Our fine four-fendered friend!
Having noted the success of
Disney's
Mary Poppins, its
1964 Edwardian Era musical,
Metro Goldwyn Mayer sought three years later to re-establish its position as the leading purveyor of musical films by hiring the Sherman Brothers, the same song-writing team that had scored
Poppins, to adapt another period piece into a big-budget musical extravaganza. The result was
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Caractacus Potts (an English inventor
with an American accent played by Dick Van Dyke) rebuilds an old wreck of a race car and makes a few slight improvements, such as
giving it the ability to fly. With his kids, grandfather and the beautiful daughter of a candy mogul, Caractacus travels to the distant, vaguely
mitteleuropäisch land of
Vulgaria (location shooting for the film version was done around the
Bavarian castle of Neuschwanstein and in the medieval town of Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber), where they get in trouble with the country's
Evil Aristocrat leaders who
hate children, but like their car (hey, it's better than
a Lada). Naturally, they steal both.
The book it's based on was written by
Ian Fleming.
Yes, THAT Ian Fleming. Gert Fröbe, who played the Baron, also played Auric
Goldfinger.
Benny Hill was the Toymaker. Oh, and the screenwriter was
Roald Dahl. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Displacement: The original novel has the family go to France on an impromptu holiday, where they end up breaking up a crime ring. So Yeah...
- All Just A Dream: All the parts with Vulgaria and the car flying (except the very end) are a story Potts tells to his children while on a date with Truly.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Baron and Baroness Bomburst, the leaders of Vulgaria
- The Baroness: The Baroness
- Unlike most examples this Baroness is in fact an actual baroness. She is married to a baron and lives in the capitol of a barony.
- Child Hater: Having been written by Roald Dahl, Vulgaria naturally has its whole culture built (very illogically) around this.
- Cool Car: Guess...
- The Edwardian Era
- Flying Car: Especially remarkable when you consider the film is set in the ballpark of ten years after the invention of the airplane
- Gentleman Adventurer: Played with. Grandpa Potts thinks he's this trope, but he's really just insane.
- More likely just eccentric, he never seems to take it seriously beyond the cosplay.
- Gorgeous Period Dress
- Man Child: Baron Bomburst, ironically
- Nightmare Fuel: The Vulgarians employ a "child catcher". I think we'll stop there.
- Not Even Bothering With The Accent: Dick Van Dyke is in a movie set in England with English actors playing the other members of his family and he still uses his American accent. Of course, we all know what happened the last time he attempted a British accent.
- Parenting The Husband: Baron and Baroness Bomburst
- Punny Name: Truly Scrumptious
- Also, Caractacus(say it really fast, and drop the "acus") Potts.
- Robinson Goldberg Contraption: Pretty much everything in the Potts Household is set up this way, by Caractacus himself.
- Ruritania
- Steam Punk
- Swing Low Sweet Harriet
- The Fifties: The original novel was set in postwar Britain, with the titular car being a vintage barn find Caracticus bought because neither he nor anyone else in the Pott family wanted to be the twelfth family on the block with a black Morris Minor.
