Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
On Easter Tuesday this week, my parents and I went to see a re-release of ‘Mary Poppins’ at the cinema. I greatly enjoyed watching this film on the big screen. I used to see ‘Mary Poppins’ when I was a kid in the 1990s. It’s incredible that the film is celebrating its 60th anniversary since its release in 1964. 🙂
I talked about ‘Mary Poppins’ before through my reviews of its 2018 sequel ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ and the biographical film ‘Saving Mr. Banks’. However, I didn’t get a chance to share my thoughts on the actual film itself. Seeing the film at the cinema lately has given me the opportunity to share my thoughts.
‘Mary Poppins’ is a musical fantasy comedy film based on the book series by P. L. Travers. It combines live-action and animation, and stars Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins. It was a year later that Julie did ‘The Sound of Music’. ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘The Sound of Music’ are what Julie Andrews is best known for. 🙂
In the film, Mary Poppins is a magical nanny who comes to the home of Mr. Banks in London in 1910 to look after his two mischievous children Jane and Michael. Not only does Mary Poppins bring a change to their lives, but also spreads happiness, especially when Mr. Banks is firm about life itself. 😐
Julie Andrews excels in the role of Mary Poppins, bringing a mysterious yet likeable quality to her character, especially when she’s ‘kind but extremely firm’. There are elements of Mary Poppins being sort-of Time Lord-like in the story, especially when she has a carpet bag that’s bigger on the inside. 😀
Honestly, I prefer Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins over Michelle Gomez as Missy in ‘Doctor Who’. 😀 The film also features Dick Van Dyke as Bert, a cockney jack-of-all-trades who joins Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael on their adventures. I’ve seen Dick Van Dyke in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and his own TV series.
There’s David Tomlinson as George Banks, the father of Jane and Michael. Over the years, I’ve seen David Tomlinson in other films, including ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ and ‘The Love Bug’. There’s also Glynis Johns as Winifred Banks, Jane and Michael’s mother, who is a part of the suffrage movement. 🙂
Karen Dotrice stars as Jane and the late Matthew Garber stars as Michael. There’s Hermoine Baddeley as Ellen the maid and Reta Shaw as Mrs. Brill the cook. Elsa Lanchester stars as Katie Nanna, who leaves early ( 😀 ); Arthur Treacher as Constable Jones; Reginald Owen as Admiral Boom and Don Barclay as Mr. Binnacle.
There’s Ed Wynn (who voiced the Mad Hatter in Disney‘s 1951 film ‘Alice in Wonderland’) as Uncle Albert, who has an uncontrollable laughter that causes him to float. There’s Arthur Malet as Mr. Dawes Jr. and there’s Navckid Keyd (an anagram for Dick Van Dyke, would you believe?) stars as Mr. Dawes Sr. in the film.
There are some memorable musical numbers to take from the film. This includes ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’, ‘Jolly Holiday’, ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, ‘I Love to Laugh’, ‘Feed the Birds’, ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’, ‘Step in Time’ and ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’. Many of these songs were included on the Disney Sing-Along VHSs I used to watch in the 1990s.
In the ‘Jolly Holiday’ musical sequence, there’s a section where Dick Van Dyke as Bert is dancing with four cartoon penguins. Is one of them Frobisher from ‘Doctor Who’? 😀 Seeing that sequence again on the big screen is mesmerising and it’s so amazing to see the blend of live-action and animation in that.
It’s been lovely to check out ‘Mary Poppins’ again at the cinema recently. My parents and I had planned on seeing this film over the Easter holidays, but we didn’t think we were going to commit to that plan. Then, by chance, when we visited Cardiff City Centre recently on Tuesday, the film was waiting for us to be seen on the big screen. 😀
What else can one say but… Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
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