Mary Poppins 1964
I had seen parts of this movie, but never all the way. Looking for seven movies to buy for an enrollment in the Disney Movie Club, I noticed that Mary Poppins is one of the highest rated Disney movies ever, getting a 100% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Of the 56 Disney animated movies, only Pinocchio scores that high, so I felt like maybe I should get the 50th anniversary edition of Mary Poppins which included a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download of the movie.
Having watched it, there are a number of really impressive things, but also some things I’m not crazy about. First, there are a lot of songs and dance scenes in the movie and not much of a plot, making this a lot more of a themed variety show than a cohesive movie. And while overall this movie probably has the best music of any Disney movie (maybe even better than Beauty and the Beast, which I used to think had the best music), there are so many songs and not all of them worked for me, some being pretty sad, like “Feed the Birds.” And “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” isn’t that great along with some minor songs that don’t add much. The songs are more catchy than anything, a hallmark of the Sherman brothers’ style. Still there are a lot of other songs that work well like “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” I don’t think I realized how many songs were actually in the movie, and there were probably just as many written for the movie that didn’t make it in (already the movie is over two hours). The songs are really the backbone of the whole movie.
I thought the animation blended quite well with the live action and some of the interaction was impressive, like Dick van Dyke dancing with the penguins and having them duck below his legs. The stunts are great too with almost everyone in the movie levitating at least a few times and some maybe dozens of times, and it is done well. Also I was surprised that before this movie, Dick van Dyke did not dance, but he did an amazing job of dancing in this movie. I also forgot that this was Julie Andrews’ first movie, coming out before The Sound of Music, but after she had made a big splash on the stage in My Fair Lady and Camelot. She has a great voice and does a great job in the title role. The kids were a little annoying at first, but they grew on me, unlike their parents who just aren’t that likable. Part of that is the lack of plot and very little character development.
The lack of a story arc is my biggest complaint. We don’t really see the kids misbehaving, nor do we see them behave that much more responsibly except for one scene near the end, nor do the parents, though at least at the end Mr. Banks decides to actually spend some quality time with his children for apparently the first time in his life. The movie was based on several Mary Poppins short stories, so maybe it was hard to put a plot together out of that. Also there are so many songs that a lot of the movie just serves as a way to tie big song and dance numbers together.
With kids, it is hard to know what they will really think is magic in a movie. It seems to me that kids would be bored with a lot of the movie, but I don’t really know since I didn’t see it as a kid. I do get a strong sense of grown-ups thinking kids will like this part or that (I’m looking at you Walt). Like 100% of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers, my overall opinion of the movie is positive, but I think my expectations were a little too high.
Written: 11 Mar 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital