The brilliant, captivating, exhausting and nuclear-powered spectacle from Richard and Robert Sherman, Disney’s 1964 live-action/animation hybrid classic, is now reissued on home entertainment platforms for its 60th anniversary. And it comes with a brand new BBFC rating: upgraded from U to PG due to “discriminatory language” from the eccentric character of Admiral Boom, a naval dog who fires a cannon from his rooftop, shouting “Fight the Hottentots!” (an outdated term for indigenous peoples of South Africa, the Khoikhoi). However, the BBFC seems unconcerned about the fox hunting scene, where the fox has an Irish accent (perhaps because chimney sweep Bert, played by Dick Van Dyke, saves the fox), or the lighthearted suicide reference made by one of the servants: “Lovely spot there by the Southwark Bridge, very popular with jumpers!”
In the elite part of Edwardian London, created on almost fairy-tale artificial sets in California, the thriving Banks family of the upper middle class struggles with controlling their high-spirited children, Michael (Matthew Garber) and Jane (Karen Dotrice); it’s the cantankerous banker George Banks (David Tomlinson) and his suffragette wife Winifred (Glynis Johns), always spinning around going on women’s marches. The pompous Mr. Banks springs into action with the self-satisfied song “The Life I Lead” (which owes a melodic debt to “With a Little Bit of Luck” from the stage show “My Fair Lady”).
And so magical nanny Mary Poppins magically descends from the skies to solve all their problems – and it’s a glorious debut in film for Julie Andrews, radiant with health, beauty, and confidence. Andrews will always be associated with this stellar performance and, of course, with her later appearance in “The Sound of Music,” where she also fearlessly tackles family troubles. I’ve always preferred Andrews in “The Sound of Music” because challenging Nazis is more thrilling and worth it than a weak outing feeding (adorable) birds for tuppence a bag, etc. But no one can doubt the deadly force of Mary Poppins. (Naming your favorite alcoholic cocktail a Mary is always a great trivia question.)
But when the stressed Mr. Banks takes the children to his place of work, and young Michael inadvertently causes the biggest run on the bank since Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” this stern family loses its footing and is forced to reconsider their entire life and how he neglected his children in favor of work (though fortunately, this is not a dire situation he remains in for very long).
