Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's 1940 England. Rawlins siblings Charlie, Carrie, and Paul join the mass evacuation of London children to the countryside. Miss Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury) reluctantly agrees to take in the kids temporarily. She lives in a remote farm. She's overjoyed to receive a broom and become an apprentice witch from the Emelius Browne Correspondence College of Witchcraft. She casts a spell on a bedknob for Paul to make the bed transport vast distances. The school announces its closure and Miss Price takes the kids to London to find Emelius (David Tomlinson). He's surprised that his adaptation of an old spell book actually worked for her. It's high adventure to the animated animal island of Naboombu and then a fight against the Nazis.This is sorta like Mary Poppins but not quite as good. Angela Lansbury is good but she's no Julie Andrews. The songs are not quite as catchy. It's even got the similar animated world for the actors to play with. I can do without the Nazis in a kids movie. This is certainly not too soon but it's still questionable to have a Nazi battle, no matter how comedic, in a family film.

There's more charm to this Disney musical than has been given credit for, even though a huge fan base obviously exists for it. The film was overshadowed by the memory of Disney's previous big movie musical where another British actress (Julie Andrews) shot to super-stardom playing a nanny with extraordinary powers. Here, Angela Lansbury is a wanna be witch who ends up in charge of three kids against her will and assists the British in fighting the Krauts of World War I with the help of her own magic powers.The same song-writing team of Robert and Richard Stevenson have created an equally engaging score, and I think it even tops the one for "Mary Poppins". Lansbury wins your heart immediately when she berates her cranky charges for being past that "Age of Not Believing" then takes them onto a magical journey into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean and into a magical island with its own Lion King and a horde of eccentric soccer playing animals, all with the assistance of her witch professor phony David Tomlinson.More eccentric than his disciplining father from "Mary Poppins", Tomlinson is more than welcomed back and a great co-star for Lansbury. He is hysterically funny in the partly animated soccer match where he is the referee and takes more than his share of abuse from this mythical animal kingdom. Fresh from her success as Broadway's "Mame" (with a few flops in between that have become cult classics thanks to her presence in them), Lansbury proves herself worthy of the movie musical, having been sadly dubbed most of the time when she was at MGM during their heyday.There's a bit of a Harry Potter and "Wicked" feeling to this story with quite the influence of the late 60's/early 70's Broadway feel in the live-action musical numbers. The lyrics are cleverly difficult to sing along with and may have you laughing as you try, especially the final number where Lansbury gets her witchcraft right in aiding a museum filled with ancient war artifacts to take on the German army.Another "Mary Poppins" veteran is back, Lansbury's old MGM co-star Reginald Owen, in one of his final appearances, and Roddy McDowall is amusingly effete as the British preacher who keeps popping in to check on the kiddies. Disney would obviously be influenced by this many years later when making their modern day musical classics such as "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast" (by casting Lansbury in a key role) and "The Lion King".

Bedknobs and Broomsticks was a film of its time. Yes, war is a strong feature - but there are covert references to war and violence in a lot of children's films - Mulan? For me, this is an ideal children's film - there is such a sense of escapism involved, whilst at the same time there is no attempt made to conceal that bad things do happen in life.The moral of this story, in my opinion, is that in the face of adversity there is always hope, and in hope there is strength to face the enemy. Whatever form that enemy might take - kids have far superior imaginations than adults and I don't believe that they would take a negative message from a film like this.

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!