Mary Poppins

In 1964, Disney produced a film that would be nominated for the most Academy Awards of any Disney film. Out of those 13 nominations, Mary Poppins won five: Best Actress (Julie Andrews), Best Film Editing, Original Music Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Song (Chim Chim Cher-ee). Based on the book by P.L. Travers, the film features dysfunctional family in London visited by a magical nanny and was released August 27, 1964.

The film begins by introducing Bert (Dick Van Dyke) as a one man band who brings the viewer to the Banks household, headed by cold and aloof banker George (David Tomlinson) and airheaded suffragette Winifred (Glynis Johns). Their nanny has just quit after Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber) have run off. After George comes home, the constable arrives with the children. He dismisses their request to repair their kite and advertises for an authoritarian nanny, tearing up their advertisement for a fun and kind-hearted one. The remains float up the chimney.

The next day, a line of tough-looking candidates are blown away as Mary Poppins floats down via umbrella. She answers the children’s ad and hires herself. She joins the children and surprises them with a bottomless carpetbag and makes their nursery clean itself.

After meeting Bert, they enter an animated countryside, where they learn the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and meet Uncle Albert and learn about his penchant for laughing and floating,

George is annoyed with the children’s stories but Mary Poppins tricks him into taking them to the bank. On their way, they pass the Bird Woman (Jane Darwell) who is feeding birds. They want to do so as well, but George forbids it. At the bank, he and his employers try to persuade Michael to invest his money in the bank. Michael refuses, which causes a run on the Bank. They flee and run into Bert as a chimney sweep, who takes them home, where Winifred employs him.

Mary Poppins arrives and they have another adventure on the rooftops of London, dancing with other sweeps. George arrives and asks for an explanation, which Mary Poppins replies that she never explains anything. He then receives a phone call ordering him to return.

He walks through the night streets and notices he buildings around him and the absence of the Bird Woman. At the bank he is fired and cashiered for causing the first run on the bank since the Boston Tea Party. Ordered to give a statement, he blurts out “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, tells a joke and departs. After he leaves, Dawes Sr, the most senior partner, gets the joke and floats up in the air.

The next morning, Mary Poppins gets ready to leave and George arrives with a mended kite. A they fly it, Dawes Jr. shows up and informs that his father died laughing and reemploys George. Mary Poppins leaves the same way she came.

Hear me out and bear with me.

Those who have seen Saving Mr. Banks will remember that Travers was against the animated sequence from the beginning. That film does show her tearing up at the premiere, but in that film, it’s because George is saved. In reality, it’s because people were giving the film a standing ovation. And she completely loathed the film. But, in 1977, Travers gave an interview where she said the film was a good film, but that it didn’t do her books justice. Now, I haven’t read the books, so I can’t really judge them. But, I do agree with her on one point: the film had no need for an animated sequence. While it is a fun sequence which helps to set up one of the final acts and introduced a word in to the English language, it didn’t need to be animated. Mary Poppins is first introduced sitting in a cloud, characters fly because of laughter, children are sucked up chimneys to explore the rooftops and dance with chimney sweeps, and a crazy admiral fires a cannon twice a day. None of these have any sort of animation, why did that scene? I’m not against the children being sucked into the chalk drawing to play in the countryside and go on a fox hunt, but the sudden genre shift sticks out and feels forced. It’s not that I don’t like the animation, it’s beautifully animated, it’s just that it doesn’t feel like it belongs.

I don’t hate this film.

Mary Poppins is a truly fantastic film. The character development in the film is excellent, with every one of the Banks household being completely changed by her stay. Jane and Michael go from believing that their father hates them to understanding just how much he loves them. Winifred’s priorities shift from having the suffragette cause to the children as the most important part of her life. And then there’s George. He comes to have the epiphany that he’s been treating his work more important than his children. But it’s not just the realization that makes his role in the film so great. It’s everything about that epiphany. The way the music and cinematography combine with his character just walking to the bank is the best part of the film. The climax of that scene isn’t when he’s in the bank, but when he’s looking at the empty steps the Bird Woman once sat on and coming to realize how short life is. Hell, it’s the climax of the damn movie. Think about that. The climax of this movie is a man looking at empty steps. It’s the power of the film that makes it. It’s in that moment he truly understands everything. It just takes him until he looks at the tuppene for it to register.  I want to guess that it was nominated for Best Cinematography for that scene alone. And it should have won.

Also, Ed Wynn’s scene is one of the most forgotten parts of the film. But it’s one of the most important. If it wasn’t for that scene, the joke would never have been told and the finale would have been completely different. It takes an incredibly strong film to have its most random scene be one of the most important scenes in the film. This is why I think the countryside scene shouldn’t have been animated. Both are completely random one-scene wonders that contribute in a meaningful way to the end of the film. Only one of them was animated for the sake of having animation.

There’s no song in this film that isn’t great either. Disney said that “Feed the Birds” was his favorite song in any of his films. And it’s truly a wonderful song. I do believe it is the best song in the film and that’s a difficult choice to make. Mary Poppins’ songs vary so much in tone that merely listening to the soundtrack can give you severe mood whiplash. And that’s not a bad thing.

Final Call: Even with the forced animation, it’s still good animation. And that’s the only thing I find wrong with this film. #2