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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

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This article is about the film. For other uses, see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (disambiguation).
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Original theatrical release poster
Directed byKen Hughes
Written byRoald Dahl
Ken Hughes
Richard Maibaum (additional dialogue)
Based on book:
Ian Fleming
Produced byAlbert R. Broccoli
Stanley Sopel
StarringDick Van Dyke
Sally Ann Howes
Adrian Hall
Heather Ripley
Lionel Jeffries
CinematographyChristopher Challis
Edited byJohn Shirley
Music bySongs:
Richard M. Sherman
Robert B. Sherman
Score:
Irwin Kostal
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
16 December 1968
Running time
144 minutes
CountryTemplate:FilmUK
LanguageEnglish

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 feature film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The film was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli (co-producer of the James Bond series of films, also based on Fleming's novels). Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music, and the musical numbers were staged by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood.

Plot

Set in the 1910s, the story opens with Jeremy and Jemima Potts, who live with their widowed father Caractacus Potts, an eccentric inventor, and his equally peculiar father. While skipping school, they meet Truly Scrumptious, a beautiful upper-class woman with her own motorcar, who brings them home to report their truancy to their father. Truly shows interest in Caractacus' odd inventions, but he is affronted by her attempts to tell him that his children should be in school.

The children have grown fond of a wrecked racing motorcar, and implore their father to buy it before it is sold for scrap. Discovering that one of the candies he has invented can be played like a flute, he tries unsuccessfully to sell the "toot sweet" to Truly's father Lord Scrumptious, a major confection manufacturer. He takes his automatic hair-cutting machine to the fair in an effort to raise money, but it malfunctions. He "hides" from an angry customer by joining a song and dance act, stealing the show and earning enough from tips to pay for the car.

Potts rebuilds the car, which he nicknames Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the noises its engine makes, and he and the children, accompanied by Truly, go for a picnic on the beach, where Truly becomes very fond of the Potts family and vice versa. Caractacus tells them a story about nasty Baron Bomburst, the tyrant ruler of fictional Vulgaria, who wants to steal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and keep it all for himself:

In the story, the quartet and the car are stranded by high tide, but Chitty suddenly deploys huge flotation devices and they escape inland. The Baron sends two comical spies ashore to capture the car for him, but they briefly capture Lord Scrumptious by accident, and then kidnap Grandpa Potts, mistaking him for the inventor of Chitty. Caractacus, Truly, and the children see him being taken away by zeppelin, and give chase. They accidentally drive off a cliff, Chitty sprouts wings and a propeller and begins to fly.

They track him to Vulgaria, where Baroness Bomburst orders the imprisonment of all children, which she abhors. Grandpa the "inventor" has been ordered by the baron to make another floating car, and bluffing to avoid punishment. The Potts party is hidden by the local toymaker, who now works only for the baron. The children are captured by the baron's Child Catcher, and Chitty is discovered and taken to the castle.

The toymaker takes Truly and Caractacus to a grotto far beneath the castle where the townspeople have been hiding their children, and they concoct a scheme to free the children and the village from the baron. The toymaker sneaks them into the castle disguised as life-size dolls, gifts for the baron's birthday. Caractacus snares the Baron and the town's children swarm the banquet hall. In the ensuing chaos, the baron, baroness, and Child Catcher are all captured. The family is freed and fly back with Truly to England.

Jeremy and Jemima finish the story themselves: "And Daddy and Truly were married!" which Truly seems to find appealing, but Caractacus is evasive, believing that the class distance between them is too great. But when Lord Scrumptious surprises them with an offer to buy the Toot Sweet, Caractacus realizes that he has become wealthy, and rushes off to propose to Truly. As they drive off together in Chitty, the car takes to the air again, this time without wings.

Cast

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang landing in Vulgaria.

Songs/musical numbers

Songs include:

  1. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
  2. "Truly Scrumptious"
  3. "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word"
  4. "Me Ol' Bamboo"
  5. "Toot Sweets"
  6. "The Roses of Success"
  7. "Lovely Lonely Man"
  8. "You Two"
  9. "Chu-Chi Face"
  10. "Posh!"
  11. "Doll on a Music Box"
  12. "Doll on a Music Box/Truly Scrumptious"
  13. "Come to the Funfair"

"Doll on a Music Box" is sung near the end of the musical by Truly and is a musical counterpoint, also being sung simultaneously with Caractacus' rendition of the song "Truly Scrumptious". Two songs apparently intended for the film but ultimately relegated only to instrumental background music are "Come to the Funfair" and the "Vulgarian National Anthem"; they were published with lyrics in the sheet music along with the other film songs when the movie was released. The stage version restores these two as vocal numbers. The Sherman Brothers also were hired to write several new songs for the stage production including "Think Vulgar!" which was replaced in 2003 with "Act English", "Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies", "Teamwork" and "The Bombie Samba".

Two songs stand out for the use of musical instruments in the orchestra: "Toot Sweets" – especially in the motion picture – employs a multitude of flutes; and the subject of "Me Ol' Bamboo" is aurally suggested by the xylophone (and accompanies Potts performing a Morris dance with a troupe).

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack album, as was typical of soundtrack albums up until the 1980s, presented mostly songs with very few instrumental tracks. The songs were also edited, with specially recorded intros and outros and most instrumental portions removed, both because of time limitations of the vinyl LP and the belief that listeners would not be interested in listening to long instrumental dance portions during the songs.

The soundtrack has been released to CD twice, both releases using the original LP masters rather than going back to the original music masters to compile a more complete soundtrack album with underscoring and complete versions of songs. The 1997 Rykodisc release included several quick bits of dialogue from the film between some of the tracks and has gone out of circulation. On February 24, 2004, a few short months after MGM released the movie on a 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, Varese Sarabande reissued a newly remastered soundtrack album without the dialogue tracks, restoring it to its original 1968 LP format.

Tracklisting

  1. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ^
  2. Elephant +
  3. You Two
  4. If I May +
  5. Toot Sweets
  6. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
  7. Come to the Funfair (the tune and background lyrics are here, not the entire song as it was cut from the movie)
  8. Me 'Ol Bam-Boo
  9. Potts The Optimist +
  10. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ^+
  11. Truly Scrumptious
  12. All Engines +
  13. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ^++
  14. Lovely Lonely Man
  15. Posh!
  16. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word (Reprise)
  17. The Roses Of Success
  18. Hang On +
  19. Chu-Chi Face
  20. Doll On A Music Box/Truly Scrumptious
  21. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Finale)
  22. A Happy Ending +
  23. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Main Title)
  24. Chitty Speaks +

^ - instrumental used for the film's "exit music"
+ - dialogue track only included on the Rykodisc release
^+ - first vocal performance from the film
^++ - second vocal performance from the film

Locations

Reception

The film went significantly over budget, but was a box office hit. Although it received favorable reviews in the UK, Europe, and the East Coast of the United States, Hollywood was unkind in its reviews. Movie critic and historian Leonard Maltin considered the picture "one big Edsel, with totally forgettable score and some of the shoddiest special effects ever."

Novelisation of film

File:Chitty bang.JPG
Novelisation of the film by John Burke, published by Pan Books

The film did not actually follow Fleming's novel particularly closely, so a novelisation of the film was published around the time the film was released. It basically followed the plot of the film, but there were a few differences of tone and emphasis, e.g. it mentioned that Caractacus Potts had had difficulty coping after the death of his wife, and it made it clearer that the sequences including Baron Bomburst were extended fantasy sequences. It was written by John Burke, but it was not clearly credited to him and some people who read it may have been under the impression that this was Fleming's original novel.

Remake

As of April 2009, a remake of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was possibly in the works. EON Productions, the producers of the James Bond films, purchased the rights to make an adaptation, and planned to make the film under the partnership of Sony Pictures.[1]

References

  1. ^ http://www.filmjunk.com/2009/04/15/bond-producers-team-with-sony-on-new-spy-movie-and-chitty-chitty-bang-bang-remake/
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