Mary Poppins – 50th Anniversary Edition: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Two banker’s children lose their nanny due to her frustration with them. A change in the wind blows in an assertive nanny who matches the qualifications of the children and not the father. As she helps them magically explore the world around them the father grows increasingly disapproving of her methods, and must eventually deal with his own distance from his children.
I can remember being a kid and watching this for the first time and being absolutely enamored with this film. Everything about it attracted me to it and I just remember thinking how much I wanted Mary Poppins to be real. Every time my mother would make me take medicine the only way I would oblige was if we sung “A Spoonful Of Sugar” and I would walk around the house singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to no end (even though I most likely wasn’t pronouncing it right). It’s those moments that make me realize just how influential this film was to so many people. Even kids now are discovering it for the first time and will have their own memories about it. Andrews and Van Dyke are so absolutely good together and ultimately own every scene they are in. If you’re a kid, Andrews herself just makes you feel like maybe having a nanny isn’t so bad and her nurturing side is practically motherly. Van Dyke is such a fantastic physical actor and will get in there and jump around with the rest of them as previously proven on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He’s the first comedian that I remember doing a lot of sight gags for the laughs and although there wasn’t a whole lot of that here there was tons of theatrical physicality which I’m sure was demanding. Another thing that I was really impressed about was the mixture of animation and live-action. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but this was probably one of the first film of its kind to do that. There were moments where Van Dyke and Andrews were in a scene with animation in the background and once they stepped out of the way the cartoon characters stepped up into the foreground seamlessly. This film really has stood the test of time and I predict will continue to do so until the 75th and eventually Centennial Anniversary. It will be passed on for future generations to enjoy its magical message…..I’ll be doing that for sure.
Special Features:
Becoming Mr. Sherman – Jason Schwartzman (who plays Mr. Sherman in Saving Mr. Banks) has a sit down talk with Richard Sherman himself as they talk about composing songs for the film.
Mary-Oke – A great karaoke style sing-along with various musical numbers in the film.
Disney on Broadway – Almost an hour documentary that looks in to the Broadway adaptation of the beloved film.
Backstage Disney – Another great feature that looks at the behind the scenes aspect of the film including the premiere party.
Music & More – A fantastic group of featurettes that look more at the musical part of the film and how they arranged it. It also includes a deleted song by the name of “Chimpanzoo”
The Cat that Looked at a King – A great little short starring Andrews featuring a story about a talking cat.
