Plot intro
London, 1910. The Banks family at 17 Cherry Tree Lane are in uproar. Mr Banks (David Tomlinson) is completely consumed by his work and ambitions at the Bank. Mrs Banks (Glynis Johns) is fighting for suffrage for women on the down-low. And their children Jane and Michael (Karen Dotrice & Matthew Garber respectively) are struggling to connect with a lengthy string of austere nannies. Enter Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews), a mysterious young nanny with magical powers. Along with her jack-of-all-trades with a dodgy accent, Bert (Dick Van Dyke), she takes the children on a series of adventures involving chimney sweeps, penguins, animated horse races, tea parties on the ceiling, and some parenting tips for Mr Banks.
We’ve had some obscure movies on this blog, and we’ve had some that people quote, sing and satirise so much it comes with its own mythos. Mary Poppins is very much the latter. It is one of the Disney Corporations biggest and most recognisable money-spinners and easily its most successful film to incorporate live action. It hit the top of highest grossing films of the '60s with total ease; it is one of the few Disney films to be nominated for Best Picture; Disney used the $25 million profit (equivalent to well over $200 million now) to finance the building of Walt Disney World in Florida. And, most importantly for this blog post, it spiralled Julie Andrews from West End/Broadway debutante to international star.
It’s difficult to criticise Julie in Mary Poppins (and yes, I call her Julie like I know her). She is, indeed, practically perfect in every way, managing to combine twinkly-eyed charm with dignity, authority and serenity. But even if you don’t like her performance (God knows why), there’s no denying that Julie has managed to ride the Mary Poppins wave even until this very day. Her renditions of songs such as 'Spoonful of Sugar', 'Stay Awake', and 'Feed the Birds' (the latter of which became one of Walt Disney’s personal favourites) have never been surpassed by any remakes and her image dressed up as Mary Poppins goes alongside most '90s Disney princesses as an icon that conjures up all sorts of nostalgic memories and emotions.
She famously gained the role after being passed over for the lead role in 1964’s Best Picture winner, My Fair Lady. A character she originated on the stage was given to Audrey Hepburn who, though fine in the role, was not Oscar-nominated and had to have her singing voice dubbed by Marni Nixon. Disney had offered Mary Poppins to Julie whilst she was pregnant having seen her on Broadway in Camelot, and was willing to wait until after the birth of Julie’s daughter to start filming. Julie, as we know, got the last laugh by nabbing Best Actress for her film debut and then went on to star in the next year’s Best Picture winner, the phenomenally successful The Sound of Music. She remains a firm favourite amongst musical-lovers, children and Netflix-subscribers thanks to her later appearances in The Princess Diaries, Shrek and Bridgerton.
Mary Poppins is one of those films where more depth is discovered as you get older. As a child, you are delighted by the idea of carousel horses leaving the roundabout to charge through the woods, exploring the rooftops of London and flying up in the air whilst laughing uproariously. As a teenager, you start to realise that Mary Poppins teaches nothing to the children but is rather there to help the parents establish a better work-life balance. As an adult, you notice that Mary Poppins, a bit like 1962’s The Miracle Worker, is part of the post-war reassessment of child development and educational pedagogy.
Let me explain. The film begins with Mr Banks insistent that his children need more discipline. Children should be raised on “tradition, discipline and rules” with Victorian values of obedience and self-restraint. But the children are desperate for more love and fun, a nanny who is “kind, witty, sweet” and plays games. Mr Banks is completely perturbed by this but, of course, Mary Poppins (who fits the bill for the children’s requirements) turns out to be right. Love and fun, combined with calm and self-regulation, lead to emotionally-fulfilled children and families. Any Early Years Teacher will tell you the same.
Interestingly, there’s no real villain in the film. Mr Banks himself is more a victim of the bank’s hefty demands on his life. The children don’t do anything naughty at all and are, in fact, immensely kind and welcoming whereas most nanny-helping-family films start with seemingly nasty, manipulative goblins (both Nanny McPhee and Maria Von Trapp have to contend with pranks and rule-breaking). The closest we come to villainy is the group of bank tellers wanting tuppence from Michael to put into a savings account. To a child this is horrifying but to adult eyes this seems like a very prudent way to spend 2p (you certainly can’t buy a Freddo with that anymore). The real villain of the tale is the struggle mankind has in shaking off the old and accepting the new. Shaking off the Victorian values of children being seen and not heard and instead embracing imagination, laughter and sprinklings of chaos. Whilst it’s not as powerful as other Disney works such as The Lion King or almost the entire Pixar canon, Mary Poppins remains a sweet, funny, and poignant tale that narrowly avoids being too twee for modern eyes.
Gosh, so much to choose from! The hilarious scenes in which the family have to prevent the house being knocked down by their mad neighbour letting off a cannon; the elaborately choreographed penguin dance sequence; and Mary’s sad final moment in which her umbrella points out that no one ever wishes her farewell once she has set them straight are all big contenders. But I think the barn-storming 'Step In Time' sequence is the big highlight and a testament to Dick Van Dyke’s athleticism.
I’ve always felt Mrs Banks gets let off too easily. She is absent from the children too but never has to learn how to balance her fight for women’s suffrage with playing with her children. She and Mary also never exchange words and only share a scene for a very brief moment.
In the mangled words of another of Julie Andrews’ famous roles: How do you judge an iconic performance like Mary Poppins?
Answer: you can’t really. Andrews is one of those rare beasts who has managed to have two truly iconic film roles under her belt (three if you count the Queen Mother of Genovia). Lead in both Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, she really is one of the stand-out talents of her generation, not to forget that she originated the iconic Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady on stage (and the existing cast recording is utterly tremendous). One wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t had that botched vocal chord surgery that took away her extraordinary four-octave range and left her with a gravelly (but still deeply charismatic) voice. We’ll never know.
But what we are left with is the recordings and films that she did (thankfully) do before the surgery. Mary Poppins is a two hour twenty minute madcap ride, trampling over PL Travers’ much-nastier novels and installing kindness, sweetness and a hint of sass. While Travers hated the film (and if you read the books, you’ll see why - it’s a completely different character and overall vibe), I think this is fairly untouchable as far as nostalgic childhood films go.
Andrews is flawless, singing the Disney Golden Age songs to their utmost and embedding them in our memories forever (I once drunkenly sang 'Feed The Birds' word-perfect in my friend’s kitchen at 3am). Even Dick Van Dyke’s accent is so bad it’s actually good. The mythology around the film is amazing - Disney apparently got the Sherman Brothers to play ‘Feed the Birds’ to him all the time, and he dragged Oscar-winning actress Jane Darwell out of her retirement home to play the Bird Woman. Andrews wrote in her autobiography about the heatwave in which they all learnt the 'Step In Time' choreography while the cast is brimming with legends like Hermione Baddeley (who milks every second of screen-time) and Glynis Johns (who originated Sondheim roles onstage and who is still considered one of the best interpreters of ‘Send in the Clowns’). And David Tomlinson as Mr Banks who would later appear with another legend: Angela Lansbury in Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It’s ridiculous!
Is the film bulletproof? Watching as an adult, the first half is pretty slight - it’s just a series of fun adventures (the whole Penguin Cafe Dance Break is actually completely irrelevant to the plot) and things don’t really kick off until the opening strains of 'Feed the Birds' and the story becomes about Mr Banks forging a real connection with his kids. Apparently Disney was concerned that men were focusing too much on work and forgetting their families. He was also worried that women were focusing too much on their own liberation, hence the bit where Mrs Banks stops being a Suffragette. Awks. It’s when the story kicks in that the film develops proper heart and it stops being fun vignettes and becomes meaningful.
All this goes to say what? This film is a Moment in Hollywood’s history. It is as important as Gone With The Wind in 1939 and Moonlight in 2016. It will be iconic for a long, long time to come. Also Dick Van Dyke doubles as the old Banker and it’s still so convincing that I’m pretty sure he’s a wizard.
Julie Andrews. Simple as. Who else can dance with cartoon penguins so convincingly?
The Uncle Albert scene was always my least favourite vignette. Ed Wynne was a famous vaudevillian and while he’s far from terrible, it feels the most unnecessary scene in the whole film.
Mark
10/10
No comments:
Post a Comment