Psycho's Movie Reviews #413: Bedknobs And Broomsticks (1971)

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Bill Walsh for Walt Disney Productions. It is based upon the books The Magic Bedknob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons (1943) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1947) by English children's author Mary Norton. The film, which combines live action and animation, stars Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, John Ericson, and introducing Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, and Roy Snart.

During the early 1960s, Bedknobs and Broomsticks entered development when the negotiations for the film rights to Mary Poppins (1964) were placed on hold. When the rights were acquired, the film was shelved repeatedly due to the similarities with Mary Poppins until it was revived in 1969. Originally at a length of 139 minutes, Bedknobs and Broomsticks was edited down to almost two hours prior to its premiere at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. As with Mary Poppins, the Sherman Brothers composed the film's songs.

The film was released on October 7, 1971, to mixed reviews from film critics, some of whom praised the live-action/animated sequence. The film received five Academy Awards nominations winning one for Best Special Visual Effects. This was the last film released prior to the death of Walt Disney's surviving brother, Roy O. Disney, who died two months later. It is also the last theatrical film Reginald Owen appeared in before his death next year in 1972; his last two acting credits were for television.

In 1996, the film was restored with most of the deleted material re-inserted back into the film. A stage musical adaptation has been produced. The musical had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, in Newcastle upon Tyne, on 14 August 2021 before embarking on a UK and Ireland tour, until May 2022.

Plot

In August 1940, during the Battle of Britain, three children named Charlie, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins are evacuated from London to Pepperinge Eye near the Dorset coast where they are placed in the reluctant care of Miss Eglantine Price, who agrees to the arrangement temporarily. The children attempt to run away back to London, but after observing Miss Price flying on a broomstick, they change their minds. Miss Price reveals she is learning witchcraft through a correspondence school with hopes of using her spells in the British war effort against the Nazis, and offers the children a transportation spell in exchange for their silence. She casts the spell on a bedknob, and adds only Paul can work the spell, as he is the one who handed the bedknob to her. Later, Miss Price receives a letter from her school announcing its closure, thus preventing her from learning the final spell. She convinces Paul to use the enchanted bed to return the group to London, and locate Professor Emelius Browne.

Browne turns out to be a charismatic showman who created the course from an old book, and is shocked to learn the spells actually work. He gives the book to Miss Price, who is distraught to discover the final spell, "Substitutiary Locomotion", is missing. The group travels to Portobello Road to locate the rest of the book. After an exchange with an old bookseller, Miss Price learns that the spell is engraved on the Star of Astaroth, a medallion that belonged to a sorcerer of that name. The bookseller explains that the medallion was taken by a pack of wild animals, given anthropomorphism by Astaroth, to a remote island called Naboombu. A 17th century lascar had claimed to have seen Naboombu, but the bookseller never found it. Paul confirms its existence by revealing a storybook he found in Mr. Browne's playroom.

The group travels to Naboombu a land in a lagoon; there, the bed goes underwater, where Mr. Browne and Miss Price enter a dance contest and win first prize. Just then, the bed is fished out of the sea by a bear, who informs the group that no human is allowed on the island by royal decree. They are brought before the island's ruler, King Leonidas the lion, who is wearing the Star of Astaroth. Leonidas invites Mr. Browne to act as a referee in a football match. The chaotic match ends in Leonidas' self-proclaimed victory, but Mr. Browne swaps the medallion with his referee whistle as he leaves, and the group escapes, Miss Price turning Leonidas into a white rabbit when he tries to chase them.

Back home, Miss Price exercises the spell, which imbues inanimate objects with life. When Miss Price is informed that the children can be moved to another home, she decides to let them stay, realizing she has come to love them and vice versa. The children declare they want Mr. Browne to be their father, but Mr. Browne, wary of commitment, bids goodbye to the group and attempts to take a train back to London. A platoon of Nazi German commandos land on the coast via U-boat as part of an exercise and invade Miss Price's house, imprisoning her and the children in the local museum. At the train station, Mr. Browne fends off two Germans cutting phone lines and heads back to Miss Price's house where he uses the white rabbit spell that he taught Miss Price so he can disguise himself to avoid the Germans. He finds Miss Price and the children at the museum and inspires Miss Price to use the spell to enchant the museum's exhibits into an army. The army of knights' armor and military uniforms chases the Germans away, but as they retreat, they destroy Miss Price's workshop, ending her career as a witch. Though disappointed her career is over, she is happy she played a small part in the war effort.

Shortly afterwards, Miss Price has officially adopted and committed herself to raising the children, Mr. Browne also made a commitment to becoming the father of the children and moved in with them. Mr. Browne enlists in the army and departs with the local Home Guard escorting him, promising the children he will return soon. Paul reveals he still has the enchanted bedknob, hinting they can continue with their adventures.

Production

English author Mary Norton published her first children's book, The Magic Bed-Knob, in 1943. In August 1945, Variety reported that Walt Disney had purchased the film rights to the book. Norton then published Bonfires and Broomsticks in 1947, and the two children's books were then combined into Bed-Knob and Broomsticks in 1957. During the negotiations for the film rights to Mary Poppins with P.L. Travers in 1961, a film adaptation of Bedknobs and Broomsticks was suggested as an alternative project. When the negotiations stalled, Disney instructed the Sherman brothers to begin working on the project. During a story conference with producer Bill Walsh and writer Don DaGradi, as the Sherman brothers were singing the song "Eglantine", Walt fell asleep in his chair. When Disney purchased the rights to Mary Poppins, the project was shelved.

In spring 1966, the Sherman brothers resumed their work on Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but the project was shelved again due to the similarities with Mary Poppins (1964). As the Sherman brothers' contract with the Disney studios was set to expire in 1968, they were contacted by Bill Walsh in their office to start work on the film. Then, Walsh, DaGradi, and the Sherman brothers re-assembled to work on the storyline for several months. Although there was no plan to put the film into production at the time, Walsh promised the Shermans that he would call them back to the studio and finish the project, which he eventually did in November 1969. Throughout 1970 and 1971, the Sherman brothers reworked their musical compositions for the film. The song, "The Beautiful Briny" was originally written for Mary Poppins for when Mary spins a compass sending the Banks children into several exotic locations, but it was later used for Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Casting

Leslie Caron, Lynn Redgrave, Judy Carne, and Julie Andrews were all considered for the role of Eglantine Price. Andrews was initially offered the part, but hesitated. Walsh later contacted Angela Lansbury, who signed onto the role on October 31, 1969 Halloween. Shortly after, Andrews reconsidered as she felt she owed it to Disney and contacted Walsh again to tell him she would take the role, but learned Lansbury had been cast. Although Peter Ustinov was considered, Ron Moody was originally slated as Emelius Brown, but he refused to star in the film unless he received top billing which the studio would not allow. He was ultimately replaced with David Tomlinson.

The three Rawlins children—Charlie, Carrie, and Paul—were played by Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, and Roy Snart respectively. Weighill had previously dropped out of school and began his acting career in an uncredited role as a schoolboy in David Copperfield (1969). He auditioned before Disney talent scouts for one of the child roles in Bedknobs and Broomsticks in London, and was cast as Charlie. Prior to Bedknobs, Snart was a child actor appearing in numerous commercials, and was cast as Paul for his "impish, cheeky look". For the part of Carrie, O'Callaghan had previously acted in television commercials and later made her stage debut in a production of Peter Pan at the Scala Theatre. There, she caught the attention of Disney's talent scouts.

Filming

Filming took place at the Disney studios in Burbank, California from early March to June 10, 1970. The coastal scenes featuring German soldiers were shot on location at a nearby California beach. Additional scenes were shot on location in Corfe Castle in Dorset, England. Filming lasted fifty-seven days while the animation and special effects required five months each to complete.

For the Naboombu soccer sequence, the sodium vapor process was used, which was developed by Petro Vlahos in the 1960s. Animator and director Ward Kimball served as the animation director over the sequence. Directing animator Milt Kahl had designed the characters, but he was angered over the inconsistencies in the character animation. This prompted Kimball to send a memo dated on September 17, 1970 to adhere to animation cohesiveness to the animation staff. Because of the heavy special effects, the entire film had to be storyboarded in advance, shot for shot, in which Lansbury noted her acting was "very by the numbers".

Release/Reception/Box Office

Bedknobs and Broomsticks had an original runtime of 141 minutes, and was scheduled to premiere at the Radio City Music Hall. However, in order to accommodate for the theatre's elaborate stage show, the film was trimmed down to two hours, in which 23 minutes were ultimately removed from the film. The removed scenes included a minor subplot involving Roddy McDowall's character (which was reduced to one minute) and three entire musical sequences titled "A Step in the Right Direction", "With a Flair", and "Nobody's Problems". The "Portobello Road" sequence was reduced from about ten minutes down to three.

The movie was reissued theatrically on April 13, 1979, with an additional twenty minutes deleted from the film.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film is a "tricky, cheerful, aggressively friendly Walt Disney fantasy for children who still find enchantment for pop-up books, plush animals by Steiff and dreams of independent flight." He further highlighted the Naboombu live-action/animated sequence as "the best of Disney, going back all the way to the first Silly Symphonies." Variety wrote that "what it may lack in the charm of Mary Poppins it more than measures in inventiveness. Indeed, it is doubtful if special effects or animation have been ever bettered or used to greater advantage. Alone they are a reason for seeing the film" in which the reviewer praised the Naboombu sequence as "not only sheer delights but technical masterpieces." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, and claimed while the film has the "same technical skill and professional polish" as Mary Poppins, "it doesn't have much of a heart, though, and toward the end you wonder why the Poppins team thought kids would like it much." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it two stars out of four calling the film "a mishmash of story ideas and film styles." He further added that the live action/animated sequence was "one bright spot in the story", but felt "the difference between scenes of sea horses and storm troopers is so great that probably no story could manage it. 'Bedknobs' tries and fails."

Pauline Kael, reviewing for The New Yorker, panned the film writing it has "no logic in the style of the movie, and the story dribbles on for so long that it exhausts the viewer before that final magical battle begins." She concluded her review claiming "This whole production is a mixture of wizardry and ineptitude; the picture has enjoyable moments but it's as uncertain of itself as the title indicates." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote the film was "pleasant enough and harmless enough. It is also long (almost two hours) and slow. The songs are perfunctory (nothing supercalifragi-whatever) and the visual trickeries, splendid as they are, are sputtery to get the picture truly airborne. By the standards Disney has set for itself, it's a disappointing endeavour." The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film has an approval rating of 68% with an average rating of 6.1/10 out of 37 reviews. The website's consensus reads: "Bedknobs and Broomsticks often feels like a pale imitation of a certain magical guardian and her wards, but a spoonful of Angela Lansbury's witty star power helps the derivativeness go down." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 59 out of 100 based on 11 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

By January 1974, the film had grossed $8.25 million in box office rentals from the United States and Canada, with its final domestic rentals totalling $8.5 million. The 1979 re-release increased its North American rentals to $11.4 million.

Budget $6.3 million

Box office $17.9 million

My Review

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is often compared to Mary Poppins and rightfully so as both films have a similar story line. A magical nanny is sent to look after children, both have the same leading protagonist (David Tomlinson,) both feature live film and animation, with songs by the Sherman brothers, and both came out of the Walt Disney studio.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks involves an apprentice witch who wants to complete her correspondence course in beginning witchcraft, but to do this, she has to search for a magical spell called Subsitutiary Locomotion which will complete her training. The story involves Angela Lansbury, playing the witch, who flies on a magical bed with Tomlinson and her three caretakers, to an animated land attempting to retrieve the spell. In addition, the film is set in World War II, where a mixture of live Nazi's and animated creatures both try to help and hinder Lansbury, Tomlinson, and the children on their adventures. The five characters control the bed through a magical bedknob that transports them from a reality world to a fantasy world and back again.

Years ago, I had a record that had the Songs From Bedknobs and Broomsticks on it and loved it! However, when I saw the film on Turner Classic Movies and later researched it, sadly I learned that this film, which could have been a classic, suffers badly because of editing and failed restoration work.

The original release of the film played in limited areas and ran about two and a half hours. Disney decided to make its first cuts to the film several months later when it went into wide release. The wide release version is what I saw on Turner Classic Movies. While this film was trimmed by over twenty minutes, most likely to cater to the shorter attention spans of children at the time of wide release, you can easily spot the edits. The Eglantine number is shortened, only a few words of With a Flair remain, The Old Home Guard seems to start in the middle of the second verse of the song, and the wonderful perhaps best song in the film "A Step in The Right Direction" is not there. However, you can hear the instances of the instrumental on the soundtrack.

In 1979, the film was re-released again and ludicrously cut even more to about ninety five minutes. For years this is what was played on Standard Cable and Broadcast TV. Only two songs remain in this version. In 1996, Disney attempted to reconstruct the film, but were successful only in spots. About twenty minutes of footage was found and added back into the movie. However, the song "A Step in the Right Direction" was mysteriously not found and remains "Lost." The audio track for the song was recovered, and you can hear this on the Special Edition DVD, with still shots from the film showing what the scenes looked like as the song was song.

However, the discarded footage soundtrack was not recoverable, because it had been damaged or lost. Many actors were too old or had passed away and could not re-do their speaking and singing parts, so Disney had to hire extras to dub their voices over the restored footage. The dubbing is horribly bad, especially for the voice-over of one of the children, Charlie, and the voice-over for David Tomlinson, sounds nothing like him! You would think Disney could have at least found actors with voices that resembled the tones, accents, and pitches of the original dialog. It is great that several songs were recovered, but without "Step in the Right Direction," restored back to the film, which is such an uplifting and encouraging song, and the terrible dubbing, the film will be a mixed bag.

Why Disney cut "Step in the Right Direction" is criminal! I think Disney should have taken more time to look for it when they did the film restoration project for the 1996 DVD. What SHOULD have been shortened is the animated soccer match, which remains a sequence that does not help the film at all. The "With A Flair" song, as well as "Eglantine" are at their full lengths on the restored DVD, as is the Portobello Road dance sequence. However, some critics feel that the extended version of Portobello Road is too long. The restored DVD has a new song called "Nobody's Problems For Me." My vote would be a choice of versions on a double-sided DVD for future release. Side 1 would contain the widespread DVD release that Turner Classic Movies plays. Side 2 would be the extended version, but WITH the originally undubbed dialog found and remastered with "A Step in the Right Direction" added in if it is ever found! The loss of "Step in the Right Direction" and the bad dubbing in the extended version hurts what could have been a great film. Bedknobs and Broomsticks has the important plot of searching for a missing spell. Tragically ironic that Disney took out bits and pieces of this film that may never be recovered. It is sad to think what this film could have been if the limited release had been LEFT ALONE!

Mary Poppins is definitely much better, but this is a lovely film nonetheless. Angela Lansbury is splendidly dotty as Engletine Price, and David Tomlinson has great fun as Mr. Brown. Their chemistry was just brilliant as well. The children, however just lacked the same sparkle, though Paul is very funny and cute. The songs were actually not as bad as some people say, "Beautiful Briny Sea" is the best, in fact all the songs are outstanding. The special effects were wonderful, that had plenty of magic, and the story is original enough. The highlights, though, like Mary Poppins, were the animated sequences. The underwater sequence was beautiful, but my favourite was the football match, which was absolutely hilarious. The only other criticism was that I didn't quite get the ending when I first saw it. All in all, a lovely film, that is hardly ever on. 8/10