Rating: G
Genre:
Children's/Family
Release Date: 03/24/1998
Dubbed: English
Sound: 5.1
Run Time: 140 min
Distributor/Studio: Walt Disney Video
Long resistant to film adaptations of her
Mary Poppins books,
P.L. Travers finally succumbed to the entreaties of
Walt Disney, and the result is often considered the finest of
Disney's personally supervised films. The
Travers stories are bundled together to tell the story of the Edwardian-era British
Banks family: the banker father (
David Tomlinson), suffragette mother (
Glynis Johns), and the two "impossible" children (
Karen Dotrice and
Matthew Garber). The kids get the attention of their all-business father by bedevilling every new nanny in the
Banks household. Whem
Mr. Banks advertises conventionally for another nanny, the kids compose their own ad, asking for someone with a little kindness and imagination.
Mary Poppins (
Julie Andrews in her screen debut) answers the children's ad by arriving at the
Banks home from the skies, parachuting downward with her umbrella. She immediately endears herself to the children. The next day they meet Mary's old chum
Bert (
Dick Van Dyke), currently employed as a sidewalk artist. Mary,
Bert, and the children hop into one of
Bert's chalk drawings and learn the nonsense song
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in a cartoon countryside. Later, they pay a visit to
Bert's
Uncle Albert (
Ed Wynn), who laughs so hard that he floats to the ceiling.
Mr. Banks is pleased that his children are behaving better, but he's not happy with their fantastic stories. To show the children what the real world is like, he takes them to his bank. A series of disasters follow which result in his being fired from his job.
Mary Poppins' role in all this leads to some moments when it is possible to fear that all her good work will be undone, but like the magical being she is, all her "mistakes" lead to a happy result by the end of the film. In 2001,
Mary Poppins was rereleased in a special "sing-along" edition with subtitles added to the musical numbers so audiences could join in with the onscreen vocalists.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
