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This article is about the musical film. For the book by Ian Fleming, see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 feature film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, based on Ian Fleming's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car . It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The film was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, best known as co-producer of the James Bond series of films, also based on Fleming's novels. Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music, and the musical numbers were staged by Marc Beaux and Dee Dee Wood. The film runs for two hours and twenty-five minutes, making it much longer than most films aimed at children.

The film went significantly over budget, but was a box office hit. Although it received favourable reviews in the U.K., Europe, and the East Coast of the United States, Hollywood was unkind in its reviews, perhaps because the film had been made outside of Hollywood's studio system. The film's producers had culled the behind-the-scenes talent from the biggest Hollywood musicals from the 60's as well as its own team who had worked on the hit James Bond films. The movie has become a children's classic.

Tagline: It Was Just An Old Neglected Car. Who Could Have Guessed...

Plot

As the story opens, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a dilapidated former racing car and a three-time Grand Prix winner, is the favourite playtoy of Jeremy and Jemima Potts, and is about to be sold for scrap. As the children rush home to persuade their father to buy the car for them, they narrowly avoid being run over by Truly Scrumptious, an heiress. Miss Scrumptious takes the children home, meeting their widowed father, inventor Caractacus Potts, giving him a tongue-lashing for failing to properly care for his children.

Potts, wishing to buy the car but lacking the thirty shillings necessary to do so, hatches numerous schemes to try and make money. He tries to peddle a whistle-like candy to a local candy tycoon, one Lord Scrumptious (Truly's father), and nearly succeeds until the tunes of the whistle prove attract a pack of dogs into the candy factory, wrecking the place. He then attempts to offer haircuts at a fair, via his "automatic haircutting machine". When the machine malfunctions whilst cutting the hair of a local brute (giving him a ridiculous haircut), who then chases after Potts with the intent of beating him in retaliation, Potts ducks into the middle of a song-and-dance troupe giving a performance. Potts joins the performers, does an outstanding job, and is showered with coins. With the money he makes, Potts buys the car and fixes it.

After repairing the car, the Potts family head off to the seaside for a picnic. Professor Potts runs Truly Scrumptous off the road (a running gag throughout the movie is that Truly's car keeps ending up in a pond) and the family persuade Truly to come along on their picnic. (As Dick Van Dyke explained in a documentary interview, in the original story, Professor Potts is married; Truly Scrumptious is added as a love interest in the movie and Potts is assumed to be a widower).

At the beach, Caractacus spins a story about pirates who are trying to steal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a fantasy sequence which becomes the central plot.

The pirates are headed by Baron Bomburst of Vulgaria, who then sends a pair of bumbling spies ashore to steal the car. After numerous failed attempts to steal the car while in England, the spies capture Potts' father Grandpa Potts, having mistaken him for the professor, and transport him to Vulgaria hoping he will build another "fantasmogorical" motor car for the Baron. The elder Potts, a retired soldier and cricket player, has no clue how to invent anything. However, the Potts family witness the kidnapping and chase the bandits back to Vulgaria in the magical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

In the barony of Vulgaria children are outlawed, as the Baroness hates children. The only toymaker in town makes toys exclusively for the Baron. When Professor Potts and the Toymaker hatch a plan to rescue Grandpa, and Truly goes out to go get food, the two Potts children, Jemima and Jeremy, are captured by the terrifying Child Catcher.

Eventually, Caractacus and Truly, with some help from the Toymaker, defeat the Baron and his armies, and set free all the children. The Potts family is reunited and return to England. Potts discovers that one of his inventions, "Toot Sweets", previously rejected as being useless for humans, are wonderful for dogs and as "Woof Sweets" will make him a fortune. Caractacus and Truly decide to get married.

Cast

Musical numbers

Memorable songs include "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," "Truly Scrumptious," "Hushabye Mountain," "Me Ol' Bamboo," "Toot Sweets," "The Roses Of Success," "You Two," "Chu-Chi Face," "P.O.S.H.," and "Doll On A Music Box" (this last song, sung near the end of the musical by Truly, is combined simultaneously with Caractacus' rendition of the song "Truly Scrumptious"). Two songs apparently intended for the film but ultimately relegated only to instrumental background music are "Come To the Funfair" and "Vulgarian National Anthem"; they were published with lyrics in the sheet music along with the other film songs when the movie was released. The stage version restores these two as vocal numbers and adds several new songs, including "Think Vulgar!," "Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies," "Teamwork," and "The Bombie Samba."

Two songs stand out for the use of musical instruments in the orchestra: "Toot Sweets" -- especially in the motion picture -- employs a multitude of flutes; and the subject of "Me Ol' Bamboo" is aurally suggested by the xylophone (and accompanies Potts performing a Morris dance with a troupe).

Trivia

  • Because of his comment "This will out-Disney Disney", Van Dyke was banned from doing Disney productions for several years.
  • The actor that played the "Child-Catcher", the late Robert Helpmann, was well liked by the child actors. After each day's filming, he would give the children his wax facial add-ons.
  • Lionel Jeffries, who played Grandpa, is actually a year younger than Dick Van Dyke.

  • Barbara Windsor, most famous for the campy British Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders, appears briefly as the wife of Arthur Mullard who was subjected to Potts' automatic haircut machine.
  • The locations for Vulgaria were the Neuschwanstein Castle and the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria.
  • Dakota Fanning sings the song "Hushabye Mountain" in the 2005 version of the film War of the Worlds and also stars in another Sherman Brothers film remake Charlotte's Web (2006).
  • The song "You Two" was parodied in the Family Guy episode "Peter's Got Woods" (aired 9/11/2005), as Peter duets with actor James Woods on a re-written version of the song.
  • The Sherman Brothers, famous for their creation of the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" for the Mary Poppins 1964 film also coined a word for the title song of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That word was "fantasmagorical". Although there was always the word "Phantasmagoria", until the release of the 1968 motion picture, there was no record of the "F" spelling or the "al" suffix which cobbles the root word into the adjective form. "Fantasmagorical", as a descriptive, was subsequently used in many of the promotional materials to describe the film and later on, the London West End and Broadway stage musicals.
  • Strangely, despite Van Dyke's previous attempt to perform using an English accent (as demonstrated in Mary Poppins), and his character's two children and father all portrayed as being English in the film, his character is apparently American. This is even more unusual when one considers that this film is a British and not an American production.
  • Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the car of the film, was not a pre-1930s car at all. Four Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs were purpose-built in 1967 for the film, and these, due to using Ford Zodiac Essex 3.0L V6s, would easily keep up with the fastest vehicles of the day. Different Chittys did different duties (i.e. one was set up for floating out at sea - it was mounted on a speed boat and was remote controlled), and Chitty did actually fly (a partial car - hood only - being mounted underneath a helicopter in certain scenes).
  • In examples of American advertising for the film, Chitty was depicted as a Left Hand Drive car. In the film of course, being based partly in Great Britain, Chitty is Right Hand Drive.
  • Sally Ann Howes, who plays Truly Scrumptious (the daughter of a candy magnate), once had a spaniel named Candy (1950s).

The Bond connection

There are a number of similarities between Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the third James Bond film Goldfinger. Both movies:

The Poppins connection

There are a number of similarities between Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Walt Disney's "Mary Poppins". Both movies:

Locations

See also

External links

1968 films | Films based on children's books | Films shot in 65mm | Musical films

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)".

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