Posted on 11/26/2013 4:56:23 PM PST by WilliamIII
No wonder Mary Poppins needed a spoonful of sugar. The forthcoming Saving Mr. Banks is a dark film that tells the heart-breaking true story behind one of the great characters in childrens movie history.
P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the nannys formidable creator, is pitted against Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), who promised his daughters that hed bring Poppins to the big screen. The thing is, that pledge goes against the authors wishes.
Saving Mr. Banks goes behind the scenes of the ferocious battle to make what was to become the famous 1964 musical adaptation. For 20 years, Travers refused to grant the rights to Disney. Eventually she said she would relent, but only if the movie was made to her specifications, which ranged from choosing the precise tape measure used in one scene to the exclusion of the color red from the entire movie.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Mary Poppins (the movie) is wall to wall Statist propaganda.
Scary Mary is genius!
Ah.
Ben. Come on do we have to ruin everything? lol. Happy Thanksgiving by the way.
Happy Thanksgiving to you FRiend.
I’ll steer clear of any and all controversies here, but I do want to say that Mary Poppins is the first movie I remember seeing (it might well be the first movie I ever saw - we did not go to the movies much at all) and I still remember how much my whole family enjoyed it. It’s a very happy and special memory to me.
Another Disney muddle of a great book was Kipling's Jungle Book. The First & Second Jungle Books could have been the basis for a multi-episode saga like the Star Wars or Indiana Jones movies.
I'm reminded of the lawsuit over Disney's ongoing rights to Winnie The Pooh:
Pooh would no doubt scratch his fluff-stuffed head in disbelief at what's going on. Shirley and her daughter, Pati, are embroiled in an epic legal battle with the Walt Disney Co. over the merchandising rights to the world's most beloved bear. Shirley's former husband, Stephen Slesinger, acquired the merchandising rights to Winnie the Pooh in 1930 from his creator, A.A. Milne. After Slesinger died, Shirley granted the rights to Walt Disney himself. Now Shirley's company, Stephen Slesinger Inc., accuses Disney of cheating it out of royalties for nearly two decades. Her lawyers want Stephen Slesinger Inc.'s contract with Disney voided so they can shop Pooh around to competing entertainment companies.Disney vigorously disputes the allegations. The company paints Shirley and Pati as freeloaders whom Disney has made fabulously wealthy through its shrewd marketing of Pooh. Instead of being grateful, argues Disney, Shirley and her daughter have attempted to stretch the terms of a yellowing contract to bag royalties on all sorts of things, even home videos, which were beyond anybody's imagination in 1930.
Billions of dollars are at stake in the lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial in March. Pooh videos, teddy bears, and other merchandise generate $1 billion in annual revenues for Disney--the same amount as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto combined.
-- from the thread The Curse of Pooh (About Disney Lawsuit, which I hope Disney loses)
Most adults were chain smokers in those days
The movie was a wonderful way to spend a few hours. All those who want to find ‘deeper’ meanings in every movie they see probably should not go to the movies.
The score was wonderful and watching Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews together was just plain old fun
Disney...butchering the source material? I don't believe it. Next you'll be telling me that "Hercules" wasn't faithful to the original myths! I'm sorry, but I'm just not that cynical.
Mary Poppins is one of the very best family movies of all time. Hard to think of many that are in that league.
Hanks? - must be a hit job on Disney....
Never much liked Mary Poppins, and Debbie Reynolds should have won the academy award that year for unsinkable Molly brown, rather than Julie Andrews.
“...watching Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews together was just plain old fun”
Julie Andrews is the best, I just love her. And I’m a big Dick Van Dyke fan too. I know some people aren’t crazy about him (for a variety of reasons), but I love him in in Mary Poppins and “The Dick Van Dyke Show” remains one of my top three TV shows of all times. (A big part of that is Rosemarie, I love how she hung in there with the guys at the office when I was a wee gal.)
Never saw it except parts here and there (to sugary or perhaps saccharin for my tastes). Disney was NOT a socialist so I wonder if he GOT IT?
Red? Mary Poppin’s bow tie and scarf are red.
Rosemarie and Morey Amesterdam .shear genius. Lordy they made me laugh out loud so often.
I guess I enjoy entertainment for its own value. The purists will scream but I have other things to focus on.
Thanks for the wonderful reminder of a great show and a really funny set of supporting actors
You are very welcome! Have a happy thanksgiving!
“After seeing how Disney butchered Felix Salten’s classic story Bambi—A Biography from the Forests (Berlin: Ullstein, 1923), I would grant that P. L. Travers has a valid point.”
I read Salten’s Bambi, yes, it was more serious but I’m interested in exactly what way you felt Disney butchered it.
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