Earlier in the year I had read the Ian Fleming novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and enjoyed it. It's rather a short novel and there were some illustrations. When I was at the Half Price Book on Excelsior yesterday there was a copy of the 1968 movie of the same name in the Children's DVD section. I picked it up and watched it today. I put the comic cover up there for no reason, other than I found it when searching for the DVD cover.
Ken Hughes is the director and he shared the screenplay credit with Roald Dahl. Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Fröbe, Benny Hill, Barbara Windsor, Stanley Unwin, Desmond Llewelyn, Victor Maddern and Phil Collins are the names in the cast that I knew. Yes, it's the same Phil Collins that was in Genesis. I didn't know he was a child actor either.
I had seen it years ago and as I remembered the movie is fun and noisy.There's some singing but you can ignore that. They change the story from the novel quite a bit but that doesn't make the movie worse. It's very colorful and there are some great old cars in the car racing segment at the start of the movie. It's where the car that would become Chitty Chitty Bang Bang raced and crashed and burnt.
The wreck gets rescued by Dick and rebuilt. He's got a couple of kids but no wife. The children are the ones that get him to buy the wreck. Sally Ann is the single gal that wonders into their life. They all have an adventure as the car is stolen by Gert. He's from Bulgaria where children are banned. The citizen keep their kids in a secret cave.
Dick, the children, Chitty and Sally Ann soon put that to rights and Bulgaria is free to have children. They had a good time on their adventure and I enjoyed sharing it with them. Glad to have picked that up. I will watch it again sometime.
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