Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

One of the great musicals I missed on its first release! It is still so enjoyable and a pleasure to watch on DVD!

This musical captures the mood of the times and the evergreen songs! Such a wonder to the ears and eyes. Dick Van Dyck never did get an Academy award but he sure has made many kids happy through such movies as Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. What a dancer and entertainer!

A fore-runner to the James bond franchise, Chitty was Ian Fleming's seed that spawn the idea of outrageous and outlandish spy gadgets for the fictitious James Bond. Albert Broccolli was to branch out from this landmark movie, Chitty into producing the never-ending Bond movies.

Chitty is one well-crafted, timeless fairytale. Full of suggestive double meanings, it is much like the Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1940s - the type of things that shoot straight over kids' heads and make adults snicker knowingly. With Ian Fleming doing the screenplay, this should come as no surprise.

Dick Van Dyke is Caractacus Potts, a wacky inventor who inexplicably lives in England with his two inexplicably English children. Caractacus Potts...wacky inventor,,, get it? Hoo hah! Potts and his two children live with the senior Mr. Potts in a windmill/laboratory on a hill.

Caractacus rescues a junked motorcar from rusting in a field and restores it to new creation-Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, named after the sounds the car makes. Soon thereafter, in one of those Pipi Longstocking-esque child-arranged dates, Potts and his two children go on a picnic with local rich girl Truly Scrumptious - possibly the best Bond Girl name since Pussy Galore. As the day winds down, Potts tells the children a story, in which the foursome embark on a great adventure in the resplendent Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which Potts has rigged to fly, float, drive itself, and perform other turn-of-the-century Batmobile-like functions.

In dream-like fashion, the troupe ends up in a far away kingdom of Vulgaria ruled over by the Baron and Baroness Bomburst, a terribly sad place where children have been outlawed, rounded up, and kept in a dungeon. The gang and Chitty invade the kingdom to rescue Potts' father, who has mistakenly been identified as the inventor of the flying car and kidnapped. There, they befriended a toymaker who hides the children while they attempt to spring grandpa Potts.

I like Sally Anne Howes, as she reminded me simply of Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. I wonder who was modeling who.

The music and songs are catchy. Watch Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang and have truly scrumptious fun!

Heartsong