Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

What do you get when you take a magical caretaker, some adorable children, and David Tomlinson, give them just a touch of magic, and plop them into London? Well, what do you get when you do it again?

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Quick timeline check. Walt’s been dead for about five years now. Walt Disney World opened on October 1, 1971. Roy Disney put everything he had into making his brother’s dream of his Florida Project come true. Two months later, on December 13, 1971, this film premiered, and a week after that, on December 20, Roy too passed away. This really is the end of an era in a lot of ways. From this point on, Disney will truly have to continue without Disney. Hold on tight, kids. We’re in for a time.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This story actually begins at in the early 1960s, with a woman named P.L. Travers. There was some contention between her and the studio regarding the rights to her books. Perhaps you’ve heard. She gave Walt such a hard time that he decided it might be a good idea to have a backup plan. So he mashed together The Magic Bedknob; or How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons and its sequel Bonfires and Broomsticks, both by Mary Norton who also wrote The Borrowers series. And you guys, right out of the gate, these stories are identical to the chapters from the Mary Poppins books where the kids travel around the world on their magic compass. The only difference is that the entire universe doesn’t fawn over Miss Price the way they do Mary Poppins. It’s so similar that I can’t help wonder why they bothered fighting with P.L. Travers at all. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Mostly.

When Travers finally gave it up, Bedknobs was shelved for being essentially the same story. Producer Bill Walsh, director Robert Stevenson, and writer Don DaGradi revived the project in 1966 because the Sherman Brothers’ contract was set to expire in 1968 and he wanted to finish the songs and story before they left. He promised them that they would finish the film eventually, and finally, he kept his promise. Their contract still expired and this would be the last film they did. Unless Aristocats is actually the last one. Or The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. These simultaneous projects keep throwing off my whole timeline. According to one of my sources, the Shermans declined to renew their contract in part because of the studio’s insistence on premiering their big live action musicals at Radio City Music Hall during Christmas. Due to the venue’s elaborate Christmas stage show, The Happiest Millionaire and The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band both got chopped up to fit their schedule, and much of the Shermans’ hard work ended up on the cutting room floor. You can’t really blame them for getting a little frustrated when it happened a third time.

The original cut ran at 141 minutes, but Radio City Music Hall required 23 minutes of that to be chopped out at the last minute. This left no fewer than five songs on the cutting room floor, along with the orphans’ entire backstory and almost all of Roddy McDowall’s screen time. This 117 minute theatrical cut is the one that’s on most home releases, including Disney+, and the one I’ll be reviewing. However, the original was restored in the 25th anniversary VHS released in 1996, with some of the damaged audio redubbed by Angela Lansbury and Jeff Bennett (David Tomlinson was ill at the time). I have seen the long version and… hoo boy. Some of that stuff was cut for a reason. There’s a whole subplot with Roddy McDowall’s character skeezing all over Miss Price, trying to marry her for her land and basically reprising his character from That Darn Cat except he’s a priest now. What does that have to do with a witch fighting N*zis with magic? That’s right. Nothing. It would be really nice if some of these cut scenes were at least Extras on Disney+, but I guess that’s what Youtube is for.

Whether or not the film was a financial success seems to depend on the source, but either way no one’s ever going to beat Mary Poppins. It got pretty positive reviews, even with the inevitable comparisons. Audiences loved the special effects and the integration of live action and animation, and a movie that managed to be cheerful without rehashing the same basic comedy plot had to be a welcome relief. Some said it was disjointed, unfocused, and overlong, which I don’t disagree with, but it’s still a cult classic today, with a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes. Bedknobs and Broomsticks was also nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Art Direction, Best Scoring, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song, and Best Visual Effects. It actually won the last one, the last Oscar Disney would win until The Little Mermaid because it’s the Dark Ages baybee. It was also supposed to get a stage adaptation in 2020, but it got delayed because 2020.

I’ve only seen this film once, and I remember pretty much agreeing with the critics. It’s not nearly as polished as its predecessor. I went on a ramble in the Scandalous John review no one read about how it felt like Disney had really lost their magic in their desperation to cling to the past. This movie feels like a continuation of that general vibe, but with a little bit of awareness that they need to at least start trying to move forward. So, you’ll find a lot of similar sequences, especially in the musical numbers, interspersed with attempts at originality. Some sequences work better than others, but all in all, I remember really liking this film. It’s just rough around the edges. At the very least, it’s different. And that’s all I’m really asking for at this point.

STORY

The opening credits kind of spoil the whole movie, but hey, it’s probably a good idea to let your audience know upfront that there are N*zis in this. After all, that’s kind of a sensitive subject even today, and there were a lot more people living in 1971 who had been affected by World War II than there are today. Several of them worked on this movie, including Angela Lansbury, Roddy McDowall, and Robert Stevenson who all came to the US specifically to escape the Blitz, and David Tomlinson and Robert B. Sherman who both served in their country’s militaries. And hey, if absolutely nothing else, there’s something visually striking about seeing them getting curbstomped in the style of a medieval tapestry set to a bombastic theatrical overture. Creative credits are always a plus in my book.

The movie proper begins with the British army’s Captain Greer riding up to the village of Pepperinge Eye to check on their preparations for an impending invasion, which would be a lot easier if the signs weren’t painted out specifically to make it harder to navigate the country. The Old Home Guard, led by Major General Sir Brian Teagler (Reginald Owen aka Admiral Boom from Mary Poppins in his final film role), has this handled, or at least they say they do. They’re all way past their prime, armed with farm tools, and probably absolutely useless in a real battle, but what they lack in combat readiness they make up for in enthusiasm and patriotic pride. They chat with Mrs. Hobday, who’s receiving all the children being evacuated from the bombings in London at a closed-down museum of British history. The last refugees are Charles, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins, who aren’t exactly jumping for joy about having to leave the city where they were recently orphaned.

Once we get all the setup out of the way, our lead character finally splutters in on a rickety motorbike spewing thick clouds of sulfurous yellow smoke. This is Miss Price, in town just long enough to pick up a strange broomstick-shaped package she’s been waiting for from a man named Professor Emelius Browne. Mrs. Hobday thinks there’s something going on between the two, but nah, she’s never actually met the man and has no time for this conversation. But she’s going to have to make time, because Mrs. Hobday has another special delivery: three unruly orphans! Miss Price protests but government orders don’t care if you’re a confirmed spinster, or, for that matter, whether the kids want to go. She has no choice but to pile the kids into her sidecar and head for home in the hopes that she can get back to her work even with the little snots underfoot. At least it’s only temporary, until Mrs. Hobday can find them somewhere better to live. Roddy McDowall creeps up to her to try to save the kids’ souls but she doesn’t even look at him before driving away and it is glorious. This woman is life goals.

As mentioned, Charlie, Carrie, and Paul don’t like being dragged off to Miss Price’s big, lonely house in the middle of nowhere any more than she likes having to do the dragging. Her mangy, vicious black cat, Cosmic Creepers, scares them half to death and guys it is heavily implied that Browne just grabbed a random alley cat and shoved it in a box to send to her and I love everything about that as long as it’s offscreen. Miss Price shows them to her father’s old bedroom and the old-fashioned brass bed the boys are to share, then asks them to wash up for dinner. Charlie in particular acts like that’s the worst thing to happen to him in his entire life, worse even than their aunt getting bombed to death three days prior according to a deleted scene. Charlie is the worst. He continues whining and complaining over Miss Price’s healthy dinner while he leads his siblings in plotting to run back to London.

Only when the kids fall asleep can Miss Price finally unwrap her strange broomstick-shaped package. Surprise! It’s a broomstick! And there’s a note from Professor Browne attached, congratulating her on becoming an apprentice witch. It takes some trial and error to get it to fly and it throws her off onto her workroom floor, but it’s a step in the right direction nonetheless! She finally gets her broom to behave itself and goes for a little night flight around the heath. Meanwhile, the kids try to sneak out and get back to London under cover of night, and they witness her crash-land into the bushes. Carrie instantly knows she’s a witch, and Charlie starts thinking that it might not be such a bad idea to stay after all. Being a witch is a big secret- probably even blackmail-worthy. Yup. It’s official. Charlie is the worst.

Charlie continues to be terrible the next morning at breakfast when he pulls out the halves of Miss Price’s broken broom and lays out his plans. They won’t “peach on her” (the Cockney slang in this movie sure is somethin’), if they get their fried food, don’t have to wash, and maybe even make a few bucks off of her. You’ve got to give the kid points for audacity, but good lord, you just found out the woman can cast spells and you’re going to act like you’re the one with the power here? Not that the reminder of that simple fact tones him down any. He dares Miss Price to try something because he’s just suuuch a little hotshot. So she turns him into a rabbit. Actually, she means to turn him into a toad, but botches the spell so he’s a rabbit. Either way, Cosmic Creepers, eager to get rid of the little snot, chases bunny Charlie around until the spell wears off sooner than Miss Price would have liked. You see, she’s not exactly the best witch. This revelation would have been the lead-in to another cut song called The Fundamental Element, where Miss Price established that one needs anger and hate to properly cast spells. Personally, I think the film works better without this number. As it stands, the film implies, arguably outright states, that you need to just believe in magic in order to make it work, and that’s just a whole lot more “Disney”.

You’d think almost getting eaten by a cat would shut Charlie up, but nah, he’s still determined to get something out of this witch business. Miss Price agrees to play this game if it gets him to knock it off, she she leads the children into her workroom to find a spell valuable enough to suit his demands. She settles on the travelling spell Professor Browne sent as a freebie, but they need something that can twist. Good thing Paul happens to be a little kleptomaniac! Somehow he managed to stuff a whole bedknob into his pocket without anyone noticing a lump, and that will twist just fine. Miss Price casts the spell that will make the bed take Paul anywhere he wants to go if he taps it three times and twists it. Only Paul, though. Why? Not because he’s the youngest. Not because he believes in magic the most. Nah. He stole the bedknob. That’s all.

The arrival of the mail calls them all out of the workroom. Miss Price receives a letter from Professor Browne, and it’s not good news. The war and the bombings in London have forced him to shut down his school without giving her the last course. Naturally, that last spell was the one she needed most, the one that will help her finish this war once and for all. I would have thought teleportation would be the thing to do that, but I guess not. Speaking of teleportation, she’s not about to take a blow like this lying down. She sits Paul down and asks him for his help. She needs to get to London to speak to Professor Browne in person. If she can’t get the formal lesson, maybe she can at least get the spell. Paul resists at first because he wants to go to the jungle (this goes very poorly in the book). Eventually, he agrees to cast the spell and take them all to London, but only after spouting the most unintentionally hilarious line in the entire Disney pantheon.

I’m not kidding when I say I had to pause the movie to snicker immaturely. I couldn’t help it.

Alas, Charlie doesn’t move. Despite having been turned into a rabbit just five minutes ago, he doesn’t believe in magic. Somehow. What? Kid. You saw her fly. You saw the bedknob glow. What do you mean you don’t believe in magic?! Miss Price laughs and, as they get the bed ready to travel, explains to Carrie and Paul that Charlie’s just at the Age of Not Believing. Personally, I think he’s being a contrarian brat, but sure, put a nice name on it. Paul twists the bedknob, Cosmic Creepers terrifies Charlie into falling on the bed, and we’re off! It’s at this point where you can really tell that this movie came out the same year as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The psychedelic special effects of the flying bed are identical to the infamous boat sequence, except with fewer decapitated chickens.

The bed lands not in a room full of Everlasting Gobstoppers, but in the “lovely sooty air” of London. Incredibly, Charlie still isn’t convinced. It can’t have worked, you see, they haven’t found Professor Browne. Miss Price goes off to look for him, leaving the kids to wait by the bed. But wouldn’t you know it, Professor Browne happens to walk right past them! They know it’s him because his briefcase says Professor Emelius Browne in big bold letters, but he doesn’t seem like much of an authority on magic. In fact, he’s nothing but a two-bit street magician. He’s not even a particularly good street magician, but at least he does everything with a flair. He even tries to swindle Paul! Miss Price catches up with them and, though she’s taken aback to find her mentor isn’t quite what she expected, she bravely soldiers on and introduces herself as a student of the college, in search of the last spell. He practically flees but she turns him into a rabbit because this conversation is not over. She needs that substitutiary locomotion spell, and she’s going to get it.

He turns human again seconds later, but Miss Price makes her point. Professor Browne can’t believe what just happened. The whole college was a scam! He’s not an authority on magic, he just copied some silly words he found in an old book! They can’t possibly work! But they did, and Miss Price is a real witch. Far from helping her, though, Mr. Browne (because he’s not a professor) sees dollar signs. If his act gets an assistant who can do real magic, it’s goodbye street performances, hello fame and fortune! He tries to flirt his way into her good graces but Miss Price has no time for that nonsense. She does agree to go to his place for lunch, but she makes it abundantly clear that she’s only going to take a look at that spellbook. But it’s a start, I guess.

Another trippy journey by bed takes the little group, including a stunned Mr. Browne, to a ritzy neighborhood. It stands abandoned and derelict thanks to an unexploded bomb in the middle of the street, leaving Mr. Browne free to squat in a mansion unperturbed. After lunch, he takes Miss Price to the library and starts trying to smooth-talk her into joining him onstage. She only wants the book and ignores pretty much all of his attempts at seducing her in favor of picking up every book in the vast library that looks like it might be about magic. She does finally give her first name, though: Eglantine. And man, I don’t blame her for preferring Miss Price. Meanwhile, the kids discover a nursery full of toys, and play for a little while until Paul finds a kids’ picture book titled The Island of Naboombu, all about a magical land where lots of funny animals live. Mr. Browne gets more and more persistent and Miss Price gets more and more annoyed until finally, she turns him into a rabbit to get him to leave her alone. At long last, Mr. Browne fetches The Spells of Astaroth, and the animal training in this sequence is impressive. I’ve never seen a bunny pull a book from a shelf before! She’s so entranced by the moldy, tattered old book that she barely notices Mr. Browne complaining after the transformation wears off, but as she flips to the long-awaited substitutiary locomotion spell… it’s not there! Mr. Brown only has half of the book, having lost the other half in a fight. But he knows where they can find it!

The ragtag group meanders through the various shops at Portobello Road in search of the other half of the book without any luck. There. That’s it. I summed this section up in one measly little sentence. But alas, this sequence is longer than that. It is much, much longer than that. And so begins my biggest gripe with this movie: the entire second act is made up of several lengthy sequences that don’t connect to the first or last act or each other in any meaningful way and drag like RuPaul wearing a ball and chain. Portobello Road is the worst offender by far, even in the cut-down version, but get ready to hear this rant a lot. We’ll examine why this number gets under my skin under Music, but for now, we dance. And we dance. And we dance some more. Miss Price keeps looking for her book and getting increasingly annoyed with all this random dancing, until a guy with a bell declares that the party’s over and the characters are left alone on an empty street.

Popular UK game show host Bruce Forsythe, aka Swinburne, turns up out of nowhere to pull a knife on Mr. Brown. The Bookman wants to speak to them. Who is the Bookman? Why do he and Mr. Browne not like each other? Why is he looking for substitutiary locomotion? Is he working for the N*zis? Is he an evil sorcerer? We don’t know! The movie was too concerned with having every country in the world do a little dance for us to bother with things like character and plot. All we know is that he lives in a basement under Portobello Road and he, too, has been looking for his missing half of The Spells of Astaroth. He and Miss Price put together the halves of the book, only to find that the substitutiary locomotion spell was never in there and it was all a red herring!

Purely out of interest now, Miss Price and Mr. Browne examine the back half of the book and discover a ton of exposition. The incantation for substitutiary locomotion is actually written on a magic star worn by an ancient sorcerer named Astaroth, who did magical experiments on animals until they rebelled, killed him, and settled on a magical island called Naboombu. But wait, that’s the name of Paul’s book! The Bookman demands to see it, but Paul won’t let him because this dude is sketchy, so Swinburne and the Bookman bring out the knives again. These random minor characters are about to shank a child and we can’t actually make proper villains of them. Nor do we ever see them again. Miss Price ushers everyone onto the bed, Mr. Browne provides the distraction, and we fly out of danger off to investigate the Island of Naboombu. It’s that easy!

Like Miss Price herself, the bed’s magic isn’t entirely reliable. Rather than land on Naboombu itself, the bed drops in the middle of Naboombu Lagoon. But it’s all right, they all have a grand old time bobbing along at the bottom of the beautiful briny sea. Their obvious stunt doubles also randomly win a dance competition they didn’t know was happening, in a blatant imitation of the horse race in Mary Poppins. The underwater sequence also has nothing much to do with anything, but it’s not as long, and it’s really cool to see how far the technology to blend animation and live action has come. Plus, the gags are really entertaining. I’m a fan of the castanet-playing lobsters, as well as pretty much anything that takes place under da sea. The fun ends when a hook drops from the surface and drags the bed up onto the Island. Baloo’s dimwitted cousin (voiced by Dallas McKennon the Big Thunder Mountain Guy) throws a tantrum because the King has ordered there are to be no people on this Island. Paul’s book says anybody has the right to see the King, so the Fisherman Bear leads the way. The recycled animation is blatant here, even though Ward Kimball directed this sequence, not Wolfgang Reitherman who was famous for it.

King Leonidas already doesn’t like people as a result of the whole “abused and experimented on” thing, and he’s in a particularly bad mood today. His angry roars launch his Secretary Bird, which is a great visual pun, out of his little tent, and the bird informs our human friends that it’s all because they couldn’t find a referee for the Royal Soccer Match. And yes, they call it soccer. I can understand the animals calling it that because it’s a magical island and we don’t know Astaroth wasn’t American, but why don’t the English human characters call it football? It’s really jarring considering how authentically English the rest of the film is. Anyway, according to the spellbook, King Leonidas has the Star around his neck, so Mr. Browne sweet talks his way into taking the referee position. This act of valor earns Miss Price’s admiration, and the Secretary Bird leads him inside for an audience with the King. When King Leonidas and Mr. Browne emerge, the lion is in a much better mood. By the way, both Leonidas and the Secretary Bird are voiced by Lennie Weinrib, the original voice of Scrappy Doo. He’s also doing a very echoey impression of Robert Newton’s Long John Silver as Leonidas for… some reason.

I have mixed feelings on the animated soccer game. On the one hand, it’s another long sequence that doesn’t feature our main characters at all. As we’ll see, could have been cut completely without affecting much of anything. In the original drafts, Mr. Browne got close to Leonidas by telling him a story in the form of the song Solid Citizen, which got cut in favor of the soccer match because of executive meddling. Richard Sherman wasn’t too happy about that and I don’t blame him. On the other hand, it’s very, very funny. The gags provide some of the best slapstick Disney has done for a very, very long time. I’m particularly fond of the vulture medics getting really excited every time Mr. Browne gets trampled, and really disappointed every time King Leonidas dusts him off; they really appeal to my dark twisted sense of humor. All the animals get some great moments in, thanks to Ward Kimball’s innate sense of comedy and Milt Kahl’s masterful physical animation. Sure, a good chunk of it is recycled from The Jungle Book and Robin Hood, which was in production at the same time, but it works nicely. The integration of the animation and live action is great too, right down to the dust that appears on Mr. Brown’s increasingly tattered clothes every time he gets knocked down in the madness.

Eventually, King Leonidas declares that he wins and Mr. Browne crawls out of the wreckage. Everyone’s friends now, and King Leonidas helps Mr. Browne back into his suit jacket. When Mr. Browne returns the favor, he uses a little sleight of hand to switch the Star of Astaroth with his referee whistle. The humans say their goodbyes and skedaddle to the bed before King Leonidas notices that the star is gone. Eventually, the Secretary Bird spots the deception, and King Leonidas chases after the thieving humans, roaring with his claws bared. Everyone urges Paul to get them out of here but the bedknob is stuck in his pocket (_{don’t make another knob joke, don’t make another knob joke….}) with the lion gaining fast. Finally, Miss Price casts her trusty rabbit spell. The king retains his lion tail, but that’s not the part with the teeth and claws so they’re safe to go on their way. And soon, we’re back to Pepperinge Eye.

Now, when the concept of the Star of Astaroth was introduced, the script made it sound like the Island of Naboombu was an uncharted island that simply hadn’t been colonized yet. That was the sort of language they used. So, praytell, why does it suddenly decide now that the Island was another world that objects can’t cross between? This is like, Fantasy Writing 101: establish the rules of your magic. And yet, that’s exactly the sort of nonsense this movie pulls when Mr. Browne takes the Star of Astaroth out of his jacket pocket. It disappears into a cloud of magic dust before Miss Price can read her spell, and she just sighs and said she should have known better.

And it gets worse! Throughout the next scene, Paul keeps screeching that he knows the magic words, only to be shushed by his older siblings. But as it turns out, he actually does. How? Oh, there’s a huge illustration in his deus ex machina picture book with the incantation clearly visible! He had it the entire time! The entire second act of this movie was completely pointless! That’s about 45 minutes, almost half of this already long movie, that do not serve the plot in any meaningful way, and that upsets me as a writer in ways I can’t even frickin articulate. Like, okay, the first half of Mary Poppins is pretty episodic, but each episode is a lesson that the kids then unknowingly pass on to their dad to help him redeem. This is just padding on padding on padding and even if a lot of it’s entertaining it’s just… I… ugh…. ARGH!!!!!

All right. It’s fine. I’m cool. Bad plot structure. It’s fine. Whatever. Miss Price finally has her substitutiary locomotion spell after a whole lot of faffing about. There’s only one thing left to do and that’s try it out! It’s supposed to give inanimate objects a life of their own, but her first attempt fails miserably. Mr. Browne suggests that she give her spell a little more oomph by singing it, and sure enough, the ensuing musical number does the trick! Actually, it does it a little too well. She brings Mr. Browne’s shoes to life as planned, but she also awakens every article of clothing in the house with it. Even a visiting Roddy McDowall’s hat gets in on it before Miss Price’s runaway nightgown chases him out of the movie. Finally, she finds the notes for her all-purpose cutoff spell, and ends the unmitigated disaster in its tracks.

Everyone made it out of the attack of the killer clothes unscathed, so Mr. Brown takes them upstairs for a yummy dinner of sausages like the kids begged for at the beginning. Everyone’s in high spirits, except for Miss Price. She’s a little down on herself for not achieving perfection on her first attempt at substitutiary locomotion, and wow this movie got a little too real there. Mr. Browne actually succeeds in cheering her up with a little juggling act which goes hilariously wrong when he accidentally steps on Cosmic Creepers and drops an apple into the gravy. It’s the first time all movie that Miss Price laughs!

The merriment doesn’t last long. Mrs. Hobday knocks on the door to announce she found a better home for the kids, as promised. But Miss Price has had a whole character arc, and she really cares for these kids now. She tells Mrs. Hobday that that will no longer be necessary, and Paul blurts out that they have a dad now. Welp, that sounds a whole lot like responsibility to Mr. Browne. He nopes out, remembering something very important he has to do in London right now immediately. The kids tearfully say goodbye, with Charlie trying to be strong when he’s just as sad as his siblings. And just in case you weren’t already thinking of Mary Poppins, David Tomlinson begins a slow, sad walk through a bunch of darkened matte paintings.

Miss Price tries to keep the classic stiff upper lip and convince herself that this is what she wanted, a quiet single life where she has to deal with nobody’s problems. She opens the door to let Cosmic Creepers out and spots a face peeping over her garden wall. N*zis! She scrambles to call the police, but they’ve already cut the phone lines. The aptly named N*zi officer Colonel Heller imprisons Miss Price and the children in their own living room, explaining that this is only a practice run for the actual invasion, meant to scare people and establish that they can do whatever they want. Well, Miss Price isn’t about to take that lying down, so she threatens to turn Heller into a rabbit. Unfortunately, her memory fails at the worst possible time. Charlie tries to get her notebook and the N*zis dogpile him. Heller declares that they’re annoying them so they march them off to the museum from the beginning to get them out of the way.

Mr. Banks, I mean Mr. Browne’s walk of shame not takes him past the steps where the Bird Woman once cried, but to the train station. There are no trains to London until morning, so he settles in to sleep on a bench, kicking himself for running from the only real home he’s ever known. As he struggles to fall asleep he… dreams? Hallucinates? I don’t even know. He sees a vision of Miss Price singing words of encouragement while wearing a sexy showgirl outfit, which is all kinds of uncomfortable. Angela Lansbury is a wonderful actress but she’s also kinda like everyone’s grandma so seeing her (or her stunt double) scantily clad like that is kind of a yikes.

The illusion disturbs Mr. Brown so much that he wakes up just in time to see N*zis cutting the phone lines. He scrambles to hide in the train station and reveals that maybe he’s not such a pathetic loser after all, because two N*zis try to follow him and he knocks them both out with one single punch! It’s kinda awesome. He stumbles past their unconscious bodies to try to get back to warn Miss Price, but finds the little house heavily guarded so he sneaks in the upstairs window. Cosmic Creepers almost gives him away but he manages to escape to the empty workroom. The N*zis are hot on his trail but I guess he’s not confident that he can repeat his epic punch from earlier. He needs a way to hide when they break down the door, so he rifles through Miss Price’s notes griping about her poor organizational skills. Finally, he finds the rabbit spell and sits at a mirror to give himself a pep talk. If ever there was a time where he needed to believe in magic, in himself, this is it. Do you see what I mean where making hate the “fundamental element” would have degraded the movie? This is such a big moment when we understand that you need to believe in magic. I just wish they’d established that earlier. Anyway, it works, and Mr. Browne hops away from the N*zis as a fluffy bunny.

The kids and Miss Price try to escape the museum, but their first plan, shoving Paul out the barred window, doesn’t work. Charlie suggests using substitutiary locomotion again, because I guess he believes in magic after seeing it the tenth time. After all, they’re in a museum, and there are weapons everywhere. To everyone’s delight Mr. Browne hops up in the nick of time and, once he turns back into a man, agrees that substitutiary locomotion is the best hope they have. Carrie even brings Miss Price a new broom! With the support of her found family, Miss Price intones: Traguna! Mekoites! Trecorum! Satis! Dee! The suits of armor surrounding her rattle to life, ready to kick some N*zi honey buns.

Now, I’ve been tough on this movie up until now. But this part? This. Is. AWESOME. The long shots of the ghostly army marching down the heath feel suitably epic, and what’s not cool about a country’s entire history marching in to fend off a hostile army while chanting dramatic pseudo-Latin? These are some of the best special effects we’ve seen on this entire journey, too, including impressive wirework and undetectable sodium vapor screens. Best of all, it’s at this point that Bedknobs finally steps out of the shadow of her more talented older sister. Most earlier scenes have a one-to-one mirror in Mary Poppins, but here, this film finally discovers its own identity. And that identity is killing N*zis.

Or, if they can’t kill them because it’s a Disney movie, they can at least subject them to a lot of slapsticky humiliation. They can’t figure out how to fight an enemy that can’t be hurt, leaving them open to a whole battalion of bagpipe playing Scotsmen and a terrifying eight-foot-tall executioner, among others. Meanwhile, Miss Price flies above the whole curbstomp battle, urging on her side while wearing an army helmet and brandishing a bayonet, with a little Union Jack fluttering on her broom. Meanwhile, Mr. Browne and the kids hide behind a wall cheering her on. I like the subversion of normal gender roles here: Miss Price is the one fighting in the war while Mr. Browne stays out of the way and takes care of the kids. Keep this in mind, it’ll be important in a second.

_{If you watch nothing else from this movie, watch this scene. It’s so, so cool.}

All too soon, the party’s over. The villagers hear machine gun fire and send out the Old Home Guard to defend their homes, even though most of the German soldiers have already started retreating. The few stragglers leave a bomb beside Miss Price’s workshed before they return to their U-boat. The explosion knocks Miss Price off her broomstick and destroys all her witch paraphernalia, but she’s not hurt. The Old Home Guard shoots at the retreating N*zis so they can take all the credit while the little found family embraces. Miss Price doesn’t mind losing her notes and her spell ingredients. She was planning on giving up witchcraft anyway because she couldn’t stomach the poisoned dragon liver. Yup. That’s the reason.

I’m about to go down a road I really don’t like very much, but it’s relevant here. The history of witchcraft has a lot to do with society’s deep-rooted fear of people, especially women, deviating from society’s norms. If a woman lived alone, or upset someone, she was a witch and she was to be burned. That kind of thing. That’s why in folklore and cinema, even older Disney movies, women wielding magic, and even power, were always evil, like the Evil Queen and Maleficent. Good witches were a pretty recent development, and I think Miss Price might be the first one in Disney. Yes, in the book, she also gives up her witchcraft to marry Emelius, but somehow, the genre shift to a fantasy war movie makes it worse. Seeing her give up all that power and agency to be a wife and mother just doesn’t feel good. There’s no reason the two have to be mutually exclusive, you know?

And it gets worse! Not only has Miss Price given up the life goal she’s been working towards this entire movie, but Mr. Browne has finally decided to do his part for the war effort. He gets ready to ship out as a soldier, kisses Miss Price goodbye, and promises the kids he’ll be back. Okay, fine. It’s the conclusion of Mr. Browne’s character arc: he finally learns responsibility and to stop being such a miserable coward. That’s fine. But the execution completely reverses the uniqueness of the moment I mentioned just a few seconds ago, like they needed to retreat into what’s “normal” and “accepted” in order to have their happy ending. Miss Price is home with the kids, and Mr. Browne is on the battlefield, and that’s the way it should be. I really don’t think the writers intended it that way and I’m aware I’m reading way too far into it, but it bothers me, man. It’s so unnecessary. End it with Miss Price saying she has no intention to stop with one little practice invasion but they’ll need to find the spells she lost all over again. Then you can end with the exact same line and shot that the actual movie ends with: Paul declaring that he still has his magic bedknob so the adventures aren’t over.

Sigh. When this movie’s good, it’s really good. The humor is top-notch, the music’s excellent, and when the plot is the main focus, it’s very engaging. There’s just a lot of scenes that don’t serve the plot, or threads that could serve the plot but don’t. For example, Charlie’s cynicism. After about The Beautiful Briny Sea, he steps into the background and never really comes back out. It’s not that he believes, it’s more that he doesn’t not believe. If they spent less time on the dance break in Portobello Road or the soccer game, we could make a whole theme out of the importance of imagination and belief. There’s a lot of good potential here, and I can’t even say I don’t like this movie. I hope the upcoming stage musical and the inevitable future remake create a more cohesive story. And, while we’re at it, change the ending. Like, come on. Way to shoot an amazing climactic sequence in the foot.

CHARACTERS

Eglantine Price is everything I want to be in life, at least through most of the movie. A confirmed spinster with no patience for anyone’s nonsense, an intense focus on her own goals, and access to magical powers limited only by her own poor memory? Yes please. Sure, she could stand to loosen up a little bit, which would make a perfectly fine character arc. Giving up magic just wasn’t necessary and really weakens the character. Disney originally offered the role to Julie Andrews, who declined because she didn’t want to keep playing Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp forever. She eventually changed her mind because she felt that she owed her career to Disney, but by that point, production had already begun with Angela Lansbury in the role.

Honestly, I think that’s for the better. This movie has enough in common with Mary Poppins without both of its leads appearing. And can you imagine Mary Poppins hooking up with Mr. Banks? Yeeech. No thank you. Unfortunately, Angela Lansbury doesn’t look back on this film particularly fondly. Due to the heavy use of special effects, she had to adhere strictly to the storyboards and had very little room to make acting choices, resulting in a very “by-the-numbers” performance. She graciously came back for some more Disney roles, though!

Emelius Browne starts as a pathetic coward who hides his insecurities and failures behind a smooth tongue and learns to step up and believe in himself. That’s perfectly satisfying even without him shipping off to war. In fact, I think him leaving again, even for something as important as WWII, cheapens the idea of him becoming a father to the kids and a supportive partner to Miss Price. Apart from the abhorrent gender implications, it doesn’t work for what they’re going for with the character. That said, he’s very entertaining throughout the movie. Mr. Browne gets most of the best lines (at least the ones that are intended to be funny and not just this overgrown child giggling at the word knob), and a lot of the physical comedy in the live-action segments.

Seeing David Tomlinson in the happy-go-lucky “Bert” type role after watching him as Mr. Banks and the villainous Peter Thorndyke takes some getting used to, but that’s my problem, not his performance. Also, was it in his contract that he always had to wear the same costume in everything he starred in? All three of his Disney roles have the same red carnation and the same bowler hat, even though they’re very different characters. It’s weird. Tomlinson was actually the backup after the studio’s first choice, Ron Moody from Oliver!, demanded top billing. You don’t do that to Dame Angela Lansbury. You just don’t.

Charles Rawlins could have been a nice mirror to Mr. Browne’s arc, but they kind of forgot about his character arc. Since he accepts magic quietly halfway through the movie, the first half comes off less as not believing in magic and more being an obnoxious little snot for no real reason. Like, how do you not believe in magic after getting turned into a rabbit? I ask you. We should see Charlie going from trying to con anything and everything out of everyone to discovering “something wonderful” in him, otherwise what’s the point of even introducing that plot point? It’s frustrating to watch him be so annoying without ever really learning anything substantial. Ian Weighill actually dropped out of school to star as an extra in the 1969 version of David Copperfield, but did not continue acting after Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Instead, he became a train driver.

Carrie Rawlins is the voice of reason for the children and the one who keeps the two boys in line. Or, well, she tries to. There’s no controlling Charlie. But she tries. This particular archetype isn’t usually the most interesting character, and Carrie isn’t much of an exception, but there’s still something there. She’s the first to accept Miss Price’s kindness and the one who always reminds her brothers to remember their manners (saying hello to Miss Price or thanking her for the bedknob). Unfortunately, a lot of her bigger scenes, notably the scene where she tearfully tells Miss Price about their aunt’s death, wound up on the cutting room floor. Cindy O’Callaghan is the only one of the three children who continued her acting career, appearing in the BBC soap Eastenders as Andrea Price (no relation). She did eventually drop acting and become a child psychiatrist, but she’s always happy to show up to a Bedknobs reunion!

Paul Rawlins is the real hero of this movie. Or, at least, he would have been if anyone bothered to listen to him. He gets ignored and shoved aside because he’s only six years old, so why would he know anything useful? He only has the book all about the Island that turned out to be real, that’s all. Did I say Charlie’s botched arc was frustrating? If I talk too much about the middle of this movie my head will explode. Again. Roy Snart, like his on-screen brother, never acted again after this, but he did pretty well for himself as the head of an IT company.

MUSIC

I criticized The Happiest Millionaire’s soundtrack because every song in it was structurally identical to Mary Poppins in terms of songwriting and story structure. Bedknobs commits the exact same sin even more obviously. Several of these songs likely came first, as the Sherman Brothers were working on them while the whole Travers thing was going on, so you kind of get the idea they were really determined to tell this story. Still, you’d think they’d at least tweak them a little. It feels like the filmmakers took care to avoid similarities and in doing so, walked headlong into them.

The Old Home Guard represents the Shermans’ knack for writing military style songs. It’s an unorthodox opening number in that it features none of our main characters. In fact, after this, we don’t see The Old Home Guard again until the very end when they take credit for stopping the invasion. The song itself is a fine ode to patriotic pride with a nice hint of irony from the characters’ advanced age. Like Sister Suffragette, it serves more to introduce the world and set a time period than to actually create the plot.

A Step in the Right Direction was actually cut from the film, but it’s on the soundtrack so I’m including it rather than giving it a brief mention in the story section. The filmmakers wanted to include it in the 1996 restoration, but unfortunately, only the audio remained in the archives. The visuals had been lost, so they pieced together as many still photos as possible to give an idea of what the sequence looked like. and included them on the DVD release as a bonus. If you listen closely, the tune for A Step in the Right Direction is identical to the Sherman Brothers’ song There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow from the Carousel of Progress attraction. The brassy march feeling of the song, along with its themes of staying positive in the face of something unpleasant, bring to mind A Spoonful of Sugar. Okay, this one’s a stretch.

The Age of Not Believing has a double meaning that I kind of love. It’s not just about Charlie being a little snot bubble for no real reason and assuring him that we all have edgy phases we’ll grow out of. The Sherman Brothers, however, found inspiration in the creative stagnation they were noticing around the studio (it’s not just me!). Walt’s magic touch was gone, and they knew that sooner or later the studio would have to find magic in themselves. In some ways, it’s almost like a call to action. From that perspective, it’s a beautiful song, and could easily have been the heart of the film just like Feed the Birds if they’d dug into that concept throughout the rest of the script. As it stands, it feels like we’re just looking for an excuse to have a song, but at least it’s a good song. This is the song nominated for Best Original Song, but it lost to the Theme from Shaft.

With a Flair only appears in the extended cut, so Mr. Browne’s character introduction becomes even more awkward and shows a bedraggled crowd we don’t see become victims of Mr. Browne’s botched magic tricks. I actually really like this song and wish it had been left in. Through the magic of musical theatre, he tells us everything we need to know about him: he’s a big phony but he’s a loveable conman. Yeah, it’s weird if you think he’s telling his audience straight up that he’s a huckster, but it could just as easily be an audience aside and that’s how I read it. It’s another patter song written for David Tomlinson, though there’s more singing to it than in The Life I Lead. Growth!

Eglantine/Don’t Let Me Down has the potential to be really uncomfortable, with how pushy Mr. Browne is being demanding Miss Price let him exploit her. However, it’s not, and most of that’s because she has absolutely no patience for his nonsense. It’s glorious. One person didn’t agree. When the Sherman Brothers sang a demo of this to Walt, he actually fell asleep! Ouch. Only part of it made it into the movie, but the part that was cut appears in the extended version. That latter half is a reprise of the cut song The Fundamental Element! This one’s probably the hardest to fit to a Mary Poppins song, which means that it actually stands out! Yay! You can make a case for A British Bank because they’re both persuasive songs but nah, that’s trying too hard to force my point.

Portobello Road. Ugh. Portobello Road. This song tries my patience like nothing you’ve ever seen. It’s not even a bad song! I love anything with a minor key, and it really captures the mystique of a place that feels like anything could happen. Unfortunately, things keep happening. And they keep happening. And they just keep on happening. I distinctly remember this song being twenty two minutes and forty-seven seconds the last time I watched it. Now, that’s completely wrong. It’s too specific to not be based on something, but it’s not this. Still, the extended cut is a solid ten minutes of a whole lot of nothing and even the three-minute theatrical cut feels like it never ends.

What bugs me most about this song isn’t its length on its own. What bugs me most is that the plot stops completely dead for this big dance break. Let’s compare it to its Mary Poppins analogues, Chim Chim Cheree/Step in Time. I’m kind of counting them as one since they occupy the same space in the story. The dancing chimney sweeps are stated to be friends of Bert’s, who we’ve long since connected to. It teaches our POV characters to appreciate what they have through these working class guys who absolutely love their short, dirty lives. In Bedknobs, our POV character is Miss Price. She’s completely disconnected and disinterested in all these random people prancing around her. In fact, she’s getting increasingly annoyed by all these interruptions! There’s one brief moment where she gets pulled into the dance, but the point is, if she’s not enjoying this, why should I? And the kicker is that not only is the spell we came to Portobello Road not there, Paul’s had it in his hand the entire time! We didn’t need to come here at all!

The Beautiful Briny Sea also takes place in that dreaded middle part of the film, but I don’t dislike it nearly as much. In fact, I think it’s the best song in the movie! Tellingly, it was written for- what else?- Mary Poppins before the magic compass sequence was replaced by Jolly Holiday. I think the animation on display makes it a lot more tolerable. That, and the fact that our main characters are enjoying themselves, which in turn draws the viewer in. Oh, yeah, and it inspired a similar sequence in one of my favorite films- Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid! If you watch the dancing fish sequences in both films, you can really tell. That made me smile.

Substitutiary Locomotion fulfills our need for one of the Sherman Brothers’ trademark nonsense word songs. Like Supercali before it, it takes some words that don’t really mean anything and turns them into something that you’ll never get out of your head. Even the instrumentals feel triumphant and excited to finally, finally try that spell we’ve gone on so many wild goose chases to find. And of course, those special effects are top notch.

Nobody’s Problems is actually a reprise of a lost song where the kids explained that they’re orphans with no one to tell them what to do. The Shermans intended for it to be the whole heart of Miss Price’s relationship with Mr. Browne, but alas, it got cut. The extended edition reinstated it, but it had never been properly orchestrated, so the audio has only Angela Lansbury and a solo piano. I actually like it! The lonely, empty piano really sells the sadness of the song. You feel for this woman who finally found someone she wants to share her life with and can’t- and that’s coming from someone who admired her commitment to her solitary life at the start!

ARTISTRY

Except for a few castle scenes filmed in England, all of this movie was filmed at the Disney Studios in California. You would never know it by looking at it. Peter Ellenshaw’s magical matte paintings transport us to a small English village. Once again, they don’t look 100% realistic, but they don’t need to. This is a fantasy movie, so the fact that it looks just a little bit fantastical is all to the good. And speaking of fantasy, the animation sequences used the same sodium vapor process as Mary Poppins’ Jolly Holiday, which as far as I can tell means they used a yellow screen that allows the characters to wear a wide variety of colors. Or something. Here’s the wikipedia page, this is over my head. The process has evolved in the intervening years, and barring a few brief shots, the live action and animation integrate seamlessly. I legitimately cannot tell how they keep lifting David Tomlinson off the ground by his shirt like that. They’re probably flying him and putting a clothespin on his back or something but that’s my best guess. It’s movie magic!

THEME PARK INFLUENCE

I mentioned this earlier, but this was the first Disney film released after the opening of Walt Disney World in October 1971. For that reason, I’m astounded that there was never so much as a walkthrough or an exhibition at the park, or a store, even some kind of small knickknack in the details in Fantasyland. There’s just nothing. It’s weird. King Leonidas did appear as a meet and greet character way back when, and featured in California’s incarnation of the Main Street Electrical Parade, but that about all this film ever had. I’m not saying it should have a whole ride or something like that, but… nothing? Really?

FINAL THOUGHTS

I know it doesn’t look like it, but I actually do really like this movie. In fact, I think I might like it better than Mary Poppins! The other movie’s objectively better, but there’s a lot of really cool stuff here: a fantastic female lead, great special effects, and a plot that’s just the right amount of insane to appeal to my taste for the bizarre. Even the dreaded middle part is entertaining in its way, there’s just too much of it. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the stage adaptation turns out- it’s just the chance Bedknobs needs to get the tweaks it really needs. Hopefully they change that awful ending and cut down some of the filler. Then this witch-in-training could really soar.

Favorite scene: It’s gotta be the march of the disembodied suits of armor. It’s such a great payoff to everything Miss Price has been working towards. And seriously, what’s not awesome about a witch fighting N*zis?

Final rating: 7/10. A flawed masterpiece is still a masterpiece.