Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
|  Though a beloved classic in its own right that has more than stood the test of time, charming viewers for decades even after its initial release in the tumultuous late 1960s, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is nevertheless an exceedingly odd children’s film. At two and a half hours in length, not including the intermission, it certainly demands quite a bit from its audience as it moves freely between reality and fantasy, stitching it all together with breezy musical numbers and expensive special effects. Loosely based on the 1964 book by Ian Fleming, otherwise known as the creator of James Bond, and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, who staked much of his career on bringing Fleming’s secret agent to life on screen, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also bears the strong imprimatur of Roald Dahl, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Ken Hughes and added a number of dark twists worthy of the mind behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda.Clearly forged in the live-action fantasy-musical mold that Walt Disney had so successfully worked earlier in the decade with Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang begins with its feet firmly planted in reality and then slowly moves out into more and more fantastical shenanigans until we finally arrive in the realm of pure fantasy. The story is set in the early years of the 1900s, when automobiles were still a new invention and a relatively rare sight on the roads. The main character is Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke, also borrowed from Mary Poppins), an affable crackpot inventor who lives in the picturesque English countryside with his two irascible, home-schooled kids, Jemima (Heather Ripley) and Jeremy (Adrian Hall), and their crotchedy Grandpa (Lionel Jeffries), an unruly, mutton-chopped military veteran who can’t quite understand where his son got his eccentricities. One day the kids convince Caractacus to buy an old clunker from the local junkyard. We know there is something special about the car because we saw it winning numerous Grand Prix all around Europe during the opening credits. Caractacus refurbishes it to new heights, although it makes a funny sound when it runs and tends to backfire in spurts of two, thus generating the name “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” The kids also bring home Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), the heiress of a local confectionary who becomes an obvious love interest for their widowed dad, whose time is taken up entirely with his Rube Goldberg-like contraptions (including an automatic breakfast maker and a prototype vacuum cleaner that has a little bit too much power). The film takes an abrupt shift about halfway through when Caractacus begins telling a story to Truly and the kids after an afternoon picnic on the beach, a fanciful adventure yarn in which they all have starring roles. The crux of the story is that the terrible Baron Bomburst (Gert Fröbe) wants to steal Chitty, which in Caractacus’ story is a magical car capable of flight and turning into a boat, among other things. Bomburst’s kingdom of Vulgaria has outlawed children and employs a wicked Child Catcher (Robert Helpmann)--an obvious addition to the narrative by Dahl--to lure any little ones into cages with promises of ice cream and lollipops. The fact that the story is all over the place is effectively excused by Caractacus making it up on the spot; it has the ebb and flow of something manufactured in the moment. Plus, the story’s wild nature allows for the inclusion of all kinds of elaborate musical numbers, including one in which Caractacus and Truly pretend to be life-size wind-up toys created by Vulgaria’s toymaker (Benny Hill). There are more than a dozen Broadway-style songs scattered throughout the film, all of which were written by Richard and Robert Sherman, who also penned the tunes for Mary Poppins. The best songs have a lively energy and sense of fun, and the film’s comical and musical highpoint is “Chu-Chi Face,” a wickedly funny duet between the Baron and his wife (Anna Quayle) in which they sing deliriously silly pet names and romantic platitudes to each other while he tries and fails repeatedly to kill her. If that sounds a bit dark for a movie aimed at kids, it is. But, then again, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is replete with imagery and ideas that kids will likely find frightening, including the aforementioned Child Catcher, who is depicted as a big-nosed, stringy-haired sadist who clearly relishes tracking down and trapping children, and a sequence in which we discover that all the children in Vulgaria have been hiding in a huge underground cave where they see no light and have no fun. The darkness is certainly outweighed by the lighter moments, and it’s ultimately all in good fun, although it’s hard to shake entirely the sense that something is slightly askew, which is probably the point. Unlike so much children’s entertainment today that bends over backwards to play it safe, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes its risks, for better and for worse.
Copyright ©2010 James Kendrick Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick All images copyright © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall Rating: 
(3)
