Well, I figured i’d kick start the new year with a bit of cheer and merryment, and they seldom get as cheery or merry as ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ the unholy union of the guy who wrote the ‘James Bond’ books, teaming up with the guy who wrote ‘The Witches’ and ‘James and the Giant Peach’ to create simulatneously the most delriously eccentric and terrifying work the 60s had to offer.

Its a bit of a nationwide staple is ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ around this time of year, some watch it around christmas time, others prefer to have it on in that weird gap between the 27th of December and New years (I fall into this camp) but in the UK its usually playing somewhere and is something of a festive favourite alongside similarly bizarre and troubling films like ‘Oliver!’ and ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’.

The plot?..Thats a loaded question. But i’ll give it a go. Its 1911, and Two kids find a rundown car in a junk yard thats alledged to have been a world champion racer for 3 years on the bounce. The kids love the car, but a scrap merchent threatens to buy it and melt it down…Unless of course the kids can cough up 30 shillings (approximately £155 in todays money, or nearly $200 American).

They head home and tell their dad, who reveals (to the audience) they are in fact poor…SO very poor, and they dont have that kind of money just lying around to buy broken cars with. It turns out the dad is an eccentric inventor whos inventions almost never work, who’s also taking care of his aging father, who’s also an eccentric, who believes he’s still in the military (whether he ever actually was to begin with is up for debate).

Anyway a chance encounter with a lady called ‘Truely’ sets our inventor up with a meeting at a sweet factory to try and sell his latest invention, the ‘Toot Sweet’ a sugar stick you can blow like a whistle. it passes the audition, but an EQUALLY chance encounter at a fair ground with a man who gets a particularly bad hair cut from our inventors ‘automatic haircut’ machine ends in greater success, when he joins in on a random carnie side show and makes the 30 shillings for a 3-5 minute performance all in one go.

Anyway; they buy the car, they do it up, they take it out for a ride (along with Truely) and while spending the day at the beach, the dad recalls a tall tale about a group of nasty folks from a faraway european country called ‘Vulgaria’ who’ve heard about the car, and its supposed magic ability to fly and float on water…and they want it. Cue a madcap adventure to Vulgaria complete with Elder-napping, Noncery and traumatising visuals, guarenteed to ensure your kids wont WANT to see January 2nd.

It’s got to be *AT LEAST* 13 years since I last watched this film all the way through, I remembered always having a quite sincere soft spot for its whimsical nature. But the curse of media literacy, and 7.5 years of film journalism (not to mention the 20+ years of film making) has had devestating consiquences on my ability to enjoy movies…So much so that rewatching this now, I had to deal with my nostalgia trying to overlook simply unforgivable things about this film.

For a starters, I completely forgot that this film is nearly two and a half hours long. HOW?! How is this movie nearly 150 minutes long?! It absolutely doesnt warrent it. it has NO business being this length. and that factor alone has a devestating impact on the scripting.

The first act, CRAWLS. It CRAWLS…to get to a place where it starts picking up steam. I had completely forgotten most of the first act going into this, I had always just assumed the film started with Carattacus Potts bringing the car into the workshop and slowly working to get it up to speed.

I’d COMPLETELY forgotten about the extended race car intro that goes on for approximately 25 years, the kids arguing with the scrap man, the family finance issue plotline, the first meeting with Truely, a good 2-3 of the musical numbers in that opening half hour. and its PAINFUL waiting for this thing to ACTUALLY kick in and BE the movie I want it to be.

It isnt really till around the half way point that we actually get into the more fantastical elements of the production, and they’re fun, dark at times, but largely in a way that invites the audience to laugh along, rather than recoil (child catcher aside of course.) But by that point i’d felt like i’d been waiting in an airport departure lounge for a week.

And I think thats a core issue with this script, the characters are great, when they’re doing whimsy and charismatic things…But when that isnt happening, its like their entire personalities fall off. they just become exposition spreaders and not much else really…and because the whimsy doesnt really begin till the 2nd half (with the fair ground and the sweet factory sequences as VERY notable exceptions) I found myself getting impatient for the actual film to start proper.

From there the second and third act are largely fine, charming, witty, genuinely funny in places. But because of the ‘epic’ runtime, it has a real problem trying to establish and stick with tone. on one side of the see-saw you have Potts and Truely doing pratt falls, physical comedy and funny faces. On the other, you have the baron trying to kill his wife, the child catcher leering on children and questionable language choices such as ‘Fuzzy Wuzzies’. its disorienting. My understanding is that the brief was to try and make a film with a plot that replicated the Grimms fairytale type structure…and on that front they do succeed…But at what cost I ask you?

I dunno, Im conflicted on this rewatch about the structural integrity of the script. I feel like had it been 90-100 minutes and it had binned off most of the opening act, alongside tightening up the tone to help (if nothing else) make the contrasts a bit more consistent, it could have been absolutely perfect. As it stands, I feel most people forget the *thud* that lands with this film when the hit play.

The direction and cine are probably the films 2nd strongest elements honestly (outside of the performances) we have creative direction and cinematography a-plenty here, its exploding with possibilities, unusual decisions that just somehow work and fantastical visions that make it stand out as a film that has clearly lasted the test of time. Only matched by some superb cast direction that delivers moments that are burned into the minds of the nation. perfect set placements, perfect designs. I LOVE the look and feel of this film visually and its probably one of the sole reasons the film is remebered so fondly. Because while the scripts a bit of a mes, the ‘feel’ this film has is frankly unmistakable.

Easily however, the thing that saves this film and probably the best aspect is the casting. From the top; Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffreys, Gert Frobe, Anna Quale, Robert Helpmann and Benny Hill? No notes. Perfection. Its a remarkable thing to get THAT MANY folks who just so perfectly personify the characters they’re being asked ot play. its frankly insane to have so many bottles of lightning all in one movie, but they somehow do. Its incredible.

Thats not to do a disservice to the rest of the cast however, who also all deliver remarkably good performances that mix high energy with some genuine feeling and deliver an outcome that manages to really get things over the line and cooking. I wont go as far as to say their isnt a BAD performance here…Just that I cant recall any.

And tying it all together is the soundtrack, which is best described as ‘A third of tracks I dont remember at all, that are utterly forgettable. A third of tracks that I vaguely remembered, but largely didnt care for. and a third of tracks that absolutely blow me away and are some of the finest musical numbers ever composed.’ the films that fractured. Truleys song lamenting Caratticus was NOT my cup of tea at all, but an addled ex-army general singing about being carried off to ‘the posh life’ while being kidnapped in his shed by a blip, while ALSO getting dunked like a biscuit! YES PLEASE!

Hits include ‘Me old bamboo’, ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, ‘The posh posh travelling life’, ‘Doll on a music Box’, ‘Choochie face’ and much…MUCH…MUCH MUCH more. go nuts. you’ll find at least half a dozen you like.

Having given it time between rewatches, i’ve found with this instance that ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ frustrated me, I really wanted to like it like I used to, I wanted to enjoy it the same way I recalled enjoying it in my memories. But the reality is, its overlong, tonally all over the place and a big chunk of the songs are just flatlining.

There is an incredible movie in here, and I think with some re-editing I could love it a HELL of a lot more than I did with this watch…But for now, I think im going to need a bit of time before I give this one another spin.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/chitty-chitty-bang-bang/