from people.
[14:24] And I think that's a whole point.
[14:25] It's like she's doing what she's doing so she doesn't have to ask
[14:27] for permission anymore. Yeah, it's a really good
[14:29] supporting performance, I think from Glynis Johns.
[14:31] And Jane is played by Karen Daughtrus, who was hired after
[14:35] starring in Disney film called The Three Lives of Thomasina,
[14:37] about a magical cat. Matthew Garber was in that film
[14:40] too when Disney thought he had a chemistry with Karen Daughtry,
[14:42] so he was cast as Michael. Yeah, they're good in the film,
[14:45] I think the kids. They are good.
[14:47] I think Karen Daughtrus especially is good.
[14:49] Yeah, I think you get just enough of them because they've
[14:51] got that slightly stage skill to poor Trackton, which I think it
[14:55] could be a bit great. And if you get too much, but
[14:56] they're very sugary of these performances.
[14:58] But I've certainly seen a lot worse than this in the film.
[15:01] Do also think the best approach is always make sure they're
[15:04] sharing scenes with the adults who can carry them a little bit.
[15:06] But yeah, I do like them in this.
[15:08] I do as well, yeah. Katie Nana.
[15:11] Katie Nana. I always find that weird.
[15:13] Katie, Nana. It's a weird.
[15:14] It's a weird. Yeah, the nanny who leaves at
[15:17] the start was played by an outrage called Elsa Lanchester.
[15:20] She's been nominated for two Oscars before this, and her most
[15:22] famous role was in 1935 when she played The Bride of
[15:25] Frankenstein. Yeah.
[15:27] Which I can see because she is a bit dull, isn't she?
[15:31] She's hot as a Brady Frankenstein.
[15:32] Oh, you should. Or maybe that's just me and.
[15:37] The whole film was filmed indoors on sound stages at the
[15:40] Walt Disney Studio lot in California.
[15:42] Cherry Tree Lane and the park filled an entire sound stage by
[15:45] themselves, and it was surrounded by a 360° cyclorama
[15:50] so the camera could be turned in any direction without ever
[15:52] breaking the illusion. Right.
[15:54] Nice. Really cool.
[15:55] Yeah. The art directors were called
[15:57] Carla Clark and William Tunke, and what they did was they built
[16:00] the houses on Cherry Tree Lane in diminishing scale, which
[16:02] makes the street look a lot longer than it actually is.
[16:05] Old fashioned movie magic. Yeah, which I can't get enough
[16:08] of. And whenever I say that kind of
[16:09] Crescent shaped St. in real life, it always reminds me of
[16:12] Mary Poppins and Cherry Tree Lane.
[16:14] There's one in time mouth. There is exactly.
[16:16] Yeah, same. I know exactly which one you.
[16:18] Mean yeah and that's our opening character intros Chaos at #17
[16:22] and a family in need of help. We've met the banks and birds.
[16:25] Time to meet our magical nanny, I think.
[16:27] Oh yeah, The ad for a nanny goes up the chim chimney in pieces
[16:33] the monster. But it gets a swift response.
[16:37] A floating Mary Poppins arrives at #17 tells Mr. Banks she's the
[16:41] new nanny. And then amazes Jane and Michael
[16:43] by turning nursery clean up into a game of sing songs and
[16:45] snapping fingers. Yeah, what will your height say
[16:49] on that tape measure, do you think?
[16:50] Oh, loves Roger Dickens. Yeah, fine, fine.
[16:58] Well, how does Mary's intro go, do you think?
[17:00] It goes well. I mean, there's better something
[17:02] or other taking the place than the board bow, isn't there?
[17:04] So I mean, it looks great. This is wonderful.
[17:07] This moment. It's got real Wizard of Oz vibes
[17:09] for me. It's the whole fly in a way.
[17:11] It was great when I was a kid. I was just thinking, I would
[17:14] love this to happen. I love the way they set it up.
[17:16] So dour. All of these other nannies, they
[17:18] all look terrifying and just like, oh God, I hope it's not
[17:21] her. It's not her.
[17:22] It's all about the kids and their view of it.
[17:24] It's their point of view and we're seeing it from their point
[17:26] of view. And again, it's like, is this
[17:28] really happening or are they just imagining this as they're
[17:31] watching it? Is this in their heads?
[17:32] It's the whole films like that. So if you don't like this, but
[17:35] if you don't like people just floating away for no reason,
[17:38] don't watch Mary Poppins then, because this is the tone of the
[17:41] film throughout. It's beautifully set up.
[17:43] It's absolutely magic. It's great when it happens and I
[17:45] would have loved personally, I would love to see Andrew get the
[17:47] gig. Every second Tuesday off.
[17:52] That's it. That's that Popper, didn't you?
[17:54] Probably. And he said every Tuesday, yes.
[17:58] And Julie Andrew's delivery, when she reads out James Harden,
[18:00] she's like, she was just position.
[18:02] I am never cross. That is just perfect.
[18:04] I love it. I love that close up as well.
[18:05] You see, it's been torn up and it's been put back together.
[18:07] Yeah, at the end of battle feature and they've totally
[18:09] ripped that off. Yeah, but there's some really
[18:12] good practical effects work. I mean, the nanny's being blown
[18:14] down the street is great. Ruthless Poppins to get rid of
[18:17] them. Yeah.
[18:18] And then maybe gliding into the bank's front yard.
[18:20] That looks really good. And my favorite of the lot when
[18:22] she slides open the banister. Yeah, I still wish I could do
[18:25] that. It's fantastic.
[18:27] It's the way the said with that witches have brooms issue, which
[18:30] where she from? What's with all this magic?
[18:32] Yeah, it's great. I know a lot of those other
[18:33] nannies were played by men dressed as women, which you can
[18:36] totally tell when we get that shot of them all standing there.
[18:38] But yeah, that shot of Mary floating into the street is just
[18:41] iconic movie history. Yeah.
[18:43] So to achieve the effect of Mary Float and Julie Andrews was
[18:46] attached to wires which have been darkened so the studio
[18:48] lights wouldn't reflect them. On one occasion there was a
[18:51] problem when the stage hands lowered her too quickly and she
[18:53] said I plummeted to the stage and left fly with a few
[18:56] Anglo-Saxon four letter words. I have to admit Judy Andrews
[19:01] would say that way. Potty mouth, Andrews.
[19:04] No shock you'd be. Yeah, right now.
[19:06] Yeah, I have to admit. But here in the Queen called
[19:09] Prince Philip, I say Bob. It's like you're a maths way to
[19:13] be honest. It's always new, it's always
[19:15] shocking. And then you go from this to her
[19:17] first musical sequence, which is where the character really takes
[19:20] off. And This is why kids love her.
[19:22] You know, one of the worst chores ever tied in your room,
[19:25] and she's making it fun. She gets everything sorted by
[19:27] clicking her fingers. She literally charms the birds
[19:30] out of the trees on command. I mean, how cool is this
[19:32] character? She's amazing.
[19:34] And Andrew, I mean, her singing voice is just Immaculate.
[19:37] That mirror trick with the reflection where it has a life
[19:40] of its own that's so cleverly done just now.
[19:43] One quick edit and it's absolutely seamless and it's
[19:46] really funny when the reflection just hits that high note which
[19:48] Mary's very unimpressed by. Cheeky.
[19:50] Cheeky, yeah. Brilliant.
[19:53] But then that's a thing with all that's going on by the end of
[19:55] this scene. Drawers open and close and by
[19:57] themselves a mirror reflection with a life of its own, a
[20:00] wardrobe that's come to life and trapped together.
[20:02] Just think, Sam Raimi must have loved this scene, because all
[20:04] the needs is a new said cackling away.
[20:06] And you've got Evil Dead too, right here.
[20:08] Yeah, just under expose it by like 4 stops you've got Evil
[20:11] Dead. Yeah, yeah.
[20:13] When I was a kid I remember being muscly jealous that I
[20:15] couldn't just snap my fingers and make me room tidy itself up
[20:18] as well. How many times did we try
[20:20] though? Nobody there.
[20:21] I'll give this just in case, yeah.
[20:23] Just in case I don't like how Mary's throws loads of shade of
[20:26] the kids for being scruffy. Little Trump so.
[20:30] Stepping over everything. Yeah, yeah.
[20:32] I mean, it's not the first musical number in the film, and
[20:34] we've heard bits of Chim Chim Cherie, but this is the first
[20:36] time we hear one of the big iconic songs and all its glory
[20:39] and spoonful of sugar. Yeah, and it's massive
[20:41] automatically, I think it seems to represent the whole film
[20:43] finding the good in things, in this case, finding the fun in
[20:46] the chore of cleaning up. I think the choreography is
[20:48] really good. The practical effects were to
[20:50] make the toys put themselves away or the beds make
[20:52] themselves. Has aged probably, but it's the
[20:54] sick 60s and I still enjoy watching it.
[20:56] What hasn't the age though, and I doubt ever will, is Julie
[20:59] Andrews voice. It's like pitch perfect.
[21:02] Yeah. It's Crystal.
[21:03] It's. Clear as a bell, what a talent
[21:06] she is, and watching it now I find the whole thing pretty
[21:08] uplifting to be honest. Oh, absolutely.
[21:10] You've been talking about it, just reminiscent about it, not
[21:13] actually watching. It's still a wonderful scene,
[21:14] yeah. It is.
[21:16] And the Sherman brothers, who were the composers, they'd
[21:18] originally wrote a song called Through the Eyes of Love, which
[21:21] was going to be Mary's signature song, but apparently Julie
[21:23] Andrews just didn't think it was good enough.
[21:24] So it was taken out. But then Richard Sherman's son,
[21:27] he came home from school one day and he'd been given the polio
[21:30] vaccine and he said to him, or they gave it to him on the sugar
[21:33] cube to make it easy to swallow. And that's where the title is
[21:35] Spoonful of Sugar came from. Nice.
[21:38] Wow, when I got my PCG at school I didn't get no spoonful of
[21:41] sugar, just a massive needle. Yeah, and then punched off
[21:44] everyone in the army. But Richard Sherman said his
[21:48] favorite moment in all the time that he worked on the film came
[21:51] the first time you heard Julie Andrews sing a spoonful of.
[21:53] Sugar, I'm not surprised. Right.
[21:54] Yeah, it would be, wouldn't it? Yeah, he said.
[21:56] He started to cry, because it was good, presumably.
[21:58] So if you could sing anything and it'll be amazing as long as
[22:01] you've written it like she's singing my song.
[22:03] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[22:04] And the Robin that whistles along when Mary sings was a real
[22:07] Robin now? Kidding, that was the Julie
[22:13] Andrews had wires running up a sleeve and a team of puppeteers
[22:15] had a stick that they would move to make the Robin move in same
[22:18] time. So amazing.
[22:19] Right. Yeah, like an early animatronic
[22:22] and the Robins whistling. That was Julie Andrews
[22:24] whistling. I mean, she's got some pipes on
[22:25] her, Andrew, doesn't she? Yeah.
[22:27] Brass band, Yeah. And Robert Stevenson, the
[22:29] director, he wanted to get genuine reactions from the
[22:32] children, so we didn't always tell Current or Trace and
[22:34] Matthew Garber what was going to happen in one of these moments
[22:37] is Mary giving the children medicine and it comes out in two
[22:40] different colours. So when Jane screams, that was
[22:43] Current Teresa's real reaction. And then when Mary pulls item
[22:46] after item out of the bag, the children weren't told that was
[22:49] going to happen. So their reactions in the film
[22:50] are how they reacted on set at the time.
[22:53] Yeah, it's still great. The bad moment when she pulls
[22:56] the hot stand out. Brilliant.
[22:58] And Michael goes under the table.
[22:59] I love that reaction. He's like, what the?
[23:03] Originally there was going to be a scene where Mary makes the
[23:05] children's toys all come to life to teach the kids a lesson about
[23:08] playing nicely together. It was inspired by a chapter in
[23:11] the books were taken out with the film because I thought was
[23:13] just far too scary for the kids. It does sound scary.
[23:16] Sounds like the end of Toy Story when Sid freaks out.
[23:19] Like child's play or something? Chucky in there.
[23:24] That scene was brought back for the Broadway musical version of
[23:27] Mary Poppins, apparently. OK.
[23:29] And the toys that we do see move in the film when they jump into
[23:31] the toy box. That was all done through stop
[23:33] motion animation, which you can tell, Yeah.
[23:35] Yeah, and there was another musical sequence planned for
[23:38] early in the film at one point called The Magic Compass, and he
[23:41] and Mary would take the children on a trip around the world and
[23:43] they'd sing 4 different songs. The Sherman Brothers worked on
[23:46] it for months but it was taken out probably because it just
[23:48] took away from the main plot. Yeah, I mean, it's already 2
[23:51] hours and 23 minutes long, throwing most of it there.
[23:54] There were four. Songs.
[23:56] Yeah, well, those four songs, one of them apparently became
[23:59] the beautiful briny in bed knobs and broomsticks.
[24:01] OK. OK.
[24:02] Yes, and another became Trust in Me, the song that castings to
[24:05] Mowgli in The Jungle Book. Oh.
[24:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it should be in every
[24:09] Disney film car. Oh.
[24:10] You're great, yeah. To take us to the end of this
[24:13] section, we have our first ATRM patron question.
[24:16] The benefits to becoming an ATRM patron keep coming.
[24:19] We are pulling from Mary Poppins bag and we have our first
[24:22] question now from Adam. Hello, Adam.
[24:24] Hello Adam. So Adam asks.
[24:26] This movie has one of the greatest character arrival
[24:29] introduction scenes. It is fantastical and wondrous
[24:31] while also telling us a lot about Mary and her personality.
[24:35] With this in mind, I have a challenge for you.
[24:37] What is the most successful and succinct character introduction
[24:40] of all time? What do you think, Westy?
[24:43] A man just love 1. As many as you want.
[24:46] Well, I've got 4. One that immediately sprung the
[24:50] mind in a very similar vein to this is Willy Wonka.
[24:53] Brilliant in CC factory. I think that's beautifully done.
[24:57] Gene Wilder wouldn't have done that without that introduction.
[25:00] Totally sums it up. James Bond in Skyfall, right?
[25:04] I absolutely love that we just walked into that sliver of
[25:07] light. Oh, yeah.
[25:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does say on the tape measure,
[25:10] I love Roger Duton, so that's why that's in the Hannibal
[25:13] Lecter do when he's just stood his decision as well.
[25:16] I think that's an incredible introduction to that character.
[25:18] But my absolute favorite, it's always going to win.
[25:20] It's Indiana Jones and Raiders just that walk into the light,
[25:23] that snap of the whip every single time for me.
[25:25] It is superb. I knew that one was coming from
[25:27] your estate. Yeah, yeah.
[25:29] I mean, Mary entrance, yeah is iconic, like we said, parodies
[25:31] many times in history. But for others, I think Sid
[25:35] Cherise knew how to make an entrance into a film.
[25:37] The Bandwagon, Singing in the Rain are both great appearances.
[25:40] Right. Singing in the rain, Yeah.
[25:41] Aragon in the Lord of the Rings. Nice fellowship with the ring
[25:44] brooding in the corner of an inn smoking a massive pipe.
[25:46] Yeah, that's. Amazing.
[25:47] That's why I want to be introduced to people just in
[25:49] life. Yeah, he.
[25:50] Does one of every film like he's in rowing 2 Towers when he walks
[25:53] through the doors. Yeah, you're right.
[25:55] I'm beautiful. But as the one, I'd probably
[25:58] have to go with video. Corleone and the Godfather in
[26:00] the opening scene. Connie's wedding.
[26:02] It's about what, 3 minutes maybe?
[26:04] And we learn everything we need to about them.
[26:06] Sitting there in the dark, deciding who does and who
[26:08] doesn't get justice. I mean, the lighting is
[26:11] outrageous. Stroking a cat.
[26:13] It's just a great visual image. Obviously, Brando, the day of my
[26:16] daughter's wedding. It's still brilliant.
[26:18] You ask me for a favor. Always will be brilliant,
[26:21] surely? Absolutely.
[26:23] Yeah, couple from me that are just in terms of the visuals,
[26:27] Darth Vader obviously just striking through that door after
[26:30] it's been blown up and just looking around and just not
[26:32] caring whatsoever about all the dead bodies.
[26:34] He's just. Rogue One, not better rogue.
[26:37] One is great, it is just when that Saber comes on zoom.
[26:40] Yeah, it's just in the dark. It's Yeah, fantastic.
[26:43] Amazing. The other one Harry line in the
[26:45] Third man, just when that window gets turned on in its Orson
[26:48] Welles, just that smirk on his face.
[26:50] He's been playing every all along, but the one I really
[26:53] wanted to go for was De Niro as Al Capone right in The
[26:56] Untouchables, because that introduction to him tells you
[26:58] everything you need to know about him.
[27:00] Just that top shot, that top shot, the.
[27:02] Decadence, the charm, the way that all those reporters are
[27:05] just hanging on his every word. You can see people field and
[27:07] think, no, he's actually, you know, he's a good guy.
[27:09] This guy can't be a threat until the Barber, just Nixon.
[27:12] And you can see that temper in his eyes nearly explodes.
[27:16] So you totally understand him by the end of that scene.
[27:19] That silver Armani suit as well. Disgusting.
[27:21] Yeah. It is great.
[27:23] I'll thought you're going to say Deniro and Mean Streets where
[27:25] he's got two women on his arm jumping.
[27:26] Jack Flash. Yeah, Yeah.
[27:27] Brilliant. I.
[27:27] Think he's a Deniro and casino just getting blown up flying
[27:30] across the Grove. And that is the beginning of the
[27:34] film. We've met Mary Poppins and
[27:36] almost every supporting character.
[27:38] Should we talk about the guy tasked with getting the magic
[27:40] onto the screen? Let's do it.
[27:42] Let's do it. The director.
[27:50] The director of Mary Poppins was Robert Stephenson.
[27:53] This was his 19th feature film and at the time he was one of
[27:56] Disney's most trusted film makers, having directed musical
[27:59] fantasies. Old Yeller, Darby O'gill and The
[28:01] Little People and The Absent Minded Professor.
[28:04] Right? Yes.
[28:04] He did all the yellow, did he? All right, that explains a lot.
[28:07] The perfect guy that held Mary Poppins it seems.
[28:09] Then Matt, how did they work out with Robert Stephenson?
[28:12] Well, worked out really well, didn't it?
[28:13] I mean, you can tell this guy is a veteran for Disney.
[28:15] This isn't a film where you look and you go.
[28:18] This is driven by the vision of the director.
[28:20] You know, he was a studio employee.
[28:22] Disney had a very clearview of what he wanted his films to be,
[28:25] especially this one. And he hires men who will give
[28:28] him that. He doesn't hire men who will try
[28:30] and give their opinion and try to change the vision.
[28:32] But having said that, that doesn't mean we should dismiss
[28:34] what Stevenson does because he's got a lot of plates to spend
[28:38] here. He's working with an actress
[28:40] making her film debut in the lead role.
[28:42] He's working with child actors, he's working with a veteran
[28:44] actors, and he's got to get them all on the same page.
[28:47] He's got to blend live action with animation.
[28:49] He's got musical numbers. He's got dance sequences.
[28:51] And then underneath it all, there's still the story beats.
[28:54] He's got a hit and including the big emotional one right at the
[28:56] end. So I can't sit here and pretend,
[28:59] you know, this is the work of an author or anything like that or
[29:01] someone who would shape cinema with this.
[29:04] But for all that he he's got a handle, I think it would just
[29:07] seem churlish to deny him a lot of credit for creating something
[29:10] that is ultimately incredibly enduring.
[29:14] Absolutely. I mean, I think it's quite a
[29:15] unique role directing a Disney film, especially at this time,
[29:18] because usually on a film, the director is the person in
[29:20] charge, creatively anyway. They're the ones with the vision
[29:23] and everyone else is there to collaborate, obviously, but help
[29:26] them achieve that vision. But on a Disney film in 1964,
[29:29] that wasn't the case. Walt Disney is the one with
[29:32] division, and everybody's there to achieve that, including the
[29:35] director. So Robert Stevenson's there to
[29:36] handle the day-to-day details, the shoots, margin, the cast,
[29:39] the schedules, working with the crew, and going by the end
[29:42] result of what we see on the screen.
[29:44] He did that pretty brilliantly. I mean, it's not just a straight
[29:47] children's story, not in Disney's hands anywhere, but
[29:49] it's on classic books, obviously.
[29:51] But to just describe this as an adaptation I think might do it a
[29:54] disservice. It's cinematic as hell, this
[29:57] insane blend of animation, special effects, live action,
[30:00] huge musical sequences. I mean, the technical
[30:03] achievements with the animation for the time were crazy.
[30:06] The songs are still massive, the performances are like legendary.
[30:10] To say they knew how to use Julie Andrews in the film and
[30:12] nobody else ever had is an understatement.
[30:14] And I mean, it is one hell of a cast and crew doing all that,
[30:17] but Stevenson's the guy pulling it all together.
[30:19] He clearly understood the brief from Disney inside out.
[30:22] He knows exactly what it needs to be massively ambitious.
[30:26] It's essentially aiming to be the best family musical ever
[30:28] made. And it kind of pulls it off.
[30:30] I got very close. Yeah.
[30:32] And visually, it's still bounces off the screen.
[30:34] Emotionally, it's still all there.
[30:36] It seems that might not have had that vision, but he played a
[30:38] massive part in delivering it. Given what he was tasked to do,
[30:41] I think it's pretty faultless work from the director.
[30:44] Yeah, absolutely. Is the captain of this ship.
[30:46] I mean, it's quite a ship. It's it's quite a size.
[30:50] And you have to explain where you're going in the middle of
[30:52] the ocean and not a lot of people are going to understand
[30:54] where you're going with this film.
[30:56] There's nothing like it since, and there wasn't much like it
[30:58] before, let's be honest. Very original in its tone, very
[31:02] original in what it's trying to pull off.
[31:04] And at the same time, it needs to cement the fact that it's a
[31:06] Disney film. He needs to have a Disney stamp
[31:09] on it and needs to have a Disney identity to it.
[31:12] And I think that's what Stevenson does.
[31:14] He brings that. So he does an absolutely
[31:17] wonderful job. Not only does he maintain the
[31:19] tone of the film all the way through, not only does he pull
[31:22] everybody together, but he also sets the tone for every Disney
[31:25] film that comes after this. Yeah.
[31:27] Yeah. It's the blueprint.
[31:29] It's the benchmark. Bed and Broomsticks was 71,
[31:32] right? How many films have just seen
[31:33] this? And just I will take that bit
[31:35] from every bottoms and make that into a whole film.
[31:37] You know, it's it's happened so many times.
[31:39] He addresses so many tones in this.
[31:41] There's so many different lighting setups for a start,
[31:44] that it just boggles the mind. Like the bank set up compared to
[31:48] the bank's house compared to the, you know, Cherry Tree Lane
[31:51] exterior is 3 completely different vibes all over the
[31:56] place. And it's hard like, and he's
[31:58] shooting on film and he needs to make sure everyone knows that it
[32:01] makes sense and needs to get really confident performances
[32:04] from every single person in front of the camera.
[32:06] And he does that. I think it's an incredible,
[32:08] incredible piece of work from a director solo point of view.
[32:12] He really sets the tone and does Walt Disney a huge, huge favor.
[32:17] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
[32:18] Yeah. So Robert Stevenson had already
[32:20] worked on Disney films before this, which got him the gig.
[32:22] Trusted pair of hands, But he also had a background in
[32:25] studying mechanical sciences at Cambridge University, I guess.
[32:28] Must have held him wrapping his head around the more technical
[32:30] aspects of the film. That seems to show, I think.
[32:32] Anyway, doesn't. It gives him a bit more
[32:34] patience, more than I would have anyway.
[32:36] Yeah, but the story of how Disney brought Poppins to the
[32:38] big screen does start way before Robert Stevenson was involved.
[32:42] I think you're keen to tell that story, Matt.
[32:44] Oh, you wouldn't believe how keen I am.
[32:48] I've got to believe it. Look at his face.
[32:52] Yeah, Disney first became aware of Mary Poppins in 1938.
[32:55] That's because his children Diane and Sharon there told him
[32:58] about it after reading the books, right?
[33:00] And there were only two published at the time.
[33:02] So Disney wrote to the author Pamela Lydon Travers to enquire
[33:06] about the rights, but she wasn't keen on giving away creative
[33:08] control. Yeah, as far back as that.
[33:11] I wonder as well how much that had to do with The Wizard of Oz.
[33:13] Yeah, that would have been in production in 1938, and Disney
[33:17] would definitely have known about it.
[33:18] And I wonder if you thought I wouldn't mind a bit of that.
[33:20] Yeah, and she turned him down. Like what with Walt Disney
[33:23] wasn't the most subtle of man. He's probably just written good.
[33:25] I'm having this. Yeah, he gets.
[33:27] What he wants doesn't. He Yeah, of course he does.
[33:29] And then what's his hands? Then in 1944 Travis moved to New
[33:34] York from London to avoid the Blitz and then waltz brother Roy
[33:38] Disney who Co founded the studio with them when they see you
[33:41] again. And she told him Mary Poppins is
[33:43] not a cartoon. There's a line in Saving Mr.
[33:47] Banks where PL. Travel says to Walt Disney, I
[33:49] won't have her turned into one of your silly cartoons.
[33:52] That line was apparently inspired by this meeting with
[33:54] Roy Disney. Right.
[33:55] Yeah, he's crushed when she says it in the film as well.
[34:00] But there had been a USTV adaptation in 1949 when the
[34:04] anthology series Studio 1 aired an episode called Mary Poppins,
[34:08] and in that she was played by Mary Wicks, and that got
[34:11] Hollywood interested again. Right.
[34:13] Mary Wicks. You might know her as Sister
[34:16] Mary Lazarus from Sister Act and Sister Act 2.
[34:18] Back in garbage. Oh, OK.
[34:19] Yes, yes. Right.
[34:21] No magic in those smashers on the soundtrack, you know.
[34:24] Oh yeah, yeah, I disagree. They are both magic.
[34:30] So then after the TV version, Sam Goldman bought the movie
[34:33] rights and apparently he was considering custom Katherine
[34:35] Hepburn to Blair Poppins, right? But production stalled and then
[34:38] the rights expired. Yeah, apparently more.
[34:41] You know horror spoke to Disney about playing Mary as well,
[34:44] right? Wow.
[34:45] Even with big stars it are pretty hard to imagine anybody
[34:47] else doing it now I think. Yeah, and then Disney found out
[34:50] that the rights were available again in 1959 and went himself
[34:53] to Travis Home in London for tea.
[34:55] By this point, the book sales were beginning to decline and
[34:58] travelers agreed to sell Disney the rights with the condition
[35:01] she was given final script. Approval.
[35:04] Yeah, apparently when they've been discussing it in the 40s,
[35:06] Travelers asked for $10,000 for the rights, but then in 1959 she
[35:10] wanted $750,000 plus some of the back end and Disney just agreed
[35:15] to it. But even then, PL.
[35:18] Travelers involvement didn't end there.
[35:20] There's a few of that good stories about her to come, which
[35:22] we'll get into as well. Yeah, for his work on Mary
[35:26] Poppins, Robert Stephenson was nominated for Best Director at
[35:28] the Oscars, and the film was nominated for Best Picture.
[35:32] Lost out to the same film for both.
[35:33] Do you know what it was? I think it was it was My Fair
[35:38] Lady, because there's the whole thing about Julie Andrews didn't
[35:41] get that role, she got Poppins instead.
[35:43] It was My Fair Lady best picture.
[35:45] Get in. And George Q Core Best director.
[35:48] Go on, Matt. That isn't the last time I
[35:50] mentioned My Fair Lady, either. No.
[35:52] So missed out on the big directing prize?
[35:54] Maybe, but Robert Stevenson's work on Mary Poppins helped
[35:57] create what will become one of Disney's biggest classics.
[35:59] I think it's probably the biggest, to be honest.
[36:02] It's up there. It's up there.
[36:03] Yeah, the cast. Robert Stevenson was a trusted
[36:12] Disney figure at the time of Mary Poppins then, but the same
[36:15] isn't necessarily true of his actors.
[36:17] It's time for our three central players in the cast.
[36:19] That's Dick Van Dyke as Chimney Sweet Bird and David Tomlinson
[36:22] as the uptight George Banks. Where should we start though, do
[36:25] you think? But where do you think?
[36:28] So Julie Andrews plays Mary Poppins, a magical nanny who
[36:32] blows in the Cherry Tree lane on the east wind.
[36:34] The story follows Mary through her arrival at the Banks
[36:37] household, who had ventures with the children and birds, then
[36:39] departing after bringing the family closer together.
[36:43] She's practically perfect in every way.
[36:45] Apparently. Westie self prayers.
[36:47] No prayers, But how was Julie Andrews playing Mary Poppins?
[36:51] I mean, I've done very well up to now.
[36:53] We're a little bit into the podcast, right?
[36:55] And I haven't got into it, but Oh my God, she is perfect in
[36:58] every way, isn't she? She's fantastic.
[37:01] She's just an absolute dream. She's just a vision on the
[37:04] screen. No matter what outfit she's in,
[37:07] it works. No matter what she's singing, no
[37:09] matter what a dialogue is, she's just wonderful.
[37:12] She's absolute magic on the screen.
[37:14] She's one of the best characters realized by Julie Andrews.
[37:17] I'm confused about where Julie Andrews starts and Mary Poppins
[37:21] starts and where she ends and I've no idea.
[37:23] I literally have no idea. She's personified this character
[37:26] to a Daniel Day Lewis standard to a point where she's just
[37:30] disappeared into this character. She just owns it.
[37:34] Absolutely owns the character. It's believable jumping into
[37:37] which all painting is believable.
[37:39] The cheese in that world don't fall over and break the
[37:41] painting. I believe that I buy the entire
[37:47] universe. I buy it when she's got an
[37:49] animatronic Robin on her finger. I buy it when she's talking to a
[37:53] parrot that's at the end of an umbrella and she's hitting its
[37:55] little nose. It's no, that should not work.
[37:59] That should transport you somewhere else.
[38:01] But what she does, she just wraps her arms around you, pulls
[38:05] you into this universe, and it's just a hug from her and it's a
[38:09] safe place. She's extraordinary in this
[38:13] film. It's one of the best character
[38:15] players I think I've ever seen from anybody.
[38:17] And she'll always be remembered in this role.
[38:19] And she is, like you said, without certain cliche, but it
[38:22] is probably perfect in every single way.
[38:26] Yeah, I think in the way that she's written, Mary's very much
[38:29] static. She doesn't have an arc.
[38:30] She changes everybody else around her.
[38:32] It's like the classic Christ like archetype and shortly the
[38:35] big JC himself. I'm not sure there's a more
[38:37] famous version of that than Mary Poppins and Julie Andrews
[38:41] playing her. It is one of the most famous
[38:43] character actor relationships we've ever seen, I think.
[38:46] I mean, not an easy thing to pull off, being both stern
[38:49] governess and charming songstress at the same time, but
[38:52] Andrews does it without breaking a sweat.
[38:54] She manages to be both strict and a delight at the the same
[38:57] time, somehow. Obviously our voice is stunning,
[38:59] but you can act as well. There's one or two moments where
[39:02] Mary's math does slip slightly, like at the end, you're seeing
[39:04] Westy when she's talking to a parrot umbrella pal about the
[39:07] children, and you can see the emotion without actually doing
[39:10] all that much. It's amazing.
[39:11] And what's insane is that she was a Broadway star, Julie
[39:14] Andrews, but she'd never been in a movie before.
[39:17] This was her first role in a film.
[39:19] Outrageous. If we could be abused, this has
[39:21] got to be it, right? Yeah, yeah, surely.
[39:23] It's got to be it. It's ridiculous.
[39:26] Leading a Mass, it's a Disney production and she basically
[39:28] turns up fully formed as if she's been doing it for years.
[39:30] And. Eclipses everybody on the
[39:32] production. Eclipses everybody.
[39:34] Yeah, to say she carries the film.
[39:35] She floats off with it in a bag of.
[39:36] Course she does with ease. An enormous talent.
[39:39] She is Hollywood royalty basically nowadays, and that's
[39:42] mostly because of two legendary performances, The Sound of Music
[39:45] and Mary Poppins. Yeah.
[39:47] It's just hard to say something about Julie Andrews in this that
[39:50] hasn't been said before, but I think it's actually really easy
[39:54] to underestimate what a massive challenge this was for her.
[39:57] As we've said, it's a debut performance.
[39:59] She's the lead in this massive production.
[40:01] The film had huge expectations and if this fails, that's going
[40:04] to hang around her neck for the rest of her career.
[40:06] Rightly or wrongly, she loves Me or Julie Andrews couldn't put it
[40:09] on screen, but she is just not perfect in this and as soon as
[40:13] you see you just think. This is iconic.
[40:15] This character's iconic straight away.
[40:17] That costume, the way she holds herself, you don't think for one
[40:20] minute this is someone who's never, never set foot before
[40:23] film camera before. Like it sounds strange to
[40:26] describe it this way, but this performance is just fearless.
[40:29] It is, yeah. No worries from her at all.
[40:32] She has the feel of a veteran and she's only about 29, I think
[40:36] when she makes this. 28 I think she might have.
[40:39] Been right, 2829 I mean. What were you doing with the 29?
[40:42] Nothing. Exactly not Mary Bobbins.
[40:48] But she just has the aura of someone much older, much more
[40:52] experience, and that makes it perfect for the role.
[40:54] I mean, you talk about perfect custom choices and we always say
[40:57] our Harrison Ford is Han Solo are Indy, this Julie Andrews has
[41:02] been at the top of the list. She can sing, she can dance.
[41:05] She was really funny as well. It's just watching the birth of
[41:08] a star. And hot as toast.
[41:10] Let's not skip around it. I mean, yeah.
[41:12] Exactly trying to keep the tone. Yeah, of course she is.
[41:16] I mean, it is not an impossible to imagine anyone else playing
[41:19] her now, but Walt Disney considered many names to play
[41:21] Mary Poppins before Julie Andrews came along, right?
[41:24] Would you like to hear some? That's cool for it, yeah.
[41:27] So Mary Martin was one of the biggest Broadway stars at the
[41:29] time. She was in talks at one point.
[41:31] OK, Also, fasten your seatbelts. Betty Davis was dismissed.
[41:36] Terrifying. Mary Davis as.
[41:40] Well, as more Hollywood royalty, Elizabeth Taylor, Right, Right.
[41:44] OK, yeah. And apparently, Angela Lansbury.
[41:48] Wow, okay. Solving murders.
[41:50] That was a broomstick, so yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[41:53] She works broomsticks. I can see how that works.
[41:55] Yeah. Yeah, fair enough, maybe, she
[41:56] wrote. Yeah.
[41:59] But Julie Andrews, she had been performing on stage since she
[42:02] was 13 and was a big name on Broadway already.
[42:05] So at this time, she was appearing alongside Richard
[42:07] Burton in Kamlot, and they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show
[42:10] performing some of the songs. Richard Sherman saw that
[42:13] performance and said he called his brother Robert immediately
[42:16] and said, are you watching The Ed Sullivan Show?
[42:18] And Robert replied, yes, she's perfect.
[42:22] Yeah. Apparently they went to see Walt
[42:24] Disney and his assistant Tommy Will accepted them.
[42:27] If you go in there saying this, Julie Andrews is perfect.
[42:29] You won't like her. That's how he is.
[42:31] You need to make him think that it's his idea, right?
[42:33] So they arranged for Disney to go and see Camelot.
[42:36] He met Julie Andrews backstage and basically offered her the
[42:38] part there and then, apparently. All right, like talking to Luke
[42:41] in it. Yeah, got absolutely played
[42:46] Disney. But after all that, Julie
[42:49] Andrews wasn't keen on accepting the part at first.
[42:51] At the time she was pregnant but Disney said that's OK, we'll
[42:54] wait. And also she knew that Warner
[42:56] Brothers were in pre production on My Fair Lady.
[42:58] She won a Tony Award for playing Elisa Doolittle and one of the
[43:01] player in the film. And Jack Warner thought she
[43:03] wasn't a big enough star and cast Audrey Hepburn obviously.
[43:06] So Andrews accepted Disney's offer.
[43:08] Yeah, 100 and Disney begging covers for the rights, begging
[43:12] Andrews to be in the film. Yeah, but then apparently when
[43:15] Julie Andrews won a Golden Globe for Mary Poppins, she thanked
[43:17] Jack Warner in her acceptance. Oh, Nathan.
[43:20] That cheeky? Yeah, do that.
[43:23] You pipe and smoke it, Jack. In the Sweet and the Deal even
[43:26] more, Disney hired her husband, Tony Walton to work on the film
[43:30] his costume designer and set designer.
[43:32] So he designed all of Mary's costumes, as well as the stripe
[43:35] jacket that Bird wears in the animated sequences and the set
[43:38] for Cherry Treat Lid. Great jacket that bird wears.
[43:49] And apparently Disney also gave Julie Andrews and Tony Walton a
[43:52] personal tour of Disneyland and told the animators on 101
[43:56] Dalmatians, which was in production at the time.
[43:58] They say designs of Anita on Julie Andrews, right?
[44:01] There's a definite resemblance. There is, absolutely.
[44:04] Wiley old fox Disney, wasn't it? Yeah.
[44:06] He knew how to do it. Yeah.
[44:08] There was one more person that had to convince After she gave
[44:11] birth to her daughter, Emma Andrews took a phone call from a
[44:14] hospital bed from PL. Travers and Abdul was exhausted
[44:17] and Trevor said, well come on girl, talk to me.
[44:20] The smoke and Trevor's ended by saying you're far too pretty, of
[44:22] course, but you do have the nose for it.
[44:24] Imagine that you have the nose for it.
[44:27] That's what you're in, yeah. PL. travels.
[44:29] Probably thought that was a nice thing to say.
[44:33] You in production. The cast and crew was so blown
[44:35] away by Andrews that stories about a performance started to
[44:38] circulate in Hollywood and the director Robert Weiss visited
[44:41] the set to see her and then after watching just a few
[44:44] minutes of footage he offered her the lead role in the film.
[44:46] He was in pre production on The Sound of Music.
[44:50] Right. Pop was in the Sound of Music,
[44:52] back-to-back, boom boom. I always.
[44:54] Thought Sound of Music was before this.
[44:56] Yeah, the year after. Yeah, she just looks younger in
[44:58] that. Yeah, I bet Jack Warner was
[45:00] kicking himself a bit at that point if he wanted to.
[45:01] Star Wars. And Julie Andrew said she was a
[45:05] bit of a perfectionist on the film, and when she recorded Stay
[45:08] Awake, she did nearly 50 takes before she was happy with it.
[45:12] She later said it was too many. Dick did some of his songs in
[45:15] one take. 1 Van Dyke. Of course he did.
[45:17] I mean, yes. Yeah, I know.
[45:20] We're not comparing apples apples here.
[45:22] That's not you. Come on, Andrews, Van Dyke
[45:25] smashes out in one take. He's got a base from on his
[45:29] back, I'm sure he can manage. Performance as Mary Julie
[45:33] Andrews won the Oscar for best actress on her film debut,
[45:36] beating out Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.
[45:39] A bit of poetic justice there, maybe.
[45:40] Yeah, there's a parallel universe where them rules are
[45:43] swapped though. Yeah, I can see it.
[45:44] I can totally see it. Definitely.
[45:46] Yeah, yeah. So yes, a well deserved Oscar.
[45:49] And by sounds of it, we think Julie Andrews is not practically
[45:52] absolutely perfect as Mary Poppins.
[45:54] Absolutely perfect. 100%, yeah. The lead male actor in the film
[46:00] is Dick Van Dyke, who plays Bert, a cheerful chimney sweep
[46:04] and St. artist and one man band. We follow Bert as he joins
[46:07] Mary's adventurers, jumping in the paintings and dancing across
[46:10] rooftops, all while providing a musical narration to the
[46:13] transformation of the Banks family.
[46:16] A slightly controversial accent Matt.
[46:18] But how was DVD as Bert? He's sensational.
[46:23] I mean, there's no other performance in cinema like this.
[46:26] Not screw it up, but it is like. Sensation.
[46:31] I like one of the. Fundamental aspects of any role.
[46:35] The accent is so disastrously blad, but it doesn't matter.
[46:38] It doesn't matter. It's so bad.
[46:39] It's become part of the reason we love the character and the
[46:42] performance so much. I mean, with AI these days, that
[46:45] could easily go back into just that accent, I'm sure, but
[46:48] there'd be rides in the street if that happened.
[46:50] And I think with Fan Dyke, you've got someone who had just
[46:54] done it all by this point. He'd done radio, he'd done TV,
[46:57] he'd done vaudeville and Broadway, and then he just makes
[46:59] this step in the film effortlessly.
[47:01] In fact, I think as an actor he's probably really underrated
[47:04] because of the nature of the films he's chosen.
[47:06] And he doesn't get enough respect for what he could do
[47:09] because he's just an absolute notable showman and everyone
[47:13] loves him. And you watch him this and you
[47:14] we realized why he's so funny. He's so lovable.
[47:17] He's so full of enthusiasm for the material.
[47:20] He nails the songs, he nails the dancers, he nails the jokes.
[47:23] Love the guy. And I just would not change that
[47:25] accent whatsoever. Yeah, where to start?
[47:28] We're digging Van Dyke. It's an outrageous performance
[47:31] in many ways. First off, I know it's a
[47:33] fantasy, but no Edwardian chimney sweep ever had teeth
[47:36] that white. Surely gleaming gnashes for Van
[47:40] Dyke. Unless their face was covered
[47:43] with soot and it looked like I might be that.
[47:47] And yes, the cottony accent we know.
[47:49] Everyone knows it's not good. This is what you more call a
[47:52] fortune. Vicious circumstance and his
[47:55] dance moves running on the spot every time.
[47:57] That's it. But how great is he though?
[48:01] But. He's great.
[48:02] He's kind of the audience window into the world, the one that
[48:05] would relate to the most, probably.
[48:06] So we need to like him. And to say that the audience
[48:08] likes Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins is an understatement.
[48:11] Everyone loves him. How can you know?
[48:13] He's so warm, so enthusiastic about everything, always got a
[48:18] mischievous twinkle in his eye without ever being annoying
[48:21] about. Was like with a screen presence
[48:22] as he could get. I mean, in terms of musical
[48:25] talent, Van Dyke should get blown away.
[48:27] Like those nannies sharing the screen with Andrews.
[48:29] I don't think he does just charm.
[48:31] No. Yeah.
[48:32] A charming fella, a charming performance.
[48:34] And I'm the same man. I wouldn't change the accent for
[48:36] anything now. It's all part of it.
[48:38] Yes. Yeah.
[48:39] I mean, I totally agree. If you don't love Dick Van Dyke
[48:43] in general, don't matter with you.
[48:45] Yeah. Why are you so fucking
[48:47] miserable? Just just alright, Don't worry
[48:49] about it. He's so wonderful in this and so
[48:52] warm and the bit that always gets me, you know, when they run
[48:54] away from the bank and they run into him.
[48:57] Oh, yeah, And the whole world's dark and horrible and cold and
[49:00] nasty and the run into birth. I always feel like I could just
[49:03] cry because I'm just, this guy's going to take care of you.
[49:06] But he knows everything. He's got this wisdom about the
[49:10] life. He's not ignorant.
[49:12] He's not stupid. There's a real depth to this
[49:15] character, like he's been through it.
[49:16] You feel like he's been through things and he's just trying to
[49:19] make ends meet. But he knows who Mary Poppins
[49:21] is. There's one bit just before the
[49:24] whole color fragilistic outburst and she says there is one word
[49:29] and she turns to Burt and he goes tell them what it is and he
[49:31] gives out the floor. Just that moment.
[49:34] That is the character. He's just the best guy in the
[49:37] world and if you're going to be, anybody would need to just make
[49:42] T-shirts. It just says be more Bert and
[49:44] we'll just sell. Them out because let's do it.
[49:46] It's still timeless, it's still there, it's still relevant.
[49:49] Just be a good person and just look out for other people.
[49:53] He's just a wonderful, wonderful, selfless, lovable
[49:56] character. And I mean, the accent, I don't
[49:59] care. He's invented a new one.
[50:01] So why? There it is.
[50:05] Be like Bert. Be more Bert and we'll get them
[50:07] on team show. Yeah, there were loads of other
[50:10] acting names up for the part of Bert.
[50:12] As you might imagine, Walt Disney apparently considered
[50:14] Danny Kay, Fred Astaire, and Cory Grant.
[50:17] Right. And Cory Grant.
[50:19] Yeah, and PL. Travels wanted an all British
[50:21] cast and she suggested Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, Laurence
[50:24] Olivier, Peter O'Toole and Peter Sellers.
[50:28] All. The Hillary is on set.
[50:31] I. Know anyone but Van Dyke?
[50:34] I'd rather. Well, Van Dyke himself, he said
[50:38] many times he had no idea why he got the part and said actually
[50:41] Jim Deal or Ron Moody would have been better cast than him.
[50:44] But apparently Walt Disney had read an interview of that Van
[50:47] Dyke had done in the early 60s where he said his dream job was
[50:50] to work on a Disney film. And that gave me the idea of
[50:53] customers, Burt. Right.
[50:55] Yeah, I know that he started. That was a mime, Dick Van Dyke.
[50:58] But film wise, he'd only been in Bye Bye Birdie and what a way to
[51:01] go at the time. But he was well known from TV.
[51:03] He had the Dick Van Dyke show at the time, Yeah.
[51:06] And he performed on Broadway as well.
[51:07] So to be fair, he was a pretty safe bet.
[51:10] Yeah, yeah. Definitely not 2 accents maybe.
[51:12] Maybe not, but as a support and actor in this role, he's
[51:15] perfect. Son and Dad's man He's a.
[51:17] Brilliant support. A brilliant support.
[51:19] Superb as well as good as you can get, I think.
[51:20] Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
[51:22] So here we go. The elephant in the room, right.
[51:24] Van Dyke's accent in the film is the most talked about accent in
[51:27] films. In 2003, it is.
[51:29] In 2003, Empire magazine for it is the second worst movie accent
[51:33] ever after sorry, Matt Sean Connery's Irish accent in The
[51:37] Untouchables. You believe that?
[51:41] How do you feel now? Better or worse?
[51:45] So Van Dyke has apologised for it but said his Vogel coach J
[51:48] Pat O'Malley had even worse Cockney accent.
[51:54] O'Malley thrown right under the bus.
[51:55] Right under the bus, right under the number 4, the King's Cross.
[52:01] I actually thought this is what people in London sounded like,
[52:03] if I'm honest. And then I went to London sound
[52:06] nothing like this. So it's good.
[52:07] If you grew up in the north of England, this is a perfect
[52:10] accent. Yeah, anyway, Except London,
[52:12] probably. Love it.
[52:13] Yeah, it's great. You just view the voices in the
[52:16] animated sequence. Pat or Murray, like the Master
[52:18] of Hounds and one of the pearly band members that we'll talk
[52:20] about in a bit. All right, OK.
[52:22] Yeah. But after he was cast as Bird,
[52:24] Van Dyke also became interested in playing the part of Mr. Dor
[52:27] Senior, the boss of Mr. Banks at the bank.
[52:30] Disney wasn't keen on that idea, so Van Dyke said he'd do it for
[52:34] free. Disney still didn't want them,
[52:36] and said if Van Dyke made a $4000 donation to Cal Art,
[52:39] Disney's art school, he could play the part.
[52:42] And that works out at about $30,000 in today's money.
[52:47] Give us some money to be in the film.
[52:48] He's already in there. Desperate to play him.
[52:53] We'll talk a bit about Van Dyke is Mr. Doors in a bit, but it's
[52:55] quite cool in the end credits where it says Mr. Doors seniors
[52:58] played by NAV Kid Keed and then the letters on scramble to say
[53:01] Dick Van Dyke. Yeah, I like that.
[53:02] Yeah. Dick Van Dyke wasn't nominated
[53:05] for any Oscars for his dual role as Bert and Mr. Dawes.
[53:07] Senior winner of best supporting actor that year was Peter
[53:10] Ustinov for Tob. Carper right Heist movie.
[53:13] I love Lisinov. OK, yeah, but despite the
[53:16] accent, we think Dick Van Dyke's pretty special as Bert.
[53:19] So he's wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.
[53:22] And when he was asked decades later how he wanted to be
[53:24] remembered, Dick Van Dyke said easy for Mary Poppins.
[53:27] Nice, of course. Yeah, why wouldn't?
[53:30] You. Yeah, I'd pay foreground to be
[53:31] in it as well. The 3rd and final cast member
[53:35] we're talking about is David Tomlinson, who plays George
[53:38] Banks, a stuffy banker who runs his household like a well oiled
[53:42] machine. We follow Mr. Banks through his
[53:43] journey from rigid taskmaster to loving father as Mary helps him
[53:47] discover what truly matters in life.
[53:49] Flying a kite? Yes, yes, he loves that kite,
[53:52] Matt. He does.
[53:53] Loves the tuppings. I was David Tomlinson as Mr.
[53:57] Banks. I really like him and this, he
[53:59] gets a lot of laughs from just the facial expressions whenever
[54:02] he returns home to be faced with whatever chaos is going on in
[54:05] the house now. And I think he pushes the
[54:07] character just enough. He doesn't make him like an
[54:10] irredeemable asshole, he just makes my daddy's lost
[54:13] perspective and it's just forgotten what's important in
[54:15] life. But I also think this was just
[54:17] very personal for Tomlinson as well.
[54:19] He was pretty much the opposite to Mr. Banks.
[54:21] Off the screen. He was very famously a devoted
[54:24] father because one of the sons was autistic and Tomlinson was
[54:27] very much an early advocate for understanding the condition.
[54:30] All right. Well, I did not know that.
[54:32] Yeah. Yeah, which consider you you
[54:34] talk in the 50s and 60s like I should have to think how people
[54:37] with autism were labeled back. Then that's a really hard push,
[54:40] isn't it? It is a really hard push, but he
[54:42] stood up and he pushed for better treatment and I think
[54:44] that notion, if therefore playing a father, he was away
[54:47] from his children and the guilt he would feel off that, I think
[54:50] that really feeds in the performance.
[54:53] It does. I mean acting names most people
[54:55] think of when you say Mary Poppins, or probably Julie
[54:57] Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, and not much beyond that.
[55:00] But I think Mr. Banks has to be discussed as well because he's
[55:03] kind of the heart of the film, or rather his arc is start as a
[55:06] timers money banker who hates his kids.
[55:09] Absolute monster at the start and then by the end he's like
[55:12] best dad in the world. If anything, he's gone too far
[55:14] away. Well, I think one of the things
[55:19] of the film is about striking the work life balance it touched
[55:21] on with a spoonful of sugar, like we talked about, and then
[55:24] really explore with Mr. Banks. That's the thing that he learns
[55:26] how to do. Yeah, basically.
[55:28] And I think Tomlinson plays all really well.
[55:30] He nails the stuffiness at the start without ever making Mr.
[55:33] Banks unlikeable. And he portrays the arc quite
[55:36] subtly, I think. Little moments of confusion with
[55:38] Mary, little flashes of vulnerability here and there
[55:41] that he basically has, like, a nervous breakdown in the end.
[55:44] And when he starts to laugh at the wooden leg joke and it's
[55:46] like he's kind of rediscovering his humanity a bit, he doesn't
[55:50] get huge recognition for it. Maybe.
[55:51] But I think David Tomlinson does a great job portraying all that
[55:54] in the film, and that's a key part of it's heart.
[55:56] So he's essential to it, yeah. Yeah.
[55:58] I mean, like I said at the start, when with these opening
[56:01] sequence, I think he creates a character that is very
[56:04] misunderstood. And we understand that he's
[56:07] misunderstood. And that's very hard to pull
[56:09] off, to be obnoxious, entitled and lovable at the same time.
[56:14] And I think that's what Tomlinson brings to this.
[56:16] And I love that. I love that about him, and I
[56:18] love that he's prepared to do that.
[56:20] And there's this innocence he always brings to his characters.
[56:23] And this is real depth he always brings and a real vulnerability
[56:27] that he brings to his characters because he knows he's playing
[56:29] something that's going to be judged immediately because of
[56:34] his outlook. But you get to change that.
[56:36] You get to love this guy at the end of it.
[56:37] And that's a really hard arc. I think he's got the hardest arc
[56:39] in the film. He definitely has.
[56:41] It's his fault that all of this is happening and you've got Mrs.
[56:45] Bank, so you kind of go, well, at least her priorities are for
[56:48] trying to do something good. He's just stuck doing the job
[56:51] his dad did. He's making his son throw his
[56:54] tuppence in the bank when he wants to feed the birds.
[56:56] He should hate this guy but Tomlinson absolutely delivers
[56:59] for me. Just his face and just that.
[57:02] Tash reminds me of being a kid. Just.
[57:06] Something. About it.
[57:07] A nostalgic face. He's got a really nostalgic,
[57:10] wonderful, beautiful face and I think it would just be more
[57:13] Tomlinson and just get his big face on AT shirt with loads of
[57:16] T-shirts off this. Be more Andrews, be more
[57:19] Tomlinson, be more. But I mean, everything works.
[57:21] It just works, doesn't it? I mean, everybody knows the
[57:24] roles and everybody plays it, but nobody better than Julianus,
[57:27] which we spoke about. Nobody's second better than Dick
[57:29] Van Dyke, which was spoken about, but it coming up our
[57:32] third, he just just nearly pips it.
[57:35] And Tomlinson definitely delivers exactly what he needs
[57:37] to. It's just an incredible
[57:39] performance. I agree he's excellent.
[57:41] Yeah, and Tomlinson's craze started in the 1940s, and at the
[57:45] time of Mary Poppins, he'd already been in over 50 films,
[57:48] almost all of them British. And one of the writers, Bill
[57:51] Walsh, had seen him in films and screened some of them to Disney.
[57:54] Disney then saw him at the Savoy Theatre in London in a stage
[57:57] beer called Ring of Truth and often the part of Mr. Banks.
[58:01] Nice. Yeah, some big names for concert
[58:03] to play in first. James Mason and Richard Harris,
[58:05] apparently right. More hell raises.
[58:07] Yep, yeah, yeah, more hell raises, but Tomlinson a very
[58:11] solid choice, I think. Oh.
[58:12] Definitely 100%. So Tomlinson was nervous about
[58:15] not being good enough for the part of Mr. Banks at first, as
[58:18] he'd never sung in a movie before.
[58:20] I mean, that's going to be a big one.
[58:21] Yeah. And the character was largely
[58:23] based on PL. Travis, Father Travis Robert
[58:25] Gough. And that's.
[58:26] That's big shoes to fill as well.
[58:28] Like, yeah. It is.
[58:29] Yeah, it is. I'm sorry your dad's an asshole.
[58:33] I'll try. It'd be nice, yeah.
[58:35] I think his voice is fine in the.
[58:36] Yeah, it is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[58:38] I love the little talkie bets he puts in the middle.
[58:40] Thank you. It just.
[58:41] Yeah, just in the middle. Yeah, it's fantastic.
[58:43] And yeah, travels. Robert Goff is a big part in
[58:45] saving Mr. Banks. Colin Farrell plays him.
[58:48] Yeah, big drink. So maybe Richard Harris could
[58:50] have been in there. Maybe.
[58:51] Yeah, maybe. Again, no Academy recognition
[58:54] for David Tomlinson, but a very good performance for US.
[58:57] Career defining and a little underappreciated maybe?
[59:00] I think so, but I mean he's under the shadow of them two
[59:03] guys that what you're going to do.
[59:05] Yeah, what can you do? He.
[59:06] Does as much as he can. It works for me.
[59:09] So that is the main cast. We've talked about Julie Andrews
[59:12] and Mary Poppins and our two leading men in Dick Van Dyke and
[59:14] David Tomlinson and three performances that have
[59:18] captivated the audiences for generations.
[59:20] What do you say? Certainly have.
[59:22] Definitely us, yeah. All the right movies will be
[59:31] back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by
[59:34] listening to this episode. Sponsors.
[59:38] Thanks for listening to our sponsors.
[59:40] Now back to the show. The middle.
[59:49] We're floating into the middle of Mary Poppins now, where the
[59:51] magic really starts. We're heading to a tea party
[59:54] with Uncle Albert, which is a right barrel of laughs.
[59:57] First, all birds Sidewalk arts brings into life.
[1:00:01] Yes it does. So, having already proved she's
[1:00:03] practically perfect, Mary Poppins starts to really show
[1:00:06] off. She transports herself, Bird and
[1:00:09] the children into one of Bird's chalk drawings, into an animated
[1:00:12] world of dancing Penguins and escaped carousel horses.
[1:00:16] It's always a jolly holiday with you, Matt.
[1:00:18] Oh, thanks. Is that how it works out with
[1:00:20] Mary? It absolutely does.
[1:00:22] I mean there's so much to love here.
[1:00:24] That sarcastic clap Mary does it birds antics before they jump
[1:00:28] in. I mean that's the go to gift
[1:00:30] now. If you search for sarcastic
[1:00:31] reaction, that's what comes up, and it's always the best one to
[1:00:34] use. Once they're in there, though,
[1:00:36] Bert, that absolutely outrageous clobber he's got on the blazer
[1:00:40] and border combo, Yeah, only Van Dyke could pull that off.
[1:00:44] Yeah. And then when he says Mary
[1:00:45] Poppins, you look beautiful. I mean, he was going to
[1:00:49] disagree. Yeah.
[1:00:51] Julie Andrews here, just the epitome of elegance.
[1:00:54] She looks amazing. And then just these pencil
[1:00:57] animations. I think it's just such a lost
[1:00:59] star to take when you watch Wallace and Gromit and you can
[1:01:02] just see the effort and the love that has gone into this art form
[1:01:05] because it was such a painstaking process and the love
[1:01:08] of the art form is so tangible. So yeah, for something just done
[1:01:11] in pencils, it still looks incredible.
[1:01:14] It does, yeah. I mean, you're right.
[1:01:16] Mary Poppins. You look be beautiful is
[1:01:19] outrageous. She chose that outfit for him,
[1:01:23] you know, didn't she? Of course she did.
[1:01:25] Her imagination. Let's jump into the page.
[1:01:27] Right. So that's how I want you to
[1:01:28] look. It's, you know, when couples
[1:01:30] dress up in the same outfit for Christmas.
[1:01:32] Yeah. I'm wearing this.
[1:01:34] Really. OK.
[1:01:36] Yeah. It's amazing.
[1:01:38] Yeah, this whole sequence, I mean, starting in the real world
[1:01:40] and transitioning into animation, that was seriously
[1:01:43] ambitious for 1964. Yeah.
[1:01:45] I mean, actors interacting with illustrations had been done way
[1:01:48] before this, as far back as like 1900.
[1:01:50] But this was a massive leap forward in the way the
[1:01:52] characters engage with the surroundings.
[1:01:54] Right. And the pull off, I think it
[1:01:55] still holds up. Yeah.
[1:01:56] Visually. Oh, it does, yeah.
[1:01:58] I mean, dancing Penguins are never going to be a bad idea, to
[1:02:00] be fair of. Course not.
[1:02:01] Those Penguins are bad dressed in me bow ties well.
[1:02:05] Yeah, and the way the duck where the leg goes over, it's genius.
[1:02:10] Yeah, yeah, it's just genius. Not the Best Song in the film
[1:02:14] Jolly Holiday, but incredible visuals like classic Disney
[1:02:17] magic. Yeah, PL.
[1:02:18] Travis hated the animations in the film.
[1:02:20] This is taken it down a Notch. Stormed off the set when she
[1:02:23] found out they were being used. She demanded that Disney remove
[1:02:26] all the animation, but he refused.
[1:02:29] She never fully came around but came to accept the idea when
[1:02:33] Disney toilet was just one sequence.
[1:02:36] The actors will be live action. She was like, oh, that should be
[1:02:38] OK, but come on, Disney, what are you doing?
[1:02:41] I mean, I had five of the 9 year old men working on this for the
[1:02:44] legendary Disney animation team. I get it, losing creative
[1:02:47] control over the thing you've made is terrible, but there's
[1:02:50] exceptions and Walt Disney coming.
[1:02:52] You're saying we're getting the guys who did Snow White,
[1:02:55] Pinocchio, Dumbo, all the classics.
[1:02:57] We're getting them in. We're getting the Sherman
[1:02:59] Brothers in to write the music. One of the biggest stars in
[1:03:01] Broadway in the lead. I mean, sympathy kind of runs
[1:03:04] out. PL. travels like no I want it to
[1:03:07] be miserable. I want to be like 7.
[1:03:10] Yeah, I don't want any of that. I mean, I get along with PL.
[1:03:13] travels absolutely fine. Yeah, I'm going to go for the
[1:03:17] pitch just after this and they come off the carousel and just
[1:03:21] the most adorable cartoon character in the history of film
[1:03:24] for me. This fox, this guy, he's
[1:03:27] amazing. He's just like a view to Lou,
[1:03:30] what's going on? He's just having a great time.
[1:03:32] He's having a great day. And this is always reinforced.
[1:03:35] I mean, I'm not ever going to advocate what they're doing, Fox
[1:03:38] Hunt, and I'm not going to get into anything political on the
[1:03:40] podcast. But to me, it's still abhorrent
[1:03:44] then. And if your heroes are saving
[1:03:46] them, and that's what you're always going to look at, you're
[1:03:48] always going to look at these guys.
[1:03:49] And that's the right thing to do.
[1:03:51] It's just a great, great moment where Bert, just like, Nah,
[1:03:53] let's go and give my hand. We can do anything.
[1:03:55] It's a fantasy world. I love the idea that let's not
[1:03:59] make it a fantasy world. Nothing makes me happier than
[1:04:02] seeing that fox sitting there with a toffee owl and he's just
[1:04:05] having a great time. Love the sequence, love this
[1:04:08] bit. I love everything building up to
[1:04:10] it. I love the whole Chopin bit, to
[1:04:11] be honest. It's just absolute magic.
[1:04:14] It is. It's always a treat seeing the
[1:04:16] classic hand drawn Disney animation style.
[1:04:18] I mean, yeah, I doubt Disney will be animating a fox on
[1:04:20] nowadays, but at least the fox gets away, starts chilling the
[1:04:23] dogs. Come on, I love you.
[1:04:27] Yeah, Andrew looks good in keeping her, like, perfect
[1:04:30] posture while the carousel horses jumping over hedges.
[1:04:33] Yeah. But I do think it taps into the
[1:04:34] themes of the film as well. We've got these like stuffy
[1:04:37] English countryside types on horseback being outrun by bird
[1:04:41] on the carousel horse. Yeah, a bit of a poor getting
[1:04:43] one over on the rich thing, which I'm all for.
[1:04:45] Yeah, of course. Yeah, I love the detail in the
[1:04:47] animation, like when Bird grinds his carousel horse, which is a
[1:04:50] real prop to a halt, and it skids along the cartoon grass,
[1:04:53] like, rips the turf up as it goes.
[1:04:55] Yeah, Does. Yeah, Whole thing is just a joy.
[1:04:57] It's when they jump over and then the kids horses jump over
[1:04:59] and then extends the whole thing in the ground.
[1:05:02] It's yeah, it's fantastic. It's really good.
[1:05:04] Always great seeing Disney do what they do best.
[1:05:06] Basically, yeah. And then you go from this to
[1:05:09] just one of the absolute most iconic songs in the film.
[1:05:13] But before it starts, like Julie Andrews is so good and that she
[1:05:15] even asked chemistry with those animated reporters talking when
[1:05:19] one of them points out her extreme good looks and she just
[1:05:22] gets all bashful. So Oh well, you wouldn't say
[1:05:24] that, would you? And then all those reporters,
[1:05:27] that little like, shit of paper in the House, like I've never
[1:05:29] known what that shit of paper is, but I know you can't be a
[1:05:32] journalist without one. I think it was the old fashioned
[1:05:35] press pass. It was the only way that you
[1:05:36] could see it was putting it into the bind of your pat.
[1:05:39] Right, OK. But then it's such an iconic
[1:05:43] song, not just from this film, but from any musical.
[1:05:45] And you know, this is going to be an absolute banger because
[1:05:47] the build up when she says there is a word to describe her
[1:05:50] feelings. Am I right, Bert?
[1:05:51] Tell them what it is. Yeah, I love that.
[1:05:53] And then when she just goes, it's.
[1:05:56] Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, even though the sound of it is
[1:06:01] something quite atrocious if you say it loud.
[1:06:11] And how Andrews just delivers that word.
[1:06:13] Florida State forwards and then backwards.
[1:06:16] I've no idea how she does that. Yeah.
[1:06:18] And then Bert joints in the routine with the umbrellas.
[1:06:20] I mean, it's just pure joy. And I think the reason you love
[1:06:22] this as a kid, you're watching adults being silly.
[1:06:25] You're watching adults being big kids.
[1:06:27] And it's just so infectious to watch.
[1:06:30] Yeah. Of course it is.
[1:06:31] Can you see a backward Matt like Mary?
[1:06:33] Absolutely not a chance. But imagine being off your lips
[1:06:37] watching this. It would blow your head off.
[1:06:42] Finally the campus of the film and just to catch up with Bert
[1:06:45] and it's insane. I'm a big fan of the pearly
[1:06:47] band, especially the guy talking about his wife and he's like
[1:06:50] lovely thing she is too when she definitely is not no, but
[1:06:54] anything a crazy word to just invent for a film.
[1:06:57] Although somehow everyone now knows it as well.
[1:07:00] And I like it when they get back to the Banks house and
[1:07:02] everyone's in there, Jane and my Nicholas singing in with Ellen
[1:07:04] and the kook, and it starts to send Mr. Banks over the edge.
[1:07:07] He's like, stop. Yeah, Sick of Mary shit.
[1:07:11] But maybe the most famous sequence in one of the most
[1:07:13] famous films. I mean, it's legendary.
[1:07:16] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just it's a great,
[1:07:18] great part of the film for me. This whole moment.
[1:07:20] It's what this is, what it's building up to.
[1:07:21] It's Mary becoming who she is. Bert heard this before.
[1:07:25] I don't know how, but it's never questioned.
[1:07:28] We'll never go. What is their back story
[1:07:30] actually? Like where?
[1:07:31] How do you guys, these guys know each other?
[1:07:33] But he knows, I have no idea. He knows quite a lot about what
[1:07:36] she's going to do, when she's going to do it.
[1:07:38] The great theory is that when he was younger, it was his nanny
[1:07:42] and that kind of then moved on and all that kind of thing.
[1:07:45] I'd love to buy into that. Obviously, that's not the case
[1:07:48] because I don't think they're going to go that deep with this
[1:07:50] film. I think all they want to do is
[1:07:53] just make something that's really entertaining and it
[1:07:55] really crosses the line. And this part of the film
[1:07:58] especially really does. I think like you said, Matt, see
[1:08:01] in the backwards Ludacris. Why is that?
[1:08:03] Even in the she would have read that going, I've got to do this
[1:08:05] tomorrow. How am I going to do this?
[1:08:08] Have you read it like written down?
[1:08:09] It's impossible to say, but she says it just so beautifully, so
[1:08:13] fluently. And Van Dyke's best moves for me
[1:08:16] here. The hilarious.
[1:08:18] Brilliant. You're saying one of them on the
[1:08:19] spot. This isn't one of them.
[1:08:20] This is amazing. And again, watching it from a
[1:08:23] completely technical point of view and taking yourself out of
[1:08:26] it, Look how much fun they're having with each other.
[1:08:29] This is really Broadway. This is really theatre.
[1:08:31] This is really stage performance.
[1:08:33] I'm having a great time. We're all having a great time.
[1:08:36] It's that part of the film where you think, what else are they
[1:08:38] going to come up with? Because they I'm just having
[1:08:40] such a good time. I don't even care about the
[1:08:42] narrative anymore. It doesn't, it doesn't matter.
[1:08:44] It's great. Wonderful.
[1:08:45] When the Sherman brothers, he used to go to summer camp as
[1:08:48] children, they used to have a word that none of the adults
[1:08:50] understood. And the one at the banks?
[1:08:52] Children. I have one too, which is where
[1:08:54] supercalifragilistic came from. Yeah, but that was in summer
[1:08:58] camp, everyone off the box. So they invented that at summer
[1:09:03] camp I. Think it was a different word,
[1:09:06] right? OK.
[1:09:07] But they used the concept. Yeah, right.
[1:09:08] Really bored. It would have been shorter for
[1:09:11] me. Yeah.
[1:09:13] The word wasn't created for the film, though.
[1:09:15] In 1949, Gloria Parker and Barney Young released a song
[1:09:18] called Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,
[1:09:21] and when Mary Poppins came out, they then sued Disney for
[1:09:24] plagiarism. Wow yeah the melody of lyrics of
[1:09:27] their song were totally different, but they took Disney
[1:09:29] to code for stealing the word. Oh, really?
[1:09:32] Well. Yeah.
[1:09:33] The case was dismissed, though, when Disney lawyers found a 1931
[1:09:36] article in the Syracuse University College newspaper
[1:09:40] that was written by a student called Helen Herman where she
[1:09:43] used the word. Yeah, Helen Herman said that it
[1:09:46] means grand, great, glorious, splendid, superb and wonderful.
[1:09:50] Yeah, right. Just say that then.
[1:09:51] It's quick. Yeah, it.
[1:09:53] Is there are five members of the pearly band and they were voiced
[1:09:57] by cast and crew members on the film.
[1:09:59] Julie Andrews is in there, Richard Sherman, Robert Sherman,
[1:10:02] David Tomlinson's in there and Dick Van Dyke's vocal coach Jay
[1:10:06] Pat O'Malley. Was that that was the five.
[1:10:08] Wonderful. Five stop.
[1:10:09] I've seen that band every single Sunday in any local boozer
[1:10:13] around here is so familiar. Classic Disney, the humor, the
[1:10:18] little touches, the drop in with the animations, it's just
[1:10:20] fantastic. Hit Lee's head with a
[1:10:22] tambourine. It's just a full.
[1:10:23] Full is just great. Yeah.
[1:10:25] Yeah, only the guy playing the spoons and then that guy, he's
[1:10:28] playing like a banjo with a symbol on top.
[1:10:30] What's that thing? That doesn't matter it.
[1:10:35] Is brilliant, yeah. But during the musical sequence,
[1:10:37] the Banks children, we can see them eating toffee apples and
[1:10:40] current A tree said they did so many retakes across two weeks
[1:10:43] that she and Matthew Garber just got sick for meeting them.
[1:10:46] Oh, really? Yeah, told them with toffee
[1:10:48] apples. God knows what was in them if
[1:10:49] they were seeing stuff like this.
[1:10:50] Pure sugar. And Disney wanted the blend of
[1:10:54] live action and animation to be done to a level never seen
[1:10:56] before. So he brought in Petrus Flahos,
[1:10:59] who had been the special effects supervisor on The Parent Trap,
[1:11:03] because in that film Hayley Mills played twins who had AP1
[1:11:06] screen together. So Flahos developed the sodium
[1:11:08] vapor process, which was like an early form of blue screen and he
[1:11:12] used that he as well. Right.
[1:11:14] Yeah, that was quite ground breaking when Hayley Mills was
[1:11:16] on the screen twice in the same frame.
[1:11:20] And he worked closely with O by Works, who'd been one of the
[1:11:22] Disney's go to visual effects guy since the 40s and another
[1:11:25] effects guy called Wadsworth Paul.
[1:11:26] And the three of them won an Oscar for Mary Poppins, right?
[1:11:29] Flahos won five in total his career.
[1:11:31] Wow. Wow.
[1:11:31] OK. The actor shot the scenes
[1:11:33] against a white background. It was known as yellow screen
[1:11:37] and Karen Doctor said there was a lot of unfit men chewing
[1:11:40] cigars running around the set with cardboard cutouts of
[1:11:43] Penguins and she thought this is going to be absolutely rubbish.
[1:11:48] Well, you would think that. Yeah.
[1:11:49] Yeah, Frank Thomas animated the Penguins.
[1:11:51] He was one of the 9 old men, and he also did the dwarves in Snow
[1:11:54] White years earlier. Yeah, pretty legendary animation
[1:11:57] figure it wasn't. Some crossover with that and
[1:11:59] some of the Disney films where they have the same kind of
[1:12:02] movements or something. Yeah, they'll use the same kind
[1:12:04] of original cells to save time. Yeah, like Blue the bear used
[1:12:07] for Robin Hood wasn't. It.
[1:12:09] That's right. Yeah.
[1:12:10] Yeah. Before we end on the painting
[1:12:12] sequence, we have our second ATR and Patreon question, this time
[1:12:15] from Francis Burrell. Hello, Francis.
[1:12:18] And Francis, keeping it simple, wants to know if you could dance
[1:12:21] with any cartoon character, who would that be?
[1:12:25] Thoughts on that, Matt? My first thought film I've just
[1:12:29] mentioned but made Marion from Disney's Robin Hood.
[1:12:33] Oh, she's a fox. She's a fox.
[1:12:34] Well, that's it. We would obviously do the
[1:12:36] foxtrot as well, so give it. Obviously dancing cartoons.
[1:12:44] I can't not mention Blue from The Jungle Book.
[1:12:46] The scene at King Louise Palace where he's like, oh man, what a
[1:12:49] beat. I'm gone.
[1:12:51] Yeah. Absolute legend.
[1:12:53] Yeah, but who would dance with? I'll keep it short. 3 answers.
[1:12:56] Jessica Rabbit. Yeah.
[1:12:57] Daphne off scooby-doo, the caramel Bunny.
[1:13:00] Right. All right, I've got 3 as well,
[1:13:03] and maybe a crossover Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop, and Valma
[1:13:06] from Scooby-doo. Really.
[1:13:08] Yeah, short as I'm going to make it.
[1:13:14] So a magical ROM through a painted Wonderland there.
[1:13:16] Both spectacular and super color fried.
[1:13:19] Whatever the infernal thing is, yeah.
[1:13:21] It would backwards. Very good.
[1:13:25] The implications of Mary's magic ripple through everyone's lives.
[1:13:29] Mary leaves Jane and Michael to Uncle Alba's for a topsy turvy
[1:13:32] tea party, while Mr. Banks takes them to his workplace.
[1:13:35] The doors Tombs, Bousely Groves, Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.
[1:13:39] Wow. 1 ends in uncontrollable laughter, the other
[1:13:42] uncontrollable chaos. Yeah, Mark, you love to laugh.
[1:13:46] Certainly do. How would you like these scenes?
[1:13:49] I mean, if you tell me I'm going to be watching the scene with a
[1:13:51] character called Uncle Albert and he's not some old sea dog
[1:13:54] with a pushy wide be going. To ruin the war.
[1:13:57] During the war. During the war.
[1:13:59] I'm going to be very disappointed.
[1:14:00] I have to be honest. This thing like if I have an
[1:14:02] issue with the film, it is way over long to be honest.
[1:14:05] Like no kids film should be pushing on well over two hours.
[1:14:08] So do we need the scene? Not really.
[1:14:11] The laughing and the joke sets up Mr. Banks at the end with his
[1:14:14] boss, but I'm sure they could have written around that
[1:14:16] somehow. So in that sense it is an
[1:14:18] essential and if it was lost you wouldn't lose much.
[1:14:21] But haven't said that I can watch this scene just on its own
[1:14:23] and still have great fun of it. Because they haven't great fun.
[1:14:26] I think Dick Van Dyke deserves a lot of credit for this scene in
[1:14:29] particular. Making those jokes seem funny
[1:14:30] when they straight off a Christmas cracker.
[1:14:33] But I really feel for Mary in the scene because that moment
[1:14:36] when you're trying to be serious and tell people off, but you
[1:14:38] want to laugh at the same time, which is what's happening with
[1:14:40] Mary here. She sells upbringingly.
[1:14:43] So overall, I mean, the thing the visual nature was acting.
[1:14:45] All the fun stuff works really well and the film could live
[1:14:48] without it, I think, from the narrative, but it's fun all the
[1:14:50] same. It is.
[1:14:52] I mean, why is Bird there? Is there any pie in London?
[1:14:55] He hasn't got his fingers in what he could do.
[1:14:59] I came over as soon as I heard, but how did he hear?
[1:15:02] Why? Listen to the chimney.
[1:15:06] But Van Dyke, the Cockney accent and being suspended on an anti
[1:15:09] gravity rig, he's putting in a heck of a shift, Yeah.
[1:15:11] Yes. I do think Edwin's uncle Albert
[1:15:14] kind of steals the show in this scene.
[1:15:15] He is good, he does. Surely Albert's on something.
[1:15:18] He's been on the dubies, surely. Yeah, waiting for him to get the
[1:15:21] Jaffa Cakes out. I mean, it's basically like a
[1:15:25] musical number about the dangers of positive thinking being taken
[1:15:28] too far. And I think it's quite clever
[1:15:30] way of doing it. Oh, but it's definitely a my
[1:15:32] depressive laughing his head off, then bawling his eyes out
[1:15:35] one minute to the next. And is the wooden leg joke
[1:15:38] funny? Van Dyke makes it funny.
[1:15:42] Yeah, Van Dyke doesn't make it funny.
[1:15:44] I think how are you were catching mice is the funniest
[1:15:45] joke in this whole sequence. Oh yeah.
[1:15:48] But I want to replace your cat. How are you catching mice?
[1:15:49] That's that's. I mean, it's not one of the best
[1:15:53] songs in the film either, I don't think, but I do like it
[1:15:55] when they pull the T sideways and a nice break away from the
[1:15:58] core narrative, which I think is kind of the point.
[1:16:00] Yeah, yeah, Edwin, who agreed as wonderful, was a stage and radio
[1:16:05] comedian and already had a connection with Disney.
[1:16:07] He'd voice the Mad Hatter and Alice in Wonderland, which you
[1:16:10] can totally tell he's wonderful in that, and played The Toy
[1:16:13] Maker and Babes in Toyland. And he was the only person Walt
[1:16:16] Disney ever wanted as part of Albert and Robert Stevenson.
[1:16:19] Give him free rein, just improvise to whatever he wanted.
[1:16:23] Yeah, I think you can tell he improvises quite a bit.
[1:16:25] Yeah, I think you can tell from Van Dyke's reactions.
[1:16:28] Doesn't quite know what's coming next.
[1:16:31] Well, yeah, I imagine Van Dyke's a pretty good improviser as
[1:16:33] well. Yeah, exactly.
[1:16:34] I think they would have had a wheel of a time.
[1:16:35] There must be some outtakes when you say there must be something.
[1:16:39] Yeah, I need to see them to be amazing.
[1:16:40] Well, Uncle Albert's in the first Mary Poppins book, so this
[1:16:43] is pretty much taken straight from that, right?
[1:16:45] Apparently the Uncle Albert was written in the script as having
[1:16:47] a Viennese accent, but when wind turned up on the set, he didn't
[1:16:50] even attempt it, and nobody ever mentioned it.
[1:16:54] Yeah, it was only specific. Yeah.
[1:16:57] And. To treat the floating effect, as
[1:16:59] well as having the actors suspended on wires, they're also
[1:17:01] built four different sets of Uncle Albert's home.
[1:17:04] There's the normal set, then a replica of that set turned on
[1:17:08] its side, another one that was upside down, and then another
[1:17:11] that was truncated where the floor was closer to the ceiling.
[1:17:14] And that was overseen by the previously mentioned Tony
[1:17:16] Walton, Julie Andrews husband. Right.
[1:17:19] Yeah, I think it's pretty clever how they shoot it as well.
[1:17:21] Whenever we have a wide shot where the castles are suspended
[1:17:23] on wires, we always cut to a close up of them around the
[1:17:26] table as the next shot. And those shots are filmed on
[1:17:28] the ground on a like a gimbal, so the table moved so we never
[1:17:31] see too much of the effects for too long, which is quite clever.
[1:17:33] Yeah. And Matthew Garber had a fever
[1:17:36] Heights and he didn't like shooting the moment when they're
[1:17:38] suspended on the ceiling. So a crew member paid him $0.10
[1:17:41] every time they did a take away. He was suspended from the wires.
[1:17:45] He knew what he was doing right little diva, I'm.
[1:17:48] Really. Scared of this?
[1:17:49] Yeah, Mariah Carey. Mariah Scary.
[1:17:54] And then after this, you get this really melancholic moment
[1:17:57] that balances out the sugar a little bit with feed the birds.
[1:18:00] And it doesn't go OTT. But I think it's just a little
[1:18:02] lesson for the kids. You know, there's people out
[1:18:04] there who do struggle and they don't have what you have.
[1:18:06] So just. Bear that mind and show a bit of
[1:18:08] kindness and generosity to anyone.
[1:18:11] And also lyrically, I've always felt it just feels very Paul
[1:18:13] McCartney to me. It's very Penny Lane.
[1:18:16] It's got observation in nature lyrics.
[1:18:18] And we all know Macka Love's vaudeville song.
[1:18:20] So it wouldn't surprise me if he loved this as well.
[1:18:23] Oh, not at all. Yeah.
[1:18:24] She was played by Jane Darwell, the bird lady.
[1:18:27] She'd won an Oscar for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.
[1:18:30] That's right. Yeah.
[1:18:30] And Disney visited her home personally to get her out of
[1:18:33] semi retirement to play the part harassing everyone.
[1:18:36] Yeah, What do I have to do, Walt?
[1:18:38] Nothing really. And surely the inspiration for
[1:18:43] the Bird Lady in Home Alone Two, Yeah.
[1:18:45] Definitely, definitely. 100% character.
[1:18:48] Yeah. Piers Morgan.
[1:18:49] Piers Morgan and Feed the Birds was apparently Walt Disney's
[1:18:54] favorite song. Robert Sherman said that on a
[1:18:57] Friday afternoon, sometimes get a call from Disney accent would
[1:18:59] go to his office and play him the song and when he was
[1:19:02] finished, they always say that'll do.
[1:19:04] And sometimes he'd cry. Yeah, in 2001, on what would
[1:19:09] have been Walt Disney's 100th birthday, I guess there was a
[1:19:12] celebration at Disneyland. Yeah.
[1:19:13] And Robert Sherman played. I've seen that, yeah.
[1:19:17] Yeah, it is a nice song, to be fair.
[1:19:19] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's about four
[1:19:20] octaves lower. Yeah, at least, Yeah, he's a bit
[1:19:24] older at that point. In the snow globe that Mary
[1:19:27] Holtz when she sings the song that was thought lost after
[1:19:30] filming. But in 1970, a Disney archivist
[1:19:33] called Dave Smith founded in a janitor's closet in the Disney
[1:19:36] studio. Wow.
[1:19:37] He asked the head janitor, Roy Geiser, where he got it and he
[1:19:40] said he just found it in the trash but liked it and didn't
[1:19:42] want to throw it out. A lightly story Poppins
[1:19:46] artifacts I'm having that just found it in the trash.
[1:19:50] Exactly. And I'm going to go into I
[1:19:53] really dislike the sequence. In the bank.
[1:19:56] Obvious reasons. It shows George Banks for who he
[1:19:59] really is and he's very, very weak when he takes the kids to
[1:20:03] his job. It should be really over the
[1:20:06] moon with this. It should be showing off and
[1:20:08] everyone should be fussing the children, but it's not about
[1:20:10] them. It's about this piece of money
[1:20:12] that Michael's got and where's that going to go?
[1:20:15] He wants to feed the birds, He wants to do something
[1:20:17] charitable, he wants to do something good.
[1:20:18] And when you get fat birds, that's their view on it, you
[1:20:21] know, and it paints a beautiful picture and a really somber
[1:20:25] picture and one that unfortunately, I mean, this is
[1:20:28] 1964, right? This is still relevant right
[1:20:30] now. This is still going on right
[1:20:33] now. If you go into this kind of
[1:20:35] establishment, they're going to say, do this, invest in this,
[1:20:38] and you'll get this and you'll get that.
[1:20:39] And that's important. And that's important.
[1:20:41] And it really highlights what's important to banks and what's
[1:20:44] important to kids. And kids bring this real
[1:20:47] innocence to life and the make you realize that what's
[1:20:50] important isn't what's in your hand.
[1:20:52] It's what you're holding in your hand.
[1:20:54] It's your choice of what you hold in your hand.
[1:20:56] And I think grabbing your kids hand is far more important than
[1:20:58] grabbing a coin. And I think that's what this
[1:21:00] film is saying in this sequence. And it's beautifully played by
[1:21:04] Van Dyke playing the older guy. It comes out stumbling around.
[1:21:07] It should be funny. It's got a Norman Wisdom kind of
[1:21:10] vibe. Do it it.
[1:21:11] Definitely has. Honestly, when I was a kid, I
[1:21:13] don't know about you guys. When I was a kid, I did not have
[1:21:14] a clue that it was Dick Van Dyke, even when I saw the end
[1:21:18] credits and it went, oh, it's the same guy.
[1:21:19] No, it's not beautifully played, beautifully lit.
[1:21:24] This is sombre and it's a sombre tone and the music matches and
[1:21:29] it matches the visuals and everything works.
[1:21:31] It's a beautifully directed sequence, beautifully outed
[1:21:33] sequence, and one that you need to put in this part of the film.
[1:21:38] If you lost this, the film loses all of its depth because you
[1:21:41] really need this to pull you down and then pick you up again.
[1:21:44] I agree with you, Matt. I think you know that sequence
[1:21:47] could be lost, but this definitely couldn't.
[1:21:50] You need this to bring you down. It doesn't bring you down for
[1:21:52] too long, just enough to make you realize what Banks has to do
[1:21:56] to get out of it. I agree.
[1:21:58] Yeah, it is essential. This one, Mr. Banks marching.
[1:22:00] The poor came through the bank like a drill Sergeant.
[1:22:02] He's still a monster. Yeah, this point.
[1:22:04] It's a full metal jacket, isn't? It exactly.
[1:22:06] Yeah. And the bank has, like, a pack
[1:22:08] of wolves around Michael over his toppings.
[1:22:10] Outrageous. The girl pinned up against the
[1:22:11] wall. Yeah.
[1:22:12] But, I mean, that's the idea, isn't it?
[1:22:14] Choose money over like, yeah, joy de vivre and end up like
[1:22:17] these guys. It would probably be a bit
[1:22:19] scarier if it wasn't for Van Dyke as Mr. Doors.
[1:22:22] Exactly. The accent issues seem to vanish
[1:22:24] when he's playing the old fella. Yeah.
[1:22:26] You still funny, though, when he's starting on that step for
[1:22:28] ages, looking down at. It's like it's 20 feet high.
[1:22:31] That's great. Yeah.
[1:22:32] Yeah. And when he sings, when for the
[1:22:34] banks of England, England falls and just keels over.
[1:22:36] Yeah, great. And kind of unnerving how much
[1:22:39] he looks like Dick Van Dyke did when he got older.
[1:22:42] It's kind of uncanny. Yeah.
[1:22:44] Again, much like Biff. Yeah, another about the future
[1:22:47] reference. Yeah, how much is about the
[1:22:49] future RIP off Mary Poppins? So we're getting into.
[1:22:53] And that moment where Mr. Dawes has trouble getting down the
[1:22:55] step wasn't actually in the script.
[1:22:57] Apparently when Van Dyke was doing a makeup test, he was
[1:23:00] entertained in the crew just by doing some of his old my
[1:23:02] routines, one of which was getting down from his step.
[1:23:05] This he saw this footage and then asked him to put that in
[1:23:08] the film. Yeah, climbing through a window.
[1:23:11] You should have got that. Getting dropped in the phone
[1:23:13] box. And again, the children were
[1:23:18] kept in the dark. They weren't told it was Dick
[1:23:20] Van Dyke under the makeup, right?
[1:23:22] Because Karen George has said that he thought he was just some
[1:23:24] horrible old man who turned up one day.
[1:23:26] Oh, really? He would do, yeah.
[1:23:29] And we're through the second act, a gravity defying tea party
[1:23:33] and tumultuous trip to the bank. Very different, but very Disney.
[1:23:37] Very Disney. Yeah, Pinnacle Disney.
[1:23:43] The crew. Mary Poppins is a magical movie,
[1:23:49] as we've been talking about, and there was some team working
[1:23:51] behind the scenes to make it all possible.
[1:23:54] We're going to be talking to the Sherman Brothers, who composed
[1:23:56] the music, and Edward Coleman is director of photography.
[1:23:59] But first, let's talk about the writing.
[1:24:01] Should we? Let's do it.
[1:24:03] So the folks who brought PL. Travelers books to the screen
[1:24:06] were Bill Walsh and Don Degrade. Walsh was one of Walt's score 2
[1:24:09] writers, having penned 5 Disney films including The Absent
[1:24:12] Minded Professor and Degrade, had been with Disney since the
[1:24:15] 1940s and had writing credits on Lady and the Trump and Sleeping
[1:24:19] Beauty. Right, right.
[1:24:21] A pretty unenviable task, Westie, adopting beloved novels
[1:24:24] from page to screen. But how did Bill Walsh and Don
[1:24:27] Degrade do? Yeah.
[1:24:28] I mean, I think they did wonderful.
[1:24:30] I mean, I've not read the books. I don't know a lot about the
[1:24:32] source material, but I think what they did was make it very
[1:24:36] dignified. I mean, the part of a crew, the
[1:24:39] part of a team, and Walt Disney's like, turn this into a
[1:24:42] Disney film. And they definitely do that.
[1:24:44] And I mean, there must have been some moments where they're
[1:24:46] sitting going, shall we put this in?
[1:24:50] Yeah. Does this make any sense
[1:24:52] whatsoever? And they think they would have
[1:24:54] had a lot more fun than they would have had any more kind of
[1:24:57] worries about this script. There's a lot to play with here,
[1:25:01] and they do play with a lot. Like we've said, there's very
[1:25:03] relevant themes and it's always going to be Evergreen.
[1:25:06] I think what they're trying to talk about, you know, family
[1:25:08] values, the the importance of children and having an
[1:25:12] imagination and having magic and having something that's not
[1:25:15] rooted in reality and that escapism.
[1:25:18] And they do capture all that in the script.
[1:25:19] I think it's all explored without punching you in the
[1:25:23] face. You know, it's got a very light
[1:25:25] touch, a very light tone. Oh yeah.
[1:25:28] And it is there. If you read this, you would have
[1:25:30] been very very very excited about the screenplay.
[1:25:34] Yeah, writing wise, I mean, it's a great concept and world, I
[1:25:36] think, created by PL. Travers and the character of
[1:25:39] Mary Poppins, a magical nanny who floats in, improves
[1:25:42] everyone's lives and floats away.
[1:25:44] It's a great idea for a children's story, and that's
[1:25:47] really what I realized on the screen.
[1:25:49] I would say that's based largely on the songs, the cast,
[1:25:52] animations, the production design, Disney's vision.
[1:25:55] I'm not sure what put Bill Walsh in undergrad.
[1:25:57] He's writing up there with all of that, but it does exactly
[1:26:00] what it needs to. Yeah, it's a platform for it,
[1:26:03] isn't it? It's a great platform.
[1:26:04] Yeah, it is narrative, really. It's fairly thin in places.
[1:26:07] I think some of the scenes are vignette rather than essential
[1:26:09] to the plot, like Uncle Albert that we just talked about.
[1:26:12] The books are that way too, from what I know.
[1:26:14] They've taken that from there, I think.
[1:26:15] But where I think the screen writing is impressive is in the
[1:26:18] kind of messages and the themes it explores, themes of family,
[1:26:23] of childhood, adulthood, capitalism.
[1:26:26] But I think the real message it tells us is that for a happy,
[1:26:29] healthy life, it's essential to find the right balance, however
[1:26:32] that might look for you. The person who learns that in
[1:26:34] the film is Mr. Banks. In his case, he finds the right
[1:26:37] work life balance. But that works for all of us,
[1:26:39] whatever the things are that we need to balance in our lives.
[1:26:41] It's easy to prioritize what we see as a serious issues like
[1:26:44] work as being more important than fun or joy, but they're not
[1:26:49] necessarily so. A pretty big and timeless
[1:26:51] message. And to present that as this
[1:26:53] huge, spectacular piece of family entertainment, I think
[1:26:56] that is really well done. From Walsh into grade.
[1:26:58] Definitely. Yeah, I think it's fair to say
[1:27:01] we're not looking at the most narratively concise film.
[1:27:04] In terms of writing, it is. It's definitely fair to say.
[1:27:07] I mean, it's very light on plot. It is essentially a series of
[1:27:11] sketches held together by the characters.
[1:27:12] But if you look at those individual sketches, whether
[1:27:15] it's the songs, whether it's the animation, whether it's the
[1:27:18] dancers or the jokes that all work individually, every single
[1:27:21] scene does deliver. And This is why you can stick
[1:27:24] this film on at any point and just go with it.
[1:27:26] You won't have missed anything from the plot if you have to go
[1:27:29] stick the you don't want for 10 minutes, you can just pick the
[1:27:31] plot strands back up very easily.
[1:27:33] And there's something every 5 minutes that's either really
[1:27:35] funny or really entertaining or song that's really catchy.
[1:27:39] So every scene has been worked out to its full potential, but
[1:27:42] it still sneaks just underneath enough content in there.
[1:27:45] You know there is support for the suffragettes, there's
[1:27:48] criticism of living your life obsessed with money, the
[1:27:50] character of the Mr. Banks house.
[1:27:52] So in one sense it is pretty thin, but in another sense
[1:27:55] you've got to remember it's a kids film and on that level
[1:27:57] there's not one scene that doesn't work or makes sense.
[1:28:00] Yeah, it's very universal, isn't?
[1:28:01] It Oh, massively, yeah. You can put this on for anybody
[1:28:04] and we'll get it. At any time, I think, yeah,
[1:28:06] absolutely, yeah. So as you'd expect, a lot of
[1:28:09] changes from the books. So Bert is in the books, but he
[1:28:12] plays a much smaller role than he does in the film.
[1:28:15] And in the books, there are four children in the Banks family.
[1:28:18] There's Jane and Michael, but there's also two twins called
[1:28:20] John and Barbara who were removed for the adaptation,
[1:28:23] Right? Yeah, they can't even handle two
[1:28:26] kids. Georgian.
[1:28:26] Winnifred. Imagine four of them running
[1:28:28] amok. Teenagers in this.
[1:28:33] Definitely not. And then in the books Winnifred
[1:28:35] Banks is only ever known as Missus Banks, so we don't know
[1:28:38] her name and she isn't a suffragette.
[1:28:39] That was added as a reason to explain why she's neglectful of
[1:28:42] the children. Right.
[1:28:44] Right. It's a nice addition, I think.
[1:28:46] I mean, otherwise she would have no character at all.
[1:28:50] Something else for Travis to be annoyed about.
[1:28:53] Yeah. And the books were set when they
[1:28:57] were written, which was the 1930s, but the change the set
[1:29:00] into the 1910s for the film and that was suggested by the
[1:29:03] Sherman Brothers as they thought the vaudevillian music of the
[1:29:05] time would work better for the songs.
[1:29:07] Right. Also, Payout Travels owned the
[1:29:10] rights to her books but not the illustrations that were in them.
[1:29:13] So by changing the setting it was just the risk of getting
[1:29:16] sued because it moved the visuals further away.
[1:29:18] The ones that already existed right?
[1:29:19] OK. That's pretty under handle,
[1:29:21] isn't it? Really.
[1:29:23] There were elements of the story taken from PL.
[1:29:24] Travis own life. A mother was neglectful and
[1:29:27] tried to commit suicide when Travis was a child.
[1:29:29] A father worked as a bank manager and when he died she
[1:29:32] went to live with her Aunt Morehead, who was stern and
[1:29:35] would tell her off by making up rhymes and songs and always
[1:29:38] carried a large carpet bag. Yeah, sounds familiar.
[1:29:41] Yeah, it does, yeah. Did you have a huge hat stand in
[1:29:43] there? How big is that carpet bag for
[1:29:47] Curry cup it's no made of? And Trevor said that she had a
[1:29:52] book as a child that on one of the fly leaves, somebody had
[1:29:55] written M Poppins. Like in handwriting, right?
[1:29:58] That always stuck with her. And that's where the name came
[1:30:00] from. But you can see why she's so
[1:30:01] protective of this. Material.
[1:30:03] It's so personal. Yeah.
[1:30:05] It is personal, yeah. Try and change it around it's.
[1:30:07] It's going to annoy you, obviously.
[1:30:08] And we rather often are very protective on the of the
[1:30:11] material. Of course, yeah.
[1:30:12] So we've already mentioned Travis didn't like the animation
[1:30:15] in the movie and she was not a fan of the right neither.
[1:30:17] She didn't like the changes to the characters, exactly.
[1:30:21] She said Mary was too kind because in the books she's stern
[1:30:24] in vain. And she didn't like how Mr.
[1:30:26] Banks was painted as a bad father, apparently because she'd
[1:30:30] based on on her own father. Yeah.
[1:30:32] Right, that's fair enough, but I mean, it's a musical about the
[1:30:34] joy of life. Would it work if Mary was a
[1:30:36] misery guts in this? I'm not sure.
[1:30:39] She's very stern in certain places.
[1:30:41] Like I would be like, yeah, OK, I'm sorry.
[1:30:43] Yeah, She's got boundaries. Yeah, yeah.
[1:30:46] Definitely in the nursery where she'd like when you're quite
[1:30:48] finished. Exactly, I'm finished now,
[1:30:51] sorry. And she didn't like that they
[1:30:54] changed the time period to the 1910s and said that the banks
[1:30:57] were supposed to live in a humble abort, not a mansion, and
[1:31:00] also thought that the bank servants were too vulgar.
[1:31:03] All right. Vulgar.
[1:31:05] She'd have had an effing and jeffing.
[1:31:06] Just a rubber head. Imagine that.
[1:31:10] I love them guys anyway, they're fantastic.
[1:31:12] Yeah, they are good, Yeah. They're the most cartoonish, I
[1:31:14] think of anything I've seen in the Disney film outside of a
[1:31:17] cartoon Disney film. Yeah, there could be a cartoon,
[1:31:19] usually. Like 101 dalmatians or
[1:31:21] something. Also, surprisingly, or maybe not
[1:31:23] so, she hated Van Dyke as Bird as well.
[1:31:26] And after, yeah, apparently somehow only person who does.
[1:31:30] And then after the film came out, she vowed never to work
[1:31:33] with Disney again. Right.
[1:31:35] I mean, if you thought the seventh of all, God knows what
[1:31:37] you thought it'd be. All right.
[1:31:42] For their work in adapting Mary Poppins for the big screen, Bill
[1:31:45] Walsh and Don Degrade were nominated for Best Adapted
[1:31:47] Screenplay at the Oscars. They lost out to Edward and
[1:31:50] Holt, who wrote Beckett, the historical drama.
[1:31:53] Right, OK. No Oscar for Walsh and Degrade
[1:31:56] then, but they helped create something pretty timeless,
[1:31:59] didn't they? I mean, so yeah, what would you
[1:32:01] prefer? I'm quite happy with what I've
[1:32:03] got, yeah. The music in Mary Poppins comes
[1:32:08] from Richard and Robert Sherman, songwriting brothers who were
[1:32:10] already Disney's go to musical team.
[1:32:13] Having written hits for films like The Parent Trap and The
[1:32:16] Sword in the Stone, they were tasked with creating the
[1:32:18] soundtrack for Mary Poppins. The brothers Sherman, How did
[1:32:22] they do? Matt I.
[1:32:23] Mean they've done pretty well here, haven't they?
[1:32:25] I mean for the genre, got to be one of the most iconic
[1:32:28] soundtracks ever. It is like the definitive Disney
[1:32:31] song book in the tune Speak for Themselves.
[1:32:33] Everyone knows how ridiculously catchy they are.
[1:32:36] But what's impressive is the Ranger songs in here.
[1:32:38] Ones that are a ridiculous word play like supercalifragilistic
[1:32:42] all the way to the more poignant ones like Feed the Birds.
[1:32:45] But what stands out to me is just how well horned they are.
[1:32:48] Like if you look at the soundtrack on Spotify, so many
[1:32:51] of these songs are just two or three minutes long.
[1:32:53] There's not a wasted second to any of them.
[1:32:55] Means some are a bit longer, but being so short to sell,
[1:32:58] instantly memorable. You'll be homing them for days
[1:33:00] afterwards. And the lyrics are really good.
[1:33:02] Again, it runs the gamut from funny to sad.
[1:33:04] And I just think that's a bit of a lost art.
[1:33:06] Like as a comparison now I've not seen Wicked, so maybe the
[1:33:10] the work in the context of the film, but I looked at the songs
[1:33:13] on the Wicked soundtrack and they're all like 5 or 6 minutes
[1:33:15] long. And that kind of knack of just
[1:33:18] writing a really short, sharp 2 minutes song that's really
[1:33:21] memorable just seems to be like a lost art these days.
[1:33:25] And here I think the approach not like the writing songs from
[1:33:27] year school, but like the writing pop songs and just
[1:33:30] everyone's a banger. It's not the first time anyone's
[1:33:33] described the movie popping soundtrack was bangers.
[1:33:36] No other way to describe them. You were bangers.
[1:33:38] Love it. Love it.
[1:33:40] It's hit after hit. Yeah, I know that.
[1:33:42] The partnership was basically that Richard wrote the music and
[1:33:45] Robert wrote the lyrics, mostly. And the music is obviously loads
[1:33:48] of hooks. Catchy as hell.
[1:33:50] Never made a spoonful of sugar. The Sherman's poured the whole
[1:33:52] bag in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:33:54] You can drive your car off a bridge.
[1:33:55] Goodbye, cruel world. And these guys would write a
[1:33:57] journey. Little number about it.
[1:33:59] It's like classic after classic. We've talked about most of them,
[1:34:02] but the lyrics are fantastic as well.
[1:34:04] Clever word play, great use of metaphor.
[1:34:06] And feed the birds as that line all around the cathedrals, the
[1:34:09] Saints and apostles look down as she sells her wares.
[1:34:12] It's like poetry. The influences as well are
[1:34:14] pretty obvious, I think. Very vaudeville, a Music Hall,
[1:34:17] like you said, Mass and London Fork music, which reflects the
[1:34:20] time. I think you can hear Gilbert and
[1:34:22] Sullivan in there. Supercalifragilistic has AI am
[1:34:25] the very model of a model, Major General vibe to it.
[1:34:28] And what makes them timeless, I think, is that the song is a
[1:34:31] great pieces of storytelling in their own right.
[1:34:34] We talked about a spoonful of sugar having deeper meaning than
[1:34:36] it might seem, and Feed the Bird is the same.
[1:34:38] It's about empathy and compassion.
[1:34:40] I mean, the songs might not give you a historically accurate
[1:34:43] picture of 1910 London, but they're not meant to.
[1:34:46] They capture that sense of wonder, childhood wonder, that
[1:34:49] the film's about magical music from the Shermans for me.
[1:34:52] Yeah, it's just the soundscape is just as important as what
[1:34:56] you're looking at. I mean, you can hear the opening
[1:34:59] notes of this and you're immediately transported to this
[1:35:02] world. To me, it feels like, you know,
[1:35:04] Elton John and Bernie Torbin, you've got somebody writing the
[1:35:07] music, you've got someone writing the lyrics.
[1:35:08] And having that separation I think really works.
[1:35:11] And it really has somebody concentrating on what that means
[1:35:14] lyrically and what that means musically.
[1:35:16] And the thing I get from this soundtrack is it's memorable,
[1:35:18] but it's not annoying. Like, you'll remember these
[1:35:21] songs and you'll be feel happy about them.
[1:35:23] Like, if I remember Feed the Birds, it doesn't just, like,
[1:35:25] play in me head as like, an ear worm.
[1:35:27] And I go, oh, God, not that song.
[1:35:28] I go squat. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing.
[1:35:31] I love that. It's great.
[1:35:32] And when they break into song, you're not removed from the
[1:35:34] film. You're taken further into it.
[1:35:37] To me, I think this is might be the only film where I think the
[1:35:39] soundtrack's more important than the screenplay because the song
[1:35:43] say more than than the dialogue does.
[1:35:46] When they really want to nail something home, the sing it.
[1:35:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not annoying, and no
[1:35:51] one's ever been able to touch that since They did it a bit in
[1:35:54] bed, Nobles and broomsticks, but I don't think they've touched
[1:35:56] the magic the created with this film, from the visuals to
[1:36:00] everything else. And if somebody wants to say
[1:36:02] something, get the point across, it's sung.
[1:36:04] That should be for me personally, that's Oh my God,
[1:36:08] that's terrible and it really works here and these guys had
[1:36:12] such a task. To me, the soundtrack is just so
[1:36:15] honest. They just wanted it to be right
[1:36:18] and it's so good because it's all right and it fits the film
[1:36:21] and they just nailed it and it's absolutely works.
[1:36:24] It's just as important as the visuals for me.
[1:36:26] I think the soundtrack of this is just it's next level top
[1:36:29] five. So the Sherman brothers were
[1:36:34] sons of a 10 LB Ali songwriter called Al Sherman.
[1:36:36] So took after their dad, right? Their break came when they wrote
[1:36:39] a hit called Tall Paul for Annette Funicello.
[1:36:42] She was one of the Mouseketeers from the Mickey Mouse Club in
[1:36:44] the 1950s, and that brought them to the attention to Disney, and
[1:36:48] they wrote music for them before being given Mary Poppins.
[1:36:51] They also wrote Do You know You're 16 by Johnny Burnett.
[1:36:55] Yes, you're 16. You're beautiful in your mind.
[1:36:57] All right. Yeah, Yeah.
[1:36:58] That was them, Yeah. Ringo Starr covered that when he
[1:37:00] was about 30. Of course he did.
[1:37:03] Yeah, and the Shermans were one of the first people to work on
[1:37:06] the film and it took 2 1/2 years.
[1:37:08] Tried all the songs. Wow.
[1:37:10] And because there's no final script that had to write songs
[1:37:12] and just hope they would fit in somewhere.
[1:37:15] And Richard said there were 34 songs, almost half of which
[1:37:18] didn't make it in the film. Yeah, somewhere he was on late
[1:37:21] at Disney films like you mentioned.
[1:37:22] The Shermans must have been all over that first draft of the
[1:37:25] script though. Give me a look like front of me
[1:37:27] writing all the lyrics to match. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to swoop
[1:37:30] them with Trevor's Loving the music someone's got new now.
[1:37:34] She was the only music in the film to be a period pieces like
[1:37:37] Greensleeves. Very different vibe.
[1:37:41] Yeah, very much. What did you want?
[1:37:44] Did you want me to make this? I was.
[1:37:47] I think we're on the same page. So after the songs were
[1:37:49] finished, Disney had Travis flown at the studio so the
[1:37:51] Sherman brothers could play other songs.
[1:37:53] She didn't like them and let them know, Richard Sherman said.
[1:37:57] She didn't care about our feelings at all and she
[1:38:00] completely chopped us apart. Yeah, the audio was recorded
[1:38:04] from those sessions and they formed the basis of the script
[1:38:06] from Saving Mr. Banks. Yeah, right.
[1:38:08] It's basically PL. Trevor telling the Sherman's off
[1:38:10] for things like saying nighty instead of nightgown in the
[1:38:13] lyrics. I mean, come on.
[1:38:15] Yeah, so there is one nice moment though, where the player
[1:38:19] feed the birds and she starts singing along.
[1:38:21] So it wasn't all about. Once the script was finished,
[1:38:24] Don de Gradi sat in sessions with the Sherman Brothers as
[1:38:27] well. He started at Disney as an
[1:38:29] illustrator and drew a sketch of an Edwardian chimney sweep as
[1:38:32] inspiration for the Shermans to use, and based on that sketch
[1:38:36] they then wrote Chim Chim Tree. Yeah, it's great.
[1:38:39] You can see that sketch online as well, and there's some of
[1:38:42] that ones done to grade Drew as well of Trevor sitting there
[1:38:44] looking absolutely furious in the room with the Shermans.
[1:38:48] That's hard to draw that. Surely no.
[1:38:52] For their work on Mary Poppins, the Sherman Brothers won Academy
[1:38:54] Award for both Best Original Score and Best Original song for
[1:38:58] Chim Chim Cherie. Pretty hard to argue.
[1:39:01] I think that they fulfilled the brief.
[1:39:03] Oh yeah. And then some, yeah.
[1:39:07] Let's talk about the man directly behind the camera on
[1:39:10] Mary Poppins then in director of photography Edward Coleman.
[1:39:13] This wasn't his first Disney Rodeo having short films like
[1:39:16] The Parent Trap and The Absent Minded Professor.
[1:39:19] Everyone worked on that one it seems.
[1:39:21] Yeah, Mary Poppins is always deep.
[1:39:23] How would they do what Coleman do?
[1:39:24] I'll tell you what, Albert, Albert Coleman is not an
[1:39:27] absolute professor. He's very much involved in
[1:39:30] what's going on and he's he nails it later on.
[1:39:33] Only later did the mask slip and I've realized that this is all
[1:39:37] shot indoors, which will get on you.
[1:39:39] It's all shot on the sound stage.
[1:39:40] But when I was a kid, man, this was just huge.
[1:39:44] The colour palette, everything. It had this real romance to it,
[1:39:48] this warmth to it, this elegance to it.
[1:39:50] It has a real elegance to the film.
[1:39:52] I mean, but costume design and set design and production design
[1:39:56] is all incredible. He just beautifully done,
[1:39:59] beautifully rendered and shot on film.
[1:40:02] Sound stages, direct lights. It's going to be hot.
[1:40:05] There's no soft light in this whatsoever.
[1:40:07] But everyone still looks amazing.
[1:40:09] I mean, again, one of them films that I watch and I go.
[1:40:12] I can't fathom how this was done, nor do I even want to
[1:40:16] think about it because it gives us a headache.
[1:40:19] It was just Walt Disney going. I want this to look cartoonish,
[1:40:22] but at the same time real life. And there's no such thing as
[1:40:26] CGI. You can't fall back on anything.
[1:40:29] There's no safety net here whatsoever.
[1:40:31] He has to nail this 100%. If you see a wire, this film
[1:40:34] finishes done and there's so much pressure put on him and he
[1:40:38] absolutely nails it. He knows what he's doing.
[1:40:40] And again, he's just part of a huge machine to deliver the the
[1:40:44] whole Disney message and he does it with a plum, I think,
[1:40:47] amazing. Yeah, I think there's a few
[1:40:50] unsung heroes worked on Mary Poppins like we've been talking
[1:40:52] about. And Edward Coleman's one of
[1:40:54] those names. Yeah.
[1:40:55] I'm not sure that he gets the credit he deserves necessarily.
[1:40:58] I mean, this isn't the gritty, grimy documentary about nannying
[1:41:01] and Edwardian London, obviously, although I'd watch that as well.
[1:41:03] Yeah, that's what Travis wanted. And I think Coleman could have
[1:41:07] done it, to be honest. I mean, it's a fantastical
[1:41:10] Disney musical. And in delivering that, Coleman
[1:41:12] does a faultless job. Yeah.
[1:41:13] Visuals leap off the screen. They're so vibrant still.
[1:41:17] And that's not all down to Edward Coleman, but he's the one
[1:41:19] responsible for shooting it. I mean, we're pushing technical
[1:41:22] effects bound. We, like we've talked about with
[1:41:23] the live action and animation. He has to deal with that
[1:41:26] shooting an early form of green screen where nobody really knows
[1:41:29] exactly what the final result will look like.
[1:41:31] Yeah. And he knocks it all out the
[1:41:32] park. He's working with animations,
[1:41:35] animatronics, the matte paintings, huge sets and the
[1:41:38] visuals still hold up today. It's a classic film and I think
[1:41:41] it still looks like 1. Yeah, it's got this romance to
[1:41:44] it that even when it looks a little bit rubbish, it's better
[1:41:47] for it. Yeah.
[1:41:48] Yeah. He's just fearless.
[1:41:50] Watching this in 64, you would have been like, what on earth is
[1:41:54] this? Yeah.
[1:41:56] It's the list of challenges. I think he has to forgot me.
[1:41:59] That's the impressive thing for me, to shoot and light the film
[1:42:01] entirely on the sound stage. And obviously, he can make it
[1:42:05] look as realistic as he can, but he can't quite get there.
[1:42:07] But at the same time, he's got to make sure it therefore
[1:42:10] doesn't look cheap, and it never does.
[1:42:12] It looks so lavish, inexpensive, elegant, elegant and just high
[1:42:16] quality and classy throughout. And then fall into the mix.
[1:42:19] Things like shooting scenes with extensive matte pins in the
[1:42:22] background, that's another challenge.
[1:42:24] And just some of the visuals really pop in this.
[1:42:26] I mean, those chimney sweeps and silhouettes jumping up and down,
[1:42:29] that just looks amazing. Yeah.
[1:42:31] So, you know, like Stevenson, he's got a checklist of things
[1:42:34] to do, but like, Stevenson just executes it really, really
[1:42:37] effectively. Yeah, and like we said, the film
[1:42:39] was shot entirely indoors at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank,
[1:42:42] CA, and this meant Coleman had to work closely with Peter
[1:42:45] Ellenshaw on the Matt paintings and Tony Walton on the
[1:42:48] production design to ensure it all looked as realistic as
[1:42:51] possible. And it looks, I mean, it's
[1:42:52] fantastic. I do love Olympics way, like
[1:42:55] birds walking down the street and you know that he can't walk
[1:42:58] much further. Yeah, because he's going to hit
[1:43:01] a bit. Maybe.
[1:43:02] But I do love. I just love that it's got this
[1:43:03] romance to it. I love it.
[1:43:05] Yeah, I know that on the Mac painting of London using the
[1:43:07] opening Peter Allen show, poked little holes in it and the lit
[1:43:10] from behind to make it away. The lights in the city are
[1:43:12] coming on one by one. Love that.
[1:43:14] Really a good idea. Yeah, great.
[1:43:17] For those visuals, Mary Poppins was nominated for the Academy
[1:43:19] Award for Best Cinematography and won for Best Visual Effects,
[1:43:22] which was a special category at the time.
[1:43:24] Right. I mean with the ground breaking
[1:43:26] work and blending live action with animation.
[1:43:28] Pretty well deserved I think. Nothing like this in 64 surely?
[1:43:31] So Walt Disney and Robert Stevenson may have been the
[1:43:33] conductors, but they had some artists playing alongside them.
[1:43:36] And with Bill Walsh and Don Degrade crafting the story, the
[1:43:39] Sherman Brothers creating the melodies, and Edward Coleman's
[1:43:42] DP a pretty spectacular collaboration all round on Mary
[1:43:45] Poppins, Yeah. I think everyone's, everyone's
[1:43:47] killing it, aren't they? Yeah, definitely the end.
[1:43:56] The final act of Mary Poppins as Disney, pulling out all the
[1:43:58] emotional stops, giving us some of the most touching moments.
[1:44:01] We'll be talking the final scenes where Mr. Banks finally
[1:44:04] learned what matters most. Before that, though, it's up to
[1:44:07] the London rooftops it is. It's only pals.
[1:44:14] So having taught the children and us non-stop lessons about
[1:44:17] joy and imagination, Mary Poppins leads them up to the
[1:44:19] roof where Burt and his fellow chimney sweeps launch into the
[1:44:22] most outrageous dance number of this.
[1:44:25] Maybe any film. Yeah.
[1:44:27] Step in time, Matt. Yeah.
[1:44:28] What do you make of the Chimney Top Show?
[1:44:31] Well, I mean, my opening quote came from this bit and it is
[1:44:34] just my absolute highlight, favorite bit of the film.
[1:44:37] The pace of this song is the key to its success because it
[1:44:40] absolutely barrels along and it's just impossible to not get
[1:44:45] caught up with it. The choreography is incredible.
[1:44:48] Running up and down those roofs. That chimney sweep you need, he
[1:44:52] goes flying off the roof. But the swinging background just
[1:44:54] in time, that's great. But like with pretty much
[1:44:57] everything else, it's the performances from Julie Andrews
[1:44:59] and Dick Van Dyke that'll just can't take me eyes off of you.
[1:45:02] Like his legs are like the made of elastic, just bending all
[1:45:06] over the place. And then what I love about Mary
[1:45:10] Poppins in this scene is that it's true shows the different
[1:45:13] side of her personality because yes, she's prim and proper, but
[1:45:16] she'll also just get stuck in and have a laugh when it's
[1:45:19] called for. Like she's not disgusted that
[1:45:21] she's covered in. So it's when she flings herself
[1:45:23] into the dancing, she's just not out of place whatsoever.
[1:45:26] That moment where she pauses mid dance and she's got like one leg
[1:45:29] in midair and then holds the pause before springing back in,
[1:45:33] that's incredible. So this whole sequence, like all
[1:45:35] 8 minutes of it, it just pulses with energy.
[1:45:38] It's brilliant. Yeah, yeah, it's great, isn't
[1:45:41] it? Step in time, step in.
[1:45:43] Time. Insane I.
[1:45:45] Could have done without that. Let's get the chimney.
[1:45:48] Sweeps in. It turns the West Side Story
[1:45:50] people doing backflip. Really.
[1:45:51] West Side Story. I love it.
[1:45:53] Yeah, I. Like it when Bird starts dancing
[1:45:54] with Mary and we hear one of the sweep shows.
[1:45:56] Look at how Bert in the background.
[1:45:58] Yeah, great. But the choreography is
[1:46:00] incredible. Van Dyke is brilliant.
[1:46:02] Huge variety of running on the spot techniques.
[1:46:04] Yeah, I love the set as well. You see the whole thing when
[1:46:07] they're running around the rooftops.
[1:46:08] It's like a wide Mac painting in the back background.
[1:46:10] And that white shot I think you mentioned in Markham, see 8
[1:46:12] sweeps prancing on their own chimney.
[1:46:14] It's all silhouettes with a blue background.
[1:46:16] That's the best shot in the film.
[1:46:17] I think it is, yeah. But you've posted it enough in
[1:46:20] the group. Time we talk about Poppins.
[1:46:26] Again though, Admiral Boom, this guy's a menace.
[1:46:29] Starts taking pot shots and all the sweeps.
[1:46:31] Yeah, they will not mention his outrageous racism either.
[1:46:34] Now let's leave that. Yeah, then they just take over,
[1:46:37] bangs out and again, step in time.
[1:46:39] It's absolutely ludicrous. Bosses back step in time.
[1:46:44] Yeah, it ends with them all just running off into the night.
[1:46:46] Yeah, absolutely awesome. We might say that.
[1:46:52] Brilliant. I mean, this is the most Matt
[1:46:55] Bartley sequence after knowing him for 2020 plus years.
[1:47:01] Every time I watch this, I just think of Matt just sitting and
[1:47:03] smiling at it. It's just, but I do, I just
[1:47:07] think he's just going to love this so much.
[1:47:09] And it's just it has that vibe to it.
[1:47:10] It's just everybody on the same page and you haven't even been
[1:47:15] introduced to these guys. This should not make sense.
[1:47:18] Like we have all these guys come from, but you trust Bert, you
[1:47:22] know him and everyone else is Berts friend and you then trust
[1:47:25] them. And Mary's just integrated into
[1:47:28] this. She knows them.
[1:47:30] This is huge back story. Like how does she know these
[1:47:33] guys? How does she know what the dance
[1:47:34] is like? It's just any other film it
[1:47:38] would just be an absolute mind fog of like what on earth is
[1:47:42] going on here? It just works so well.
[1:47:44] The music works so well, the choreography is incredible.
[1:47:47] It's so Broadway, it's so theatre.
[1:47:50] It's a show for them and it's a show for us.
[1:47:52] It's I almost feel like I'm watching something that was
[1:47:56] they're sure for the kids and I'm eavesdropping on it a little
[1:47:59] bit. And there's very few films that
[1:48:00] do that, especially your musical set piece, because I mean, I
[1:48:04] forget that this is at the end of the film.
[1:48:06] Step in Time comes in, he's like, yes, this is now a Disney
[1:48:10] film. This is exactly what I want.
[1:48:12] We don't know any of these guys the popping their heads out from
[1:48:14] different pipes and that shouldn't make sense.
[1:48:17] They're not going to fit anyway and they're jumping down and
[1:48:20] they're making an absolute mess of the house and they're just
[1:48:22] taking the piss out of Mr. Banks.
[1:48:24] The birds brought this for him. And then he gives that wonderful
[1:48:26] speech about I know how hard it is for you, but you need to
[1:48:31] reassess your whole life. It's wonderful.
[1:48:33] It's just beautifully played out.
[1:48:35] What a sequence. And if everything reminds me of
[1:48:38] Matt, then I'm a happy man. And the Sherman with us a plan
[1:48:43] for Chim Chim Tree to be the song used in the sequence.
[1:48:46] But then special effects supervisor Peter Ellen Shaw
[1:48:49] introduced them to Knees of Mother Brown, and they're
[1:48:51] inspired by that right step in time instead.
[1:48:54] Yeah, I think step in time is basically knees of Mother Brown.
[1:48:57] They've just changed the words I.
[1:48:58] Think it's exactly the same. No Mary Poppins.
[1:49:02] No Chasm Dave, either. Sure.
[1:49:03] No status quo, no music, no contemporary music, no Beatles,
[1:49:09] nothing. But it actually had to be filmed
[1:49:13] twice because there was a scratch on the film at the first
[1:49:16] take and the whole sequence was originally meant to be just two
[1:49:19] minutes long, but ended up 14 minutes instead.
[1:49:23] Couldn't get rid of the chimney sweeps that wouldn't leave
[1:49:25] probably, but they're behind the scenes for them, filming some
[1:49:29] scenes like Step in Time. And it's kind of surreal seeing
[1:49:31] Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, like laughing and messing about.
[1:49:34] And these scenes are like, so stitched into popular culture,
[1:49:37] it's really weird. And then after this, there's a
[1:49:40] very small scene, but it's very important because it's more
[1:49:43] insight into Mr. Banks when he's talking to birds.
[1:49:46] And it's just that realization of how he's got his priorities
[1:49:49] wrong. And what I love about Bird here
[1:49:50] is he's not judgmental. Like when Banks complaints that
[1:49:54] Mary tricked him into taking the kids to the bank, tricked you
[1:49:57] into taking the kids in and out in outrageous, he like, doesn't
[1:50:02] give him a needle about it. He just holds up a mirror and
[1:50:04] says this is what you are and it's up to you to change your
[1:50:07] ways. Yeah.
[1:50:09] Yeah, I just can't believe Mr. Banks doesn't have a problem
[1:50:11] with Bird wandering around his house in his chimney sweep.
[1:50:13] Yeah. These shoes on on his carpet.
[1:50:16] Taking a mess of everything. Crazy.
[1:50:18] So quite a spectacular rooftop celebration there.
[1:50:21] Shall we see how all these chimney sweep are next?
[1:50:23] Land back at 17 Cherry Tree Lane.
[1:50:26] See how it goes. Let's do it.
[1:50:30] The finale of Mary Poppins is where everything changes.
[1:50:33] Mr. Banks faces the board of directors at the bank in what
[1:50:35] seems like doom for his career, but it's the opposite from his
[1:50:38] personality, turning him into a hysterical, kite loving father
[1:50:42] of the year figure. So what do you think of our
[1:50:45] ending, Westie? I mean, I think PL.
[1:50:49] Travers would have been happy with this scene.
[1:50:52] You know, Banks is fired. It's really Leslie Miserables.
[1:50:56] He's it's a joke snapper. Yeah, great.
[1:51:00] But it's the realization from this, and what I've got watching
[1:51:03] it again is you're going to come in at 9:00 at night.
[1:51:06] No, I know it's crazy. I don't care what I do.
[1:51:09] There's no job room you take. Can you come in from meeting at
[1:51:11] 9:00? And no, not even a zoom meeting
[1:51:14] No, I can barely do this at 9:00 at night.
[1:51:16] You know, let's let's be honest, it's.
[1:51:19] Just. Wonderfully done because it's so
[1:51:21] dark. And if you notice when he walks
[1:51:23] into that room, it's so Stanley Kubrick.
[1:51:26] Oh my suddenly, eyes wide. Short, isn't it?
[1:51:27] That is, I was like, that's eyes wide, short, and then I'm
[1:51:29] looking at again going this is the Godfather.
[1:51:31] Yeah, yeah. It's the same top light, they've
[1:51:34] got the same pandorized, don't care where the shadows are.
[1:51:37] Everything's really for boarding.
[1:51:39] That red colour scheme with the black colour scheme.
[1:51:42] This is every phone that I know that I'm like, wow, this has got
[1:51:45] depth and wait. It's like it's Apocalypse now,
[1:51:47] it's the Godfather, it's now hold on, it's 1964, it's Mary
[1:51:50] Poppins. What am I watching?
[1:51:52] It's absolutely insanely well done and it's a great speech.
[1:51:56] And Banks here then starts to buy into the magic and there's
[1:52:00] that great line. You know what?
[1:52:02] There's no such thing as? There's no such thing as you
[1:52:05] because you don't believe in yourself.
[1:52:07] You believe in something else that is going to transcend you,
[1:52:10] that's going to live further than you are.
[1:52:12] And what Mr. Banks needs to become, what George needs to
[1:52:14] become as George, the person, the person for his kids, the
[1:52:18] person that he's supposed to be. It's just a wonderful scene.
[1:52:22] It's brilliantly realized and the wooden egg named Smith not
[1:52:25] the funniest joke, but lands when it's repeated.
[1:52:28] That realization when you know if you get a joke, you sit by
[1:52:31] yourself. A wooden leg names.
[1:52:34] To me, it was just really astonishing.
[1:52:37] I mean, the kids will watch this and we'll put it on, but I've
[1:52:40] never really sat and went right. I'm just going to talk about
[1:52:43] this scene and I've looked at that scene.
[1:52:45] I've just gone wow that is like so intense but beautifully done.
[1:52:51] Yeah, like the way they build all the tension on that long
[1:52:53] walk through London to the bank. It's like he's walking the plank
[1:52:56] or something. Yeah.
[1:52:57] And I think David Tomlinson pretty much nails it.
[1:52:59] Start all proper and stiff up a lip about it.
[1:53:02] But we've seen the cracks forming the last few scenes.
[1:53:04] Yeah. And then he just breaks down.
[1:53:06] But not in tears, in laughter. Yeah.
[1:53:08] I mean, I'm wondering if we just be on the doobies with Uncle
[1:53:11] Albert. I would hope so.
[1:53:12] But it is a great character moment.
[1:53:15] Someone punching a hole in your hat and taking your flower off
[1:53:18] and it's disgusting the way he's trashed and like, of course
[1:53:21] you're just going to laugh at that and you're going to go,
[1:53:22] this is ridiculous, but that's the world.
[1:53:24] I've never seen anyone so pleased to get fired, but even
[1:53:27] better when Mr. Doors senior starts laughing at the end.
[1:53:29] Yeah, that horse chesty laugh. Yeah.
[1:53:32] It's great, yeah. And you think another redemptive
[1:53:34] arc, but next scene doors Junior is like no no, he's dead.
[1:53:38] Locked himself to death. Absolutely brutal.
[1:53:40] Best I've ever seen him. Thanks for that.
[1:53:44] But if Mr. Banks is the heart and emotion of the film, like
[1:53:47] we've been seeing, this is probably his key moment.
[1:53:49] Yeah. Definitely.
[1:53:50] And then for me, you get to the end and and it does end pretty
[1:53:53] perfectly because up till now it's been very light, very
[1:53:56] frothy, but it absolutely sticks the London in terms of the
[1:53:59] message in the emotion, weirdly, it's similar to our last episode
[1:54:04] we did on The Last Crusade because we talked there about
[1:54:06] Henry thinking India is dead and all he needed was 5 minutes to
[1:54:09] tell him something. Yeah.
[1:54:10] And it's the exact same realization for Mr. Banks.
[1:54:13] And it's a message every parent needs N the door already, you
[1:54:16] know. Yes, it's great to have money to
[1:54:18] lavish on your kids, but if you don't, that's fine.
[1:54:20] Just give them some of your time instead.
[1:54:22] They don't care about money, they care about time.
[1:54:24] Kids will appreciate 30 minutes of your time dedicated entirely
[1:54:28] to them. Over £30.
[1:54:30] Over £30 and they'll remember that.
[1:54:33] They won't remember £30 on a pair of trainers.
[1:54:35] You got them once in the end, and Mary Poppins understands
[1:54:38] that. Tomlinson gets out in his
[1:54:40] performance and it's just summed up so beautifully in that last
[1:54:44] song. Let's go fire, OK?
[1:54:45] Where he goes. Niagara Falls, every time.
[1:55:18] Yeah, Really. Wow.
[1:55:19] It's such a beautiful song and it's such a beautiful sentiment.
[1:55:21] It's wonderful ending. What do you mean?
[1:55:23] Wow? Of course it's the most
[1:55:24] emotional man I've ever met. Me life.
[1:55:27] Come on, I can't be surprised. Yeah, Mr. Banks hasn't just
[1:55:31] changed, he's gone kind of mad and have no idea why Mr. Doors
[1:55:34] suddenly asked He wants to become a partner in the bank
[1:55:36] again. Just fired him like 5 minutes
[1:55:38] ago. But as joyous endings go, this
[1:55:41] is right up there. Yeah.
[1:55:43] It's Mary's pizza. I know.
[1:55:44] It's the most nowadays. She gives a look out the window,
[1:55:46] watching the banks or behaving like a family, like my work here
[1:55:49] is done. Yeah.
[1:55:50] And I think it's quite sad when she leaves and they don't get to
[1:55:52] say goodbye to each other. A little bit sly on Mary's part.
[1:55:55] Jane and Michael will be devastated when the financial
[1:55:58] just done one. Yeah.
[1:55:59] May on every night out the. Vanishing act.
[1:56:04] League of Shadows. But that soggy little powered
[1:56:08] umbrella fella who talks to Mary?
[1:56:10] I love that guy. He was voiced by David
[1:56:12] Tomlinson, actually. Oh, was he all right?
[1:56:15] OK, I never knew that. I mean, is there a better ending
[1:56:18] to a film? I just love it.
[1:56:20] I mean, the idea for Let's Go Fly OK came from Sherman and
[1:56:23] their father, Al Sherman. When Sherman's were kids.
[1:56:26] I would make that, make kites, and they'd go and fly them
[1:56:28] together as a family. Have you ever tried doing that?
[1:56:30] It's an absolute nightmare these days.
[1:56:33] It really is. So when the new the story ended
[1:56:35] with the Banks family reunite and they came up with the title,
[1:56:37] immediately, it was like, it's just, it's just wonderful.
[1:56:41] A banger, isn't it, Matt? Well.
[1:56:42] That's a massive banger for my. Absolute banger world bangers.
[1:56:45] Are you talking about? Yeah, I mean, it's absolute
[1:56:47] perfection storytelling wise, and not a coincidence that this
[1:56:50] song powers maybe the most powerful scene here, and for me,
[1:56:53] definitely the best scene in saving Mr. Banks as well.
[1:56:56] Yes. Right, but.
[1:56:57] I think there's some nice symbology in there as well.
[1:56:59] Mr. Banks tapes the four pieces of the kite back together.
[1:57:02] Yeah. Reunites the four members of the
[1:57:03] family. And Missus Banks gives up her
[1:57:05] suffragette ribbon to be the tale of the Kite.
[1:57:07] Yeah, it's all quite nicely, don't I think?
[1:57:09] And he uses. The tuppence to buy the stuff to
[1:57:11] replace it, yeah, it's great. But the ending for the film is
[1:57:14] different to how the book finishes.
[1:57:16] In the book, Mary leaves really suddenly when the wind changes
[1:57:20] direction and she just suddenly flies away.
[1:57:22] The children do say yeah leave though, and the family are all
[1:57:25] upset that she's gone, especially Mrs. Banks.
[1:57:27] But that's because that means she now has to raise the
[1:57:29] children. I bet Travelers was boiling with
[1:57:33] rage at that change. Did you ever not spoil with Rage
[1:57:37] A? Bit to birth.
[1:57:39] Constantly boiling with rage. And with that we get Mary
[1:57:43] Poppins floating away on the wind as the Banks family go fly
[1:57:46] a kite. So turned out well for everyone
[1:57:48] involved and in terms of us, a pretty satisfying ending.
[1:57:52] Wonderful. Perfect ending.
[1:57:56] Reception and awards. So that is the end of Mary
[1:58:01] Poppins for now, and the film landed in theaters in August
[1:58:04] 1964. Not via umbrella, but how did
[1:58:08] audiences respond to it? Well, someone's got to add up
[1:58:10] all those tuppences. And that, man is Matt, is.
[1:58:14] So give us the numbers please, Matt.
[1:58:16] OK. So from a final production
[1:58:18] budget of about 5 to $6 million, Mary Poppins scores $103 million
[1:58:24] worldwide. So a huge hit.
[1:58:26] And then at the Oscars all together, nominated for 13,
[1:58:29] winning 5, Best actress for Julie Andrews, best editing for
[1:58:32] Cotton Warburton, best visual effects for Pete and Ellen Shaw.
[1:58:36] Used to slice it. And Hamilton Lusk and the
[1:58:38] Sherman brothers, as we've said, won two.
[1:58:41] Best score, Best Song for Chim Chim Cherry?
[1:58:44] The most successful Disney film at the Oscars ever.
[1:58:47] Mary Poppins, Right, Right. Yeah.
[1:58:49] And it was the only one of his films that Walt Disney saw get
[1:58:51] nominated for best Picture. Really.
[1:58:53] Wow. I think up and Toy Story 3 have
[1:58:56] been since. Yeah.
[1:58:57] OK, yeah, the premiere who plays at Graham's Chinese Theatre in
[1:59:01] LA? And it was the first premiere
[1:59:02] Walt Disney had been in since Snow White in 1937.
[1:59:05] Wow, check this out. PL.
[1:59:07] Travis wasn't happy though, obviously.
[1:59:11] Shocker. She apparently cried all the way
[1:59:14] through the screening. Like Matt.
[1:59:16] Different reason to Matt though. Totally different reason.
[1:59:20] And she said at the end, she said to Disney, like the first
[1:59:23] thing that has to go is the animated sequence.
[1:59:26] What animated sequence? Which one?
[1:59:30] Yeah, apparently, Disney said to her.
[1:59:31] Pamela, that shape has sailed. Pamela like.
[1:59:37] You've just watched the premiere.
[1:59:38] Everyone loves it except for you.
[1:59:40] It's just a bit of change at that point.
[1:59:42] No, we will take stuff out. This is the point of negotiation
[1:59:45] right now in the premiere, yeah. On to the critics then.
[1:59:48] And Roger Ebert didn't write his first film review until 1967, so
[1:59:52] we don't have any comments from him for once.
[1:59:54] Oh, just missed it. We do, though, have Bosley
[1:59:57] Crowther's of the New York Times thoughts.
[1:59:59] So next best thing? OK.
[2:00:01] Bosley called Mary Poppins a most wonderful cheering movie
[2:00:05] for the enchantments of a beautiful production, some
[2:00:07] deliciously animated sequences, some exciting and nimble dancing
[2:00:11] and a spinning musical score. They make it the nicest
[2:00:14] entertainment that has opened at the Music Hall this year.
[2:00:17] OK, lovely, nice entertainment. It definitely is that, James
[2:00:22] Powers of The Hollywood Reporter said.
[2:00:24] Mary Poppins is a picture that is more than most a triumph of
[2:00:27] many individual contributions, and it's special triumph is a
[2:00:31] seems to be the work of a single cohesive intelligence.
[2:00:34] Yeah, it is. Yeah.
[2:00:35] Kind of what we've been saying, I think Walt Disney's vision
[2:00:37] achieved by a big, talented team.
[2:00:39] It's under the massive umbrella with a parrot at the end of it.
[2:00:45] And in a retrospective of you, Empire magazine gave Mary
[2:00:48] Poppins 4 stars out of five really.
[2:00:50] Which I can't quite believe and said get this, watch it on DVD
[2:00:55] and make judicious use of the skip button.
[2:00:57] And with a little home editing you can edge this movie up to
[2:00:59] the five star rating it could so easily have earned.
[2:01:02] What? Just skip off of it?
[2:01:04] Rubbish. That's it.
[2:01:08] That's the only thing I can think of.
[2:01:10] Absolutely crazy. That is mental.
[2:01:12] Today on Rotten Tomatoes, Mary Poppins has a very big 86%
[2:01:16] audience approval rating, under huge 97% from critics, and then
[2:01:21] on IMDb the score of 7.8 out of 10 all.
[2:01:25] Right. Huge scores.
[2:01:27] Still can't quite believe Empire though.
[2:01:28] No, just Fast forward it. Yeah.
[2:01:30] I'm just skipping the rich you don't like.
[2:01:32] Those highlights so Mary Poppins was pretty much an instant
[2:01:35] Disney classic massive box office success triumphant the
[2:01:39] Academy Awards critics fell in love with it and still
[2:01:41] enchanting audiences today yeah not quite practically perfect
[2:01:45] for some like PL. Travers and Empire but it's an
[2:01:48] OK for itself it. Really.
[2:01:50] I mean you can skip any film and make it a five star.
[2:01:52] Yeah sure. Sequels and influence.
[2:02:02] PL. Travers wrote 8 Mary Poppins
[2:02:04] books in total, so there were plenty of stories for Disney to
[2:02:06] explore, but she wouldn't let them.
[2:02:09] Hollywood did eventually return a cherry trail in though in 2018
[2:02:12] when we got the Rob Marshall directed and Emily Blunt
[2:02:15] starring sequel Mary Poppins Returns.
[2:02:18] How do I find the long-awaited sequel?
[2:02:20] It's very enjoyable. It is like a lot of sequels or
[2:02:23] reboots these days in the sense that the plot beats are
[2:02:26] essentially the same. Doesn't really tread any new
[2:02:29] ground. It doesn't have that emotional
[2:02:31] resonance of Mr. Banks realizing what's important in life.
[2:02:34] But some great songs, some really good dance sequences.
[2:02:38] I think Lin Manuel Miranda does a decent job of filling in for
[2:02:41] Dick Van Dyke. But it has to be said Emily
[2:02:43] Blunt is brilliant in the title role to follow in Julie Andrews
[2:02:47] steps here. It's no mean feat, but she
[2:02:49] absolutely makes that character pretty much her own.
[2:02:53] Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's 50 years after the
[2:02:55] original, which is some gap between a film and a sequel
[2:02:57] where they keep the same kind of continuity.
[2:02:59] I think Emily Blunt is really good as Mary.
[2:03:01] The narrative is good. I don't think it's just a copy
[2:03:03] paste job in terms of the story. Could have got a stronger
[2:03:05] narrative, I think maybe Returns than what the first one has.
[2:03:09] And the big set pieces are great, spectacular.
[2:03:11] There are some great animations in there.
[2:03:14] The problem it's got as it's following the original.
[2:03:16] One of the most famous musicals ever and the songs are fine but
[2:03:19] the nowhere close to the Sherman lads other.
[2:03:23] Also, I find the writing of Mary a little odd in the sequel.
[2:03:26] I think she's quite passive. She doesn't really drive the
[2:03:29] narrative. She kind of follows the banks
[2:03:31] around as they have their adventure.
[2:03:32] Yeah. Yeah.
[2:03:33] Which, yeah, I found a bit strange.
[2:03:34] Liam. Well, Miranda is really good as
[2:03:36] Jack the Lamplighter. He's loving it to Miranda, isn't
[2:03:39] he? He can't believe his luck.
[2:03:40] Yeah. And Dick Van Dyke has a cameo.
[2:03:42] Great to see him, Obviously. But he plays Mr. Doors.
[2:03:45] Why isn't he Burt? He would have been awesome.
[2:03:49] Hello. Moiry at the end.
[2:03:50] It would have been incredible. So yeah, it is enjoyable enough.
[2:03:54] Easily better than it could have been.
[2:03:55] Yeah, but not really a Disney classic.
[2:03:57] I wouldn't say no. Right.
[2:03:58] And Disney want to make sequels after the first phone came out.
[2:04:01] But guess what? Pale Travers didn't allow it if
[2:04:05] she was so angry with how the phone came out.
[2:04:07] In the 1990s, a producer called Cameron Macintosh approached
[2:04:10] Travers about making a stage musical version and said as long
[2:04:14] as he didn't use any of Sherman songs.
[2:04:17] Wow. That's absolutely fine.
[2:04:19] Don't use any of the song. Don't use anything that's been
[2:04:21] done past the books, basically. But Travis passed away in 1996
[2:04:24] and when the musical debuted in 2004.
[2:04:26] Include all the Disney songs. Of course it did of.
[2:04:29] Course it did. I'm sorry Pamela, but the reason
[2:04:31] they want to make a stage version is down to the film more
[2:04:34] than the books. Course it is somebody sitting
[2:04:37] there reading them out. Well, back to the original film
[2:04:42] then. What has its legacy and
[2:04:43] influence been since 1964, do we think?
[2:04:47] I mean, for Legacy, I think it's as huge as any film you can
[2:04:50] mention really, because it's such a bluff family classic.
[2:04:53] There's not many films where you can think, let's make a film
[2:04:56] about the making of because that's going to be really
[2:04:58] interesting. You know, it's kind of in a
[2:05:00] genre of its own in that sense. The fact that it's one that
[2:05:03] broadcasters will turn to year after year after year to put on
[2:05:06] over Christmas, despite how old it is now, that tells you how
[2:05:09] much it is a generational film. There's a lot of family films
[2:05:13] that were not as popular but pretty much nearly as popular
[2:05:17] back then that just happens to the test of time like this one
[2:05:20] has. And then that's its legacy and
[2:05:22] its influence. I think it's just as big.
[2:05:24] I think any family film with song and dance numbers lives in
[2:05:26] the shadow of this one. And the blending of live action
[2:05:29] animation. When you said it, John wasn't
[2:05:30] the 1st to do it, but it elevated it in a way that hadn't
[2:05:33] been seen before. And if you didn't have this,
[2:05:35] would you have the likes of Hoofy and Roger Rabbit or Looney
[2:05:38] Tunes back in action? I think you could argue probably
[2:05:40] not. Definitely not.
[2:05:42] Yeah, in terms of impacts, Mary Poppins has been massive
[2:05:45] revolutionized like you're saying, how live action
[2:05:47] animation could plan together and LED there, the classics.
[2:05:50] Pete's Dragon wasn't long after this, I don't think.
[2:05:52] Yeah. Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, loads
[2:05:55] of others launch Julie Andrews into Hollywood stardom without
[2:05:59] the directly in her being cast as Maria von Trapp.
[2:06:01] Like we talked about Dick Van Dyke, Like despite something
[2:06:04] like a company having a midlife crisis, became a beloved figure
[2:06:07] surely casting Chitty Chitty Bang Bang because of Mary
[2:06:10] Poppins. Yeah.
[2:06:10] Of course. And its cultural impacts massive
[2:06:13] too. I mean, supercalifragilistic and
[2:06:15] a spoonful of sugar have ended the kind of cultural lexicon
[2:06:19] everybody knows those phrases. And the Sherman set a new
[2:06:22] standard for musical storytelling.
[2:06:23] I think the ball was raised after Mary Poppins.
[2:06:25] Yeah. Even the day we'll still see the
[2:06:27] idea of a magical nanny in the films.
[2:06:29] Nanny McPhee misses Doubtfire. There's an influence there, I
[2:06:32] think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2:06:33] And the message about recognizing the importance of
[2:06:35] family and finding the joy in life that still resonates,
[2:06:38] probably always will. And I can't imagine it'll ever
[2:06:40] be a time when Mary Poppins isn't being shown to children.
[2:06:43] Yeah. There shouldn't be any way, I
[2:06:44] don't think. Yeah, I feel exactly the same as
[2:06:48] you guys. I think it's more about the feel
[2:06:51] of this whole film. I don't know if you guys, but
[2:06:54] I've beaten Disney World, right? You walk through and you see
[2:06:57] someone dressed up as Mary Poppins.
[2:06:58] Everyone goes, there's Mary Poppins and you're like, oh,
[2:07:02] this dress was Bert. Oh, there's Bert.
[2:07:05] And like you said, John, I think it's more of a cultural
[2:07:07] influence than it is on anything cinematic because Walt Disney
[2:07:12] owned this. From that, it created Disney
[2:07:16] into what it is today. I think without Mary Poppins,
[2:07:18] you wouldn't have that element of it's Mary Poppins.
[2:07:21] Of course it is. And it's the safest film I think
[2:07:24] it's ever been made. I think you can just put it on
[2:07:27] at any time for anybody and if they don't like it, it's a real
[2:07:32] red flag. You can put over anyone at any
[2:07:35] time. It's Sunday, a few drinks or
[2:07:38] whatever. I had Mary Poppins on and
[2:07:39] everyone is just as a piece of entertainment, as something that
[2:07:43] has something to say as the benchmark for Disney.
[2:07:47] If you love that, it is what it is.
[2:07:49] It's it's a huge film and it it made such an impact and I think
[2:07:53] everyone is trying to do what that did and it's impossible.
[2:07:56] It's just lightning and a bottle and it works so well.
[2:08:00] Well, as we're talking about Disney, this seems like a good
[2:08:02] place for our 3rd and finally ATRM patron question.
[2:08:05] OK. It's about Disney Studios and
[2:08:07] comes from Andrew Shaw. OK.
[2:08:10] Hello, Andrew. Hello Andrew.
[2:08:11] So Andrew was asked, what are your general thoughts on Disney
[2:08:14] entertainment over the years and if you're a fan, why are you a
[2:08:17] fan? If not, why not?
[2:08:20] No. What?
[2:08:21] What do you say to? That go on my first.
[2:08:24] I mean, I mean general thoughts as to where they are now.
[2:08:26] I don't think we should be naive and thinking Disney from day one
[2:08:30] wasn't interested in profits, in being hugely successful.
[2:08:33] Of course he was, you know, of course, yeah.
[2:08:35] They never made art house. They weren't fund and Inmar
[2:08:38] Bergman back in the day. It's.
[2:08:39] Not a 24, is it? No, it's not.
[2:08:41] It's definitely not, but I think my overall feeling is that
[2:08:45] classic Disney, if that's what we can call it, they had that
[2:08:47] perfect combination where they had the commercial instincts but
[2:08:51] genuine care for the output. And I feel that's just
[2:08:53] increasingly lost with Disney these days.
[2:08:55] Like Disney these days, it feels like they actually need to watch
[2:08:58] this film and realize what the point is.
[2:09:00] Because it feels like it's a company run by accountants these
[2:09:04] days. And if you have genuine artistic
[2:09:07] antiquity, you're going to struggle to keep that.
[2:09:10] And I think everyone can point to various examples of that.
[2:09:12] Endless sequels, prequels, reboots, streaming spin offs,
[2:09:15] whatever. But the one that particularly
[2:09:17] irritates me is this endless obsession of remake and classic
[2:09:21] animations as live action. Yeah, I mean, the example I'm
[2:09:24] going to say it isn't live action as such, but that photo
[2:09:27] realistic version of The Lion King.
[2:09:30] What was the point of that? Who wants that?
[2:09:33] I'm not saying like I'll watch the original Snow White as a 45
[2:09:36] year old man if I did. It's miles better, but it wasn't
[2:09:40] like The Lion King reboot, like one of the greatest box office
[2:09:43] successes of all time. Massive, yeah.
[2:09:45] Yeah, they all are. So there's obviously an audience
[2:09:47] for them. But like I say, if I did watch
[2:09:49] the original So White, I would sit there and go, you know what?
[2:09:52] I can see the creativity there, right?
[2:09:53] I can see the love in that form of animation.
[2:09:56] And to me, that's what Disney has lost.
[2:09:57] They just feel increasingly mercenary about their output.
[2:10:01] Nice. Yeah, I mean, for me to start
[2:10:03] with, I would say yes, I'm definitely a fine at Disney.
[2:10:06] I think if people aren't generally certainly classic
[2:10:08] Disney, that's absolutely fine. But their loss for me, to be
[2:10:11] honest, what makes them so great?
[2:10:13] I mean a lot, but a couple of things always stand out for me.
[2:10:17] They've been master storytellers for a long time.
[2:10:20] The amount of moments of Disney films that resonate with people.
[2:10:22] Bambi's mother being killed, Bing Bong and Inside Out don't
[2:10:26] Bore. Being rocked to sleep by his
[2:10:27] mother. When we see Coco again at the
[2:10:29] end of Coco, Don't. Start.
[2:10:30] I'm going. To go.
[2:10:31] There's dozens more, but these are moments that people see as
[2:10:33] children and then they remember for their whole lives.
[2:10:36] And then secondly, Disney's been around since 1923 / 100 years,
[2:10:40] and ever since then has been at the forefront of animation.
[2:10:43] Snow White was groundbreaking in 1937.
[2:10:45] Mary Poppins was in 64, don't do that as much now, but they have
[2:10:49] carried on since at some point, like Toy Story, all those live
[2:10:52] action CGI things they're doing now, which are a bit mercenary,
[2:10:56] I would agree. I would say at times they can
[2:10:58] maybe rely too heavily on existing IPS, certainly
[2:11:01] nowadays, rather than taking risks from original stories that
[2:11:04] they used to do. And sometimes they need to
[2:11:06] appeal to everyone, kind of lead to playing it slightly safer
[2:11:09] times when maybe they never used to.
[2:11:11] Pinocchio was scared to shout at me when I was a kid.
[2:11:13] Yeah, but don't go for that kind of thing anymore, that kind of
[2:11:15] darkness, which is quite a shame, I think.
[2:11:17] Yeah. But at their best, Disney are a
[2:11:20] joy. They bring people together.
[2:11:21] They've told stories that are part of our shared cultural
[2:11:24] language for years and years and years.
[2:11:27] You can't reasonably ask for more from them than what they've
[2:11:29] done. And I'm a fan, and I still am
[2:11:31] always interested to see what they're doing next.
[2:11:33] Yeah. And Westie.
[2:11:34] The opposite of that, John, to be honest.
[2:11:37] I mean, no, no, in it like a negative way.
[2:11:39] I just, I know what Disney is. And to me, it's a little bit too
[2:11:43] predictable and it's a little bit too safe, and it's a little
[2:11:46] bit too escapist, and it's a little bit too like live, laugh,
[2:11:50] love. For me.
[2:11:51] I think it's what you've both said.
[2:11:52] I think the criticism that we've got is that it's not pioneering.
[2:11:56] It's not moving forward with any kind of new ideas.
[2:11:59] I think it's using a lot of what it's done in the past, like when
[2:12:03] Walt Disney died. That's it.
[2:12:05] We're not making anything new. We've got an iPhone, we've got a
[2:12:08] MacBook. That's all we're doing and we're
[2:12:09] just going to rehash that. Disney feels like we're just
[2:12:11] going to rehash what we've done. It don't feel like Disney are
[2:12:14] pioneers anymore. They're hanging on to something
[2:12:16] that they've done previously. There's the castle, there's the
[2:12:20] princesses, there's the Princess, and it's just a little
[2:12:23] bit too old fashioned. I know that Disney's safe.
[2:12:26] I know that Disney's happy, and that's a place that I can always
[2:12:30] refer to people who like, want to be in a safe and happy
[2:12:33] environment. Not that's the best I can give
[2:12:35] for Disney, really. Disney slammed.
[2:12:39] Well, not I'm not. Slamming and I'm like, I watched
[2:12:43] pretty much everything up. To date because.
[2:12:45] I've got two children and I'm watching big.
[2:12:46] Hero 6, and I thought that was absolutely fantastic.
[2:12:49] But again, it just hit. It seems like there's boundaries
[2:12:51] on it. It seems like it needs to be
[2:12:52] this with Pixar. Yeah, Pixar, yeah, they are
[2:12:56] pioneering at that point, but I would rather someone was.
[2:12:58] Pioneering. In a different way.
[2:13:01] Fair enough. I like all that.
[2:13:02] Takes risks. Yeah.
[2:13:04] So while they took 54 years for Mary.
[2:13:06] Poppins to return. The Cherry Tree laying in a
[2:13:07] proper sequel. Me might think it was quite
[2:13:10] good. Yeah.
[2:13:11] And As for the original, its influence on musicals,
[2:13:13] animations, family films, how we all perceive the general magic
[2:13:16] of Disney. Difficult to overstate its
[2:13:18] influence. Oh, absolutely.
[2:13:20] Yeah. Oh yeah, very much.
[2:13:25] All the right. Movies Ranking.
[2:13:29] And that just about wraps up the adventure.
[2:13:31] All that's left is to decide just how many spoonfuls of sugar
[2:13:33] Mary. Poppins deserves out of 10.
[2:13:35] All right, so Matt, your choice. So what do you think?
[2:13:38] Your summary and score for Mary Poppins, please.
[2:13:42] I think it's really easy to be cynical about this as a film.
[2:13:46] Yes, parts of it are quite ramshackle and yes, it's a kids
[2:13:49] film so it is, no pun intended, quite sugary at times.
[2:13:52] And, you know, we did see some people morning about this
[2:13:54] choice, but ultimately, we've always been about as a podcast
[2:13:58] celebrating every genre that we can.
[2:14:00] And this is a genre we needed to cover.
[2:14:02] And this film is so worth celebrating.
[2:14:04] It's beloved for a very good reason.
[2:14:07] And if you reported as an adult with the right frame of mind,
[2:14:10] you'll totally get it. You'll laugh with the jokes,
[2:14:13] You'll hum along with the songs. You'll be charmed by the
[2:14:15] animation. And if nothing else, you've got
[2:14:18] Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. And they're both simply
[2:14:21] wonderful. And they definitely bring the
[2:14:23] magic because they believe in the magic in this material.
[2:14:26] So is it an absolute all time favorite of mine?
[2:14:29] It's not. And it's certainly not a perfect
[2:14:31] film. It is baggy at times.
[2:14:32] It is over long. But ultimately it's a film that
[2:14:35] generations now always come back to.
[2:14:37] And it's a film that generations to come will discover for the
[2:14:40] first time and they will love it.
[2:14:42] And I think that's something to be cherished, particularly for a
[2:14:45] film from 1964. So it's a nine for me, big score
[2:14:50] and it's a big film obviously over there with the biggest
[2:14:53] films. Ever made, I think when you talk
[2:14:54] cultural impact, yeah. And I think Disney magic its
[2:14:58] finest, a timeless classic, like we've been saying.
[2:15:01] And creatively, I think it's off the scale.
[2:15:03] I mean, the advancements in effects technology we used to
[2:15:05] get a live action and animation where they never been done
[2:15:08] before. Julie Andrews delivers one of
[2:15:10] the great debut film performances.
[2:15:12] I think Van Dyke might have a bad accent, but come on, he's
[2:15:16] brilliant. Yeah, come on.
[2:15:17] That's by the by. And the music from the Sherman
[2:15:20] Brothers can't be spoken about highly enough.
[2:15:22] I don't think so. Some of the most.
[2:15:23] Memorable songs. In Hollywood history, yeah.
[2:15:25] I mean, that's not hyperbole over exaggeration.
[2:15:27] That that's kind of. What they did, yeah, that's
[2:15:29] fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[2:15:30] And does it all by telling a story with some genuine
[2:15:32] emotional depth. Mr. Banks learning the value
[2:15:35] with family over. Money basically will have struck
[2:15:37] a chord with so many kids over the decades, I think you
[2:15:39] probably can't even imagine. And to be honest, and this might
[2:15:42] be hyperbole, but see, the world's a slightly better place
[2:15:45] for Mary Poppins being in it. That's quite a special thing.
[2:15:48] Not now, no favorite of mine, personally.
[2:15:50] But I'm very glad that it exists.
[2:15:52] And it will outlive all of us, I think, by a long, long way.
[2:15:55] So I'm also going 9 hours in. Nice and Westie to finish
[2:15:59] yourself your summary in school for Mary Poppins place.
[2:16:02] Yeah, I mean it's. Just such a wonderful.
[2:16:04] Thing it's just a wonderful creation I.
[2:16:07] Think from everyone involved. It's not.
[2:16:10] You can't just go. Is that a great film?
[2:16:11] It's not. It's just it's a great
[2:16:12] experience and because love it, I love it.
[2:16:15] I loved it when I was a kid and I've got the same vibe from
[2:16:18] them. If they have kids, they're going
[2:16:20] to get the same vibe from it. That's really important.
[2:16:23] And create something that has an experience, that has music the
[2:16:27] way it does, that doesn't annoy you.
[2:16:28] Once you see this film, once you were changed, that's it done.
[2:16:33] And that in itself is an incredible feat.
[2:16:36] Not a massive fan of Disney, as I've said, but this film, the
[2:16:40] way that this is done, the way that this is delivered, the way
[2:16:42] that this is acted, the way that it's just so safe and so warm
[2:16:47] and so inviting and so wonderful.
[2:16:50] It's just a little bit too long. I think Albert's scene maybe
[2:16:55] could have take that out and just trim some of the fat off
[2:16:58] it. And they just wanted to have too
[2:16:59] much of a good thing. So I'm exactly the same as you
[2:17:01] guys. I'm going to convert a nine out
[2:17:02] of 10. And it's a wonderful thing to
[2:17:04] have in the world. Like you said, John, I'm just so
[2:17:06] pleased that it exists. Well, we also flawed this one
[2:17:09] out there to our followers on Twitter or X to see what they
[2:17:12] think about Mary. Poppins.
[2:17:14] What Mary Poppins make of X is maybe a better question.
[2:17:17] Yeah. Just probably leave them easily,
[2:17:19] yeah. Bet Travers would love it, yeah.
[2:17:23] But let's see what kind of comments drifted.
[2:17:24] Down Peter G Murphy. At Silly Scotsman.
[2:17:27] Said. Well, there was only one answer
[2:17:29] and screenshot of Mary's tape measure.
[2:17:31] Practically perfect in everywhere.
[2:17:33] Nice. Somebody had to.
[2:17:35] That'll do it, one of our patrons, Ian Joyner said.
[2:17:38] One of only a handful of films and multiple.
[2:17:40] Generations of. My family all know and love for
[2:17:42] different reasons. Let's go fly a kite is the best
[2:17:45] life advice in any situation. Taste and mechanical Robins
[2:17:49] aside, it can only be A10. OK, well, it is a true family
[2:17:53] classic, I think. Because it is.
[2:17:55] He's absolutely right there, Yeah.
[2:17:57] And another of our. Patrons, Kim Jackson said. 10
[2:18:00] pure magic made. Me believe I could do anything
[2:18:03] and that anything could happen on any given day.
[2:18:05] And sang along with every song. Yeah, wonderful.
[2:18:08] What's there for? Kim didn't provide a recording
[2:18:10] of her actually singing a log, which is a shame, that is.
[2:18:12] A shame. Not till late though, Kim.
[2:18:14] Send that one in. Send that in, we'll pay your tip
[2:18:16] in to bag. So positive leaning generally
[2:18:20] from. Our followers and patrons and.
[2:18:22] All together they read the film as what do you think?
[2:18:25] It sounds really high. This sounds like 95.
[2:18:28] I'll go nine. It was 9.
[2:18:31] Out of 10/9. OK, so yeah, high score.
[2:18:34] In total, like is Mary. Poppins 36 out of 40.
[2:18:37] OK. I'm not just done on Mary
[2:18:39] Poppins. There you are.
[2:18:40] Hopefully hasn't made you want to jump off any.
[2:18:42] Rooftops. Take your umbrella if you do.
[2:18:44] Yeah. Or a chimney sweep.
[2:18:45] Yeah, unless you pay all travels, which you've already
[2:18:47] done it. Next time out, get.
[2:18:51] Your oxygen mask ready, Luke W Your Mart are diving into the
[2:18:55] strange. And since the world of David
[2:18:56] Lynch as they explore Blue Velvet, yeah, now it's dark.
[2:19:01] But I mean, it's quite a shift, isn't it?
[2:19:06] Yeah, going to take a day off for start thinking about it.
[2:19:08] I'll be. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine.
[2:19:09] First Lynch film we've covered. Which is crazy.
[2:19:11] It is, yeah. It should have probably start.
[2:19:13] With something a bit later I. Mean I don't know what, I don't
[2:19:16] know what it is ahead. But I've.
[2:19:17] Got a double feature coming up as well later on if you want to
[2:19:20] send it to Patreon and. You'll have access to that.
[2:19:22] So love Lynch, absolute legend. So we'll see how it goes.
[2:19:26] Well, in the meantime, to find out more about becoming a
[2:19:28] patron, supporting what we do and accessing our archive.
[2:19:31] And bonus episodes, please visit patreon.com/all the Right Movies
[2:19:36] or click the subscribe link on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
[2:19:39] Yes, please. Please do be great for us
[2:19:42] socially and keep up with all the right movies on.
[2:19:44] Twitter or X where we. Are at right.
[2:19:46] Movies we post threads. On there that tell the stories
[2:19:49] behind classic films where everything we post has been said
[2:19:51] by someone involved in the production.
[2:19:53] All come from three separate sources.
[2:19:54] The same as how it works on our podcast.
[2:19:56] So you should check that out. You can find us on YouTube at
[2:20:00] youtube.com/all the Right Movies on Instagram.
[2:20:03] And threads. We are at all the under score
[2:20:05] right movies on Blue Sky. We also post those threads and
[2:20:08] we are at all the right movies.com.
[2:20:11] Yep, on TikTok, we are at all the right movies.
[2:20:14] There's a movie group on Facebook as well, full of lots
[2:20:16] of great people, lots of our listeners and lots of great film
[2:20:19] charts. So you should join that.
[2:20:20] Yep, all our pals and definitely get a review in there if you
[2:20:23] want to five stars, I think that's probably.
[2:20:26] All we're allowed. Five stars.
[2:20:28] Just five stars. Anything lower than that, Yeah.
[2:20:30] Doesn't work. Yeah, It doesn't go through.
[2:20:32] Yeah. And our website full of great
[2:20:35] features at All the Right Movies.
[2:20:36] Dot com it is. We're all off now to have a
[2:20:38] cockney. Knees up on Wesley's roof.
[2:20:40] Oh yeah. Which will be be beautiful.
[2:20:43] Yeah. Falls straight through it.
[2:20:46] Living Jeremy, come back a Blue Velvet.
[2:20:50] And as always, thanks for listening.
[2:20:52] Thank you, guys. Take care.
[2:20:54] Thanks guys. It's oxymoron.
[2:21:19] The nanny who leaves at the start was played by Atras.
[2:21:22] Called Elsa Lancaster Lanchester The nanny who leaves at the
[2:21:26] start was played by Atras. Called Elsa Lancaster Lanchester
[2:21:30] Katie Nano the nanny who leaves at the start was played by an
[2:21:32] Atras called Elsa Lancaster Lanchester Lancher.
[2:21:36] Fucking hell, why can't I see this right?
[2:21:38] Katie Nana, the nanny who leaves at.
[2:21:40] The start was played by. An actress called Ella.
[2:21:42] Lanchester, Elsa. Lanchester.
[2:21:44] Fucking hell, get this on the outtakes.

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