Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews)

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After re-watching ‘Saving Mr Banks’ a week ago, I was eager to see the film of ‘Mary Poppins’ which I had not seen for at least twenty years, possibly more. I saw it as a child, possibly in the cinema, and certainly on television, when I was a teenager. But although we have had the DVD for a long time, and it’s been seen many times by other people, I don’t recall watching it myself. 

What a delight it is! It’s a long film, over two and a half hours but I didn’t find it over-long at all. Made in 1964, this was the first film role for Julie Andrews, who’s probably better known as ‘Maria’ in ‘The Sound of Music’. She makes an excellent Mary Poppins, the nanny who arrives at the Banks household, floating down from the sky…

The story is set in 1910. Mr Banks (David Tomlinson) is a very regimented man who works at a bank in London. He arrives home at six o’clock on the dot (emphasised by an eccentric captain neighbour who sets of a cannon at this time) and goes through the same routine each day. He’s fond of his young children Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber) in a vague kind of way, but wants them to behave impeccably and mostly keep out of his way. 

Despite the fact that several nannies have left in less than a week, Jane and Michael are not badly-behaved or wild children. Sometimes they get distracted, or decide to hide, but they’re basically kind, honest and likeable. We were very impressed by the two children playing their parts; both were less than ten years old, and entirely realistic in their roles.

Mrs Banks (Glynis Johns) is in stark contrast to her husband, although she’s very fond of him and entirely defers to him as head of the household - at least, when he’s with her. She’s an active campaigner for women’s votes, and spends a lot of her time on protest marches. She and the two main household servants Mrs Brill (Reta Shaw) and Ellen (Hermione Baddeley) provide most of the humour of the film.

On the children’s first outing with Mary Poppins they meet her old friend Bert (Dick van Dyke) who is working as a street artist. We’ve already seen him as a one-man band, earlier in the story, and he appears later as a chimney sweep. He’s multi-talented, and his tap dancing skills come to the fore in several scenes. 

In addition to the ‘realistic’ story featuring the family, there are some surreal mystical adventures, the first one including a countryside break, with singing animals and merry-go-round horses that take the children onto a racecourse… this is all done in animation, and I was full of admiration, knowing this was all done by hand long before the days of CGI or even computer-aided animation. There are some delightful sequences, very cleverly produced.

There are a lot of songs, as this is a musical production. Some of them are well-known, others less so, but all are very well done, most accompanied by excellent choreography. I have have a slight criticism, it’s that some of the songs are a bit drawn-out. Modern directors would have cut them much shorter, and made the film faster-paced; I’d have preferred it just a little faster in places. But in the 1960s films were longer, and apparently people had better attention spans. 

Overall I thought it an excellent production. Our DVD set is an anniversary edition which has an ‘extras’ disc, including interviews with the musical director, one with a rather older Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke, looking back on the making of the film, and quite a long documentary ‘extra’ about the making of the film. All very interesting. I was surprised to learn that the whole outdoor setting of the Banks’ street was a set in a studio. None of the film was shot in London. 

I’m glad we watched it after seeing ‘Saving Mr Banks’, particularly the extras, as that story - which is mostly true - gives a lot of useful and personal background. 

Highly recommended, to adults and children so long as you don't mind suspending reality somewhat.  

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Saving Mr Banks (Emma Thompson)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nine-and-a-half years since we watched the film ‘Saving Mr Banks’. I remembered liking it very much, and recalled the basic outline, but had forgotten all the details. We knew it was based on a true story, of course, and decided to watch it again last night.

Emma Thompson is perfect as the rigidly uptight writer PL Travers, in the early 1960s. Indeed, it took me a while to realise who the actor was. Mrs Travers (who allows very few people to use her first name) is a very proper Englishwoman in her sixties. She was briefly famous for having written the classic novel ‘Mary Poppins’, but doesn’t want to write any more, and - as her agent points out - she’s facing poverty, unless she is willing to discuss turning the book into a film. 

Mrs Travers hates the thought of her creation being animated, or turned into a musical, and has resisted offers from Walt Disney Productions for twenty years. But, unwilling to lose her house, she agrees at last to fly to Los Angeles to meet the team who would like to adapt her book. However she insists that she will write the script, and she will have the last say on every detail. 

There’s some mild humour as she comes up against airline staff and passengers, and some wonderful asides with Ralph, the personal chauffeur allocated to her for her time in California. But there’s also a great deal of poignancy; much of the film is shown in flashback form, when the young Helen went through some very traumatic scenes in her childhood. 

I hadn’t looked at the DVD cover, so had forgotten that Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney himself in this film. He’s so good that I hadn’t realised who he was until the credits roll at the end. Walt Disney is portrayed as a likeable man, who really wants to make this film after promising his young daughters that he would, two decades before. 

The film of ‘Mary Poppins’ is so well-known that it’s not a spoiler to say that eventually Mrs Travers agrees to the making of the film, although she’s unimpressed with several of the songs, and horrified at the thought of some animated sequences. And part of the storyline involves her getting to know the team, and gradually - reluctantly - accepting them. 

But the more powerful part of the story takes place fifty years earlier, when the young Helen, oldest of three girls, sees her beloved father lose his job, and descend into alcoholism. She’s a thoughtful child who adores her father, and is devastated when one of his promises cannot be kept. And as Mrs Travers sees flashbacks of her past, Walt Disney finally begins to understand what the book is really about… 

I don't suppose it's entirely true to the real story. But at the end, over the titles, we hear some of the recordings made during the actual meetings in Los Angeles. It's good that they were kept, and suggests that, at least to a reasonable degree, the story is accurately told. 

I was mesmerised by the film, even if I ended up (like the first time) with the song ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’ as an earworm. It’s beautifully made, realistically done, with just the right blend of gentle humour and poignancy. I would recommend it to everyone who has ever seen the film of ‘Mary Poppins’ (or read the book); indeed, having now watched this again, I want to see ‘Mary Poppins’ again, as I didn’t recall at all the few sequences shown from it in ‘Saving Mr Banks’. 

Very highly recommended. The rating is PG, possibly because there are some rather tense and gory scenes from the childhood flashbacks. But a young child probably wouldn’t really understand this anyway; I probably wouldn’t want to show it to a child younger than about eleven or twelve. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

Letters to Juliet (Amanda Seyfried)

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I watched the film ‘Letters to Juliet’ with relatives just eighteen months ago. But my husband was given it on blu-ray for Christmas, after putting it on his wishlist, and had not seen it. So, as I recalled enjoying it, I was happy to watch it again even after such a brief period.

While I had recalled the general outline, I had quite forgotten the opening scenes. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) lives in New York with her boyfriend Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal). He is soon to be opening a new restaurant, but has agreed to go on a short holiday with her, to Verona in Italy. Sophie is a professional fact-checker who would love to become a published writer.

Victor is very fond of Sophie, but his real passion is cooking, and he’s very excited to be able to meet with some of his suppliers in Italy. Sophie goes with him for the first, including wine-tasting. At the second, looking at cheeses, she feels a bit left out and bored. And when he decides to take a few days meeting yet another supplier, she decides to stay in Verona and do some sight-seeing.  

She comes across a wall, supposedly part of Juliet’s house (created for tourists who want to see where Shakespeare’s Juliet lived) where women are writing and affixing notes. Sophie even more intrigued when a group of women appear and take the notes away in baskets. Her journalistic instincts are aroused, and she follows them…

One thing leads to another, and the bulk of the story involves Sophie travelling around Italy with the wonderful Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) who hasn’t seen Lorenzo, the person she fell in love with fifty years earlier. She is accompanied by her reluctant grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan). He is, understandably, annoyed that her soulmate was apparently not his own grandfather, and thinks she has come on a wild goose-chase. 

There’s quite a bit of gentle humour in the film, much of which I had entirely forgotten, as the group find more and more people with the same name, in widely different circumstances. There’s also some wonderful chemistry between Sophie and Claire, who feel a sense of kindred immediately. 

One minor criticism of the film is that Claire is only supposed to be 65, but she looks about ten years older. Quick research revealed that Vanessa Redgrave was in fact 73 when this film was made. She’s still active and attractive, but is also treated by Charlie as if she were in her 70s and quite frail. She fell in love at 15, which is why she had to return to the UK with her parents; but I felt it should have been sixty years earlier rather than fifty. 

However it’s a minor thing; Vanessa Redgrave is the most wonderful actress, and I could entirely believe in Claire, putting aside the problem that she looked and behaved older than 65. Sophie, too, is entirely believable, and we loved the passionate Victor, who injects some humour into the early part of the film. We weren’t so impressed with Charlie, however. His accent felt a bit over-plummy; we later discovered that he’s Australian, so his English accent wasn’t authentic. We got used it; but his gradual change of character didn’t seem entirely authentic. He’s quite rude when he first appears, and antagonistic towards Sophie and there’s no real explanation as to why he softens and changes.

But that’s also minor, as the real love story is the one that - inevitably - is finally fulfilled, with some very poignant scenes. 

Rated PG, this is free of anything explicit, and the only nudity is that on some of the classical Italian statues. The film has only the very mildest of bad language - and not even much of that. A story like this isn’t likely to be of interest to children, but I would recommend it highly to anyone over the age of about 15 who likes gentle romantic stories. 

There are some extras which we watched: a short ‘making of’ documentary which explains some of the background; also some deleted or expanded scenes that weren’t used.

Letters to Juliet

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews

A Christmas Wish (Kristy Swanson)

(Amazon UK link)

New Year has passed, but we decided to watch one more Christmas film before putting them away again until the end of November. We hadn’t previously seen ‘A Christmas Wish’, which I had found at a charity shop a year or so ago. So we saw it last night. 

The film opens with a small American family setting out by car, with little idea where they’re going. Martha (Kristy Swanson) has been abandoned by her husband. He not only ran off with another woman, he emptied their bank accounts and has left her pretty much destitute. She can’t stay there (although it wasn’t entirely clear why) so she packs her daughters Mel and Lilee into the back of the car, her stepson Miles in the front, and they set off. She has some cash to buy fuel and food, but urgently needs work.

They drive north, stopping at various locations with no luck. They eventually stop at a tiny hamlet; Martha knows she needs to sleep, and the children need to have somewhere to stay. They manage to find a temporary apartment to rent, and she even finds some waitressing work, but then there’s the problem of who will look after the children…

It was obvious from the start that this is something of a Cinderella story; but the acting and the pace of the film are excellent. We were particularly impressed by the three children.  Miles (Kevin Herring III) has a complex role; he’s devastated that his father left, and adamant that Martha is NOT his mother, even though she has looked after him for the past four years since their families were blended. He is certain his father will return for him, but his life isn’t easy. He wears glasses and has a stutter that becomes worse when he is stressed, and he has to deal with constant teasing and bullying at whatever school he attends. 

Mel (Kirstin Dorn) is an absolute delight. She’s loving, responsible, and also has a strong belief in the power of prayer. Ages aren’t mentioned, but we gathered that Miles is about ten or eleven, Mel perhaps a year younger, although they’re around the same height. The two of them get along very well, on the whole. 

Then there’s Lilee (Lilee Clyde). Martha says she’s three, but she looks and behaves more like a child of two-and-a-half. I don’t know how old the actress was, but she was excellent, providing quite a bit of humour - Lilee is independent and curious, and doesn’t make life easy for the rest of her family.

If it hadn’t been for the children, the story would have been predictable and possibly schmalzy. But the antics of the youngsters pull it out of the ordinary; their chemistry with their screen mother is strong, their conversations believable. I could empathise strongly with Martha, attempting to be a good, loving mother while urgently needing to provide some kind of home and stability for the children. 

I found it a bit hard to keep track of the different people who came into the diner where Martha finds work; perhaps it doesn’t much matter.  Some are a bit grumpy but she’s charming to them all, and even attracts the attention of someone who has taken little interest in women since he was jilted the day before his wedding. But the directors didn’t make the mistake of turning this into a romance; Martha is still legally married, and her family are her priority. 

The local residents are mostly sorry for Martha, and although she only works for about ten days before Christmas, I wasn’t surprised that she’s tipped well, and even that people give advice and gifts to the children. But the last ten minutes or so of the film do rather require a suspension of belief… however it works well. The ending turns it into a feel-good story with a Christian emphasis that’s done very well (in my view) without any preaching. 

It’s light-weight, and suitable for all the family so long as they’re comfortable with the theme of a broken home and destitution. I can’t find a UK rating and since it was made for TV in the United States, it doesn’t seem to be rated there either. I assume it would have been G, or PG at most. 

Recommended if you want a light-weight well-made Christmas film and don’t mind the predictability (and rapidity) of the ending. 

A Christmas Wish is quite expensive to buy new, perhaps because it's imported (and over ten years old) but if you can find it inexpensively in a charity shop or elsewhere second-hand, it's a nice addition to a Christmas film collection. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews