Between Walt Disney’s death in 1966 and the studio shakeup of 1984 (Michael Eisner in as CEO/adult-oriented shingle Touchstone’s debut release with Tom Hanks in SPLASH), the Disney film division was barely keeping its head above water with slapdash kiddie fare and infrequent, largely uninspired new animated features. (Even animated classics, no longer holding to the strict 7-year re-release rotation, but put out carelessly in tired looking prints often-as-not projected on machines that inadvertently cropped original screen ratio. No wonder the commercial and artistic appeal of a film that promised to recapture the prestige and grosses of MARY POPPINS/’64 sounded promising. (Not that POPPINS is all it’s cracked up to be, but that’s another post.) Used again here, the same directors splitting live-action & animation; repeat scripters, tunesmiths, orchestrator, background matte men; even nailing POPPINS’ exact running time of 2'19". (Holding back on names as no one is near their best here.) All that was missing was the magic. And they knew it, hastily trimming twenty minutes before the premiere. Later releases kept snipping till all but one song went missing and running time hit 97". (That’s 42" gone.) Another period British musical, this time set in WWII where eccentric, childless apprentice witch Angela Lansbury (first choice Julie Andrews having declined the role*) takes in three London siblings, sent to the country for safety. Hoping to use her witchy powers in the war effort, they head to London to find missing sorcery professor David Thomlinson (uncomfortably cast in the Dick Van Dyke singing comic spot). Tuneless, charmless, and boasting an endless production ‘numbo’ good for a toilet break, it all ends with a museum’s worth of empty armor fighting off a Nazi mini-invasion, but by then it’s hard to care.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Not everything was around for the film’s nearly full restoration. Listen up for some ill-matched vocal dubbing on Thomlinson.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Andrews avoided this flop, but had a similar experience with STAR!/’68 which failed to recapture that SOUND OF MUSIC vibe with much the same team. A bio-pic of musical actress Gertrude Lawrence, it was quickly recut for re-release with less of everything (including ticket buyers), retitled as THOSE WERE THE HAPPY DAYS. (To its credit, STAR! is an interesting failure.
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