Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical fantasy film directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli. It stars Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Fröbe, Anna Quayle, Benny Hill, James Robertson Justice, Robert Helpmann, Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall. The film is based on the 1964 children's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car by Ian Fleming, with a screenplay co-written by Hughes and Roald Dahl.
This article is about the 1968 film. For other uses, see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (disambiguation).Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
- Roald Dahl
- Ken Hughes
John Shirley
- Songs:
- Richard M. Sherman
- Robert B. Sherman
- Background Score:
- Irwin Kostal
- Warfield Productions
- Dramatic Features
- 16 December 1968 (London premiere)
- 17 December 1968 (UK)
- 18 December 1968 (US)
145 minutes[1]
English
$7.5 million (rentals)[5]
Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music for the film based on songs written by the Sherman Brothers, Richard and Robert, and the musical numbers were staged by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood. At the 41st Academy Awards, the film's title song was nominated for Best Song – Original for the Picture.[6]
Production[edit]
Background and development[edit]
After Ian Fleming had a heart attack in 1961, he decided to write a children's novel based on the stories about a flying car that he used to tell his infant son.[9] He wrote the book in longhand, as his wife had confiscated his typewriter in an attempt to force him to rest.
The novel was initially published in three volumes, the first in October 1964, which was two months after Fleming's death.[10] It became one of the best-selling children's books of the year.[11] Albert R. Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films (which were based on novels by Fleming), read the novel and was not initially enthusiastic about turning it into a film, but the success of Mary Poppins (1964) changed his mind.[9]
In December 1965, it was reported that Earl Hamner had completed a script based upon the novel.[12] The following July, it was announced the film would be produced by Broccoli, without Harry Saltzman, who was his producing partner on the James Bond films.[13] By April 1967, Ken Hughes was set to direct the film from a screenplay by Roald Dahl,[14] and Hughes subsequently rewrote Dahl's script.[9] Further rewrites were made by regular Bond scribe Richard Maibaum.
Casting[edit]
Van Dyke was cast in the film after he turned down the role of Fagin in the 1968 musical Oliver!. The role of Truly Scrumptious was originally offered to Julie Andrews to reunite her with Van Dyke after their success in Mary Poppins (1964), but Andrews rejected the part because she felt it was too similar to Poppins;[15] Sally Ann Howes, who had replaced Andrews as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady on Broadway in 1958, was then offered the role, and she accepted.
Broccoli announced the casting of Dick Van Dyke in December 1966.[16] The film was the first in a multi-picture deal Van Dyke signed with United Artists.[17] Sally Ann Howes was cast as the female lead in April 1967,[14] soon thereafter signing a five-picture contract with Broccoli,[18] and Robert Helpmann joined the cast in May.[19] Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the first film for both of its child stars, Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall, who were cast after an extensive talent search.[20]
Release[edit]
United Artists promoted the film with an expensive, extensive advertising campaign, hoping to reproduce the success of The Sound of Music (1965), and it was initially released on a roadshow basis.[4]
Reception[edit]
Original release[edit]
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote: "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang contains about the best two-hour children's movie you could hope for, with a marvelous magical auto and lots of adventure and a nutty old grandpa and a mean Baron and some funny dances and a couple of [scary] moments."[29]
Time began its review by stating the film is a "picture for the ages—the ages between five and twelve", and ended by noting that "At a time when violence and sex are the dual sellers at the box office, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang looks better than it is simply because it's not not all all bad bad." The review also said that the film's "eleven songs have all the rich melodic variety of an automobile horn. Persistent syncopation and some breathless choreography partly redeem it, but most of the film's sporadic success is due to director Ken Hughes's fantasy scenes, which make up in imagination what they lack in technical facility."[30]
Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that "in spite of the dreadful title, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [...] is a fast, dense, friendly children's musical, with something of the joys of singing together on a team bus on the way to a game." She called the screenplay "remarkably good" and said the film's "preoccupation with sweets and machinery seems ideal for children", and ended her review on the same note as Time saying: "There is nothing coy, or stodgy or too frightening about the film; and this year, when it has seemed highly doubtful that children ought to go to the movies at all, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sees to it that none of the audience's terrific eagerness to have a good time is betrayed or lost."[31]
Box-office[edit]
Although the film was the tenth-most popular at the U.S. box office in 1969,[32] because of its high budget, it lost United Artists an estimated $8 million during its initial run in cinemas. The same year, five films produced by Harry Saltzman, Battle of Britain among them, lost UA $19 million. All of this contributed to United Artists' decision to scale back operations in the UK.[33]
Home media[edit]
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was released numerous times on VHS, as well as on Betamax, CED, and LaserDisc. It was released on DVD for the first time on 10 November 1998,[40] and a two-disc "Special Edition" package was released in 2003. On 2 November 2010, MGM Home Entertainment, through 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, released a two-disc Blu-ray and DVD combination featuring the extras from the 2003 release, as well as new features. The 1993 LaserDisc release by MGM/UA Home Video was the first home video release of the film with the proper 2.20:1 Super Panavision 70 aspect ratio.