December 23, 2010

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Recently, I have been working on the journal of the Picture Books course, including giving feedbacks for groups’ presentations that introduced us to some well-known picture book illustrators. While I was searching for detailed information of one book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car written by Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond) and illustrated by John Burningham, I found a 1968 musical film on Youtube having the same title and also featuring a racing motorcar. It turns out that the musical was adapted from the picture book, and I wondered how the original story would be elaborated with dance and music. Moreover, the finding that the leading actor is Dick Van Dyke, who also starred in one of my favorite musicals Marry Poppins (or to put it more succinctly, he acted as Cecil Fredericks, the villain in the comedy Night at the Museum) even piqued my curiosity to watch the film. 

It starts with the early twenty century when people were enthusiastic about car racing. Caractacus Potts, the protagonist, is an obscure inventor as well as a single father of two children, Jeremy and Jemima. When the children overhear that their favorite toya wrecked racing motorcar of their neighboris going to be sold for scrap, they implore their father to buy it. In order to realize the children’s dream, Caractacus is desperate to earn money, including touting for a whistle candy called “toot sweet” and bringing an automatic hair-cutting machine to the fair. Fortunately, Caractacus happens to join a song-and-dance show while hiding from an angry customer due to the screw-up of the hair-cutting machine. Amassing considerable tips after the outstanding and impromptu performance, Caractacus brings back the neighbor’s wreckage and refits it into a refreshing and splendid car. Its name is “Chitty” because of the weird sound “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” on starting the engine.

Meanwhile, the absence of mother in the family is filled in by an upper-class lady named Truly, who gets along with the children and has affection for Caractacus. When driving Chitty to the beach, they imagined themselves setting out an adventurous journey to a mysterious land called Vulgaria, which is ruled by a vicious king Baron Bomburst. Baron uses every means to get Chitty, but ends up capturing Caractacus and Truly’s fathers accidentally. While following after Baron’s crew, Chitty is unbelievably smart that he can transform into a boat or an airplane at the critical moment, and even knows the direction during night. Eventually, they call on public to overthrow Baron’s dictatorship and return home triumphantly. The children conclude the story with “And Daddy and Truly were married”, so they really do in the end.

As we can see, the second half of the story is based on characters’ fantasy, but the vivid scenes and the breathtaking experiences spice up the whole film. Besides the creativity of the story arrangement, I was much amazed at how versatile the actors and actresses were at that time compared with nowadays celebrities. For example, on the song-and-dance show choreographed with sticks, Dick Van Dyke did an excellent job with the dancing group by showing great dexterity and consistent motion. As for Sally Ann Howes who played Truly, there is a scene of her imitating the rotating music box by singing and doing a doll dance. It was so realistic that I kept replaying the part afterwards to appreciate her perfect performance.

It was such a pleasure to relish some old classic films that have distinctive styles from the current filming industry, especially when seeing those actors and actresses dedicating themselves to the films that later on becoming the representative of the time. Therefore, I think Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and other classic musicals like Sound of the Music (starring Julie Andrew) serve as a reminder that movies should not be commercialized like most of the Hollywood ones, but marking the feature of the history and even creating history. 

0推薦此文章
Today's Visitors: 0 Total Visitors: 15
Personal Category: Junior CC Journal Entries Topic: creation / literature / column
[Trackback URL]

Post A Comment









Yes No



Please input the magic number:

( Prevent the annoy garbage messages )
( What if you cannot see the numbers? )
Please input the magic number

誰來收藏
Loading ...
unlog_NVPO 0