Bedknobs and Broomsticks has a special place in my heart ever since my late dad took me to see Angela Lansbury's Disney classic at my local Odeon cinema in south London in 1972. I was but four years old and totally enthralled, insisting Father Christmas deliver me the album of the film I'd seen in Woolworths. I played that on endless repeat throughout the 1970s.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks was the first musical I'd ever seen and to watch such a magical spectacle unfold on a big screen has obviously clouded my judgment somewhat in concluding that Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the best live-action musical produced by the Disney film studios.
The movie followed three siblings, Charlie, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins, who during World War Two were evacuated from London to England's south coast where they were billeted (by Tessie O'Shea no less) to go and live with the very eccentric, motorbike-driving spinster Eglantine Price, played by Angela Lansbury, who they soon discovered was an apprentice witch! Cue them all going on a magical adventure thanks to an enchanted bed knob which whisked a double bed to any location the youngest child Paul cared to mention and hooking them up with Professor Emeritus Brown (David Tomlinson) a delightful if dubious magic show man who'd been 'selling' spells to Miss Price as part of a made-up university's correspondence course. He was shocked that his 'mumbo jumbo' spells actually worked, as he found out when Miss Price turned him into a cartoon rabbit!
For many reasons, Bedknobs and Broomsticks has been compared to Mary Poppins, a Disney musical made seven years previously, as both involve magical women who sing and dance and have their quirks and oddities.
They both end up looking after initially sceptical children, but those comparisons have often been unfavourable to Bedknobs and Broomstricks. Mary Poppins was released in 1964 so came first and for this reason has the better reputation of the two among many Disney fans who simply believe Bedknobs was a downgraded version of a very similar story. But as we shall explore below, I believe this is totally unfounded. Out of the two, I think Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the better movie and here's why...
My assessment of The Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins cast
British stars Angela Lansbury and Julie Andrews had ruled the stages of London's West End. Mary Poppins was Julie Andrews first ever movie role, and although she was fantastic I felt Angela Lansbury had more of a movie pedigree by 1971, with The Picture of Dorian Gray and Blue Hawaii to name but two, and I just felt she gave Eglantine the right amount of eccentricity needed for her lovable witch. Julie just played it as a strait-laced nanny who did some magic as the job required, but within the bigger plan of bringing Michael and Jane Banks closer to their parents, particularly their dad.
To give credit to both Julie Andrews and Angela Lansbury, both actors actually sang the songs themselves without dubbing as had been the case with many musicals in the 1950s, 60s and 70s — go check out My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Gigi and Oliver! So in my opinion, this puts both as a star rating above many leading ladies in musicals of that era.
Around 1969, Julie Andews had actually been offered the role of Eglantine Price in Bedknobs and Broomsticks first but sensibly turned it down as she didn't want another 'magical lady' role which could typecast her. Angela stepped in and the rest is history...
The child actors in Bedknobs and Broomsticks were Iain Weighill as Charlie, Cindy O'Callaghan as Carrie, and Roy Snart as Paul and as a South Londoner I think I identified with these three Rawlins kids and their cockney-ness much more than the Poppins pair (and the less said about Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent in Mary Poppins the better of course).
Michael and Jane Banks were cute in their own way, but were essentially little rich kids lacking parental love. Charlie, Carrie and Paul were scampish and weren't above a bit of bribery to get their way, even using blackmail to get some better food on the table by threatening to tell all about Miss Price being a witch! The three young Bedknobs actors were just less 'stage school' and more of the real world than the Poppins duo and I stick by this with every viewing. I'm not sure of the actors' history before Bedknobs but I see Cindy O'Callaghan went on to play Andrea Price in EastEnders — wondering now if the Walford surname of Price was an inside joke re Angela Lansbury's Miss Price.
David Tomlinson had the luck to appear in both movies as Mr Banks and Professor Emeritus Brown. He absolutely shone in both, there's no doubt, and held Mary Poppins together for the main thrust of the story, in that he was a father who loved his children dearly but was unable to show it, until Mary Poppins intervenes.
In Bedknobs, Emeritus Brown was the interloper and a con man who put together a bogus correspondence course to which Miss Price had signed up and paid for. He truly shone through in Bedknobs during the cartoon scenes, taking Eglantine's arm under the sea for a Strictly-style underwater ballroom spectacular and then refereeing a football match between wild animals on the island of Naboombu! Apart from the Let's Go Fly A Kite finale in Mary Poppins, Mr Banks had less of an opportunity to shine.
Comparing the songs
Firstly, it has to be said that both Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks have wonderful songs by the legendary Sherman brothers but for a young teenager, Bedknobs hit the mark. We were all at the Age of Not Believing once, and me more than anybody 'rushing around doubting everything I ever knew' mainly that . So it was a song that hit home more than say Spoonful of Sugar.
I so wanted to be like the kids accompanying Miss Price with the spell Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee on the sidelines, clicking my fingers and bouncing up and down and making clothes and suits of armour come to life.
Cutting two songs With a Flair recorded by David Tomlinson and Step In The Right Direction by Angela Lansbury, was absolutely monstrous. Who cares if their inclusion pushed the running time to 2 hours and 20 minutes? My four-year-old self wouldn't have minded one bit, and back then, my attention span was pretty low.
These two songs are Sherman brothers' classics and the only way to hear With a Flair and Step In The Right Direction is to go on Ebay or Amazon and try to get your hands on the 1970s Bedknobs and Broomsticks vinyl album, which I'm so grateful to still own, despite the many scratches! Luckily, I think you can still get them through Alexa and Spotify, too!
I do admit there's nothing quite as emotional as Feed The Birds from Mary Poppins, but I don't think that song really fed into the movie's narrative that well. After all it was essentially a song about a stranger who had no lines in the film. All songs in Bedknobs and Broomsticks stuck to the story wonderfully.
The human actors mixed in with animation sections worked equally well in both movies with the song Beautiful Briny hitting all the right notes in Bedknobs as Eglantine and Mr Brown danced an underwater routine with an octopus, flounder and cod among other aquatic delights in a lagoon ballroom. This was a much better format than the fox hunt and dancing penguins in Mary Poppins on their English country outing cartoon sequences. A little-known fact is that Beautiful Briny was originally intended for Mary Poppins but was rejected and thankfully ended up in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
The plots and scenes
Both movies are based on classic children's novels Bedknobs and Broomsticks by author Mary Norton which is actually the combination of two books The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks.
Nanny Mary and Eglantine Price both practice magic, but only Bedknobs has the honesty to call Miss Price a witch, albeit an apprentice one. Mary should be considered a witch too, but the 1964 never addresses this, so it is much less honest. Bedknobs and Broomsticks revels in the witchcraft and celebrates it in a light-hearted manner. There's much more of the children in this film, revealing who and what Miss Price is, which is exactly what children at that age do!
There was never any suggestion of love between Dick Van Dyke's Burt and Mary Poppins... it was strictly a magical arrangement to impress the kids Jane and Michael Banks. Romance was strictly off limits, as Mary was far too much of a prim and proper nanny for that type of nonsense, although they did undoubtedly dance well together with cartoon penguins and chimney sweeps! As Craig Revel Horwood might say if they were Strictly contestants: 'Where was the chemistry?'
Clearly Eglantine Price and Mr Brown develop a love for one another as they would. Wartime often brought romance and the movie never shied away from it.
Above all what gives Bedknobs and Broomsticks its heart and gravitas is World War Two going on in the background. It's why the evacuated kids were sent to Miss Price in the first place, why they were so worldly wise as they knew the dangers, and it was why Miss Price was trying out witchcraft — to be of some help in the war effort. Remember in 1940 when Britain was in the grip of fear that Germany was about to invade. We found out nothing about how Mary Poppins acquired her magic and if she was prepared to use it in defence of the realm. It was primarily for smaller things, like tidying up rooms and magical outings. There was just a slight hint of wider politics in Mary Poppins, as Mrs Banks was a suffragette. Otherwise, it was a deferential world of servants, privilege and doffing one's cap to your betters, plus cleaning their chimneys without health and safety!
In Bedknobs, even invading Nazis got their comeuppance from Miss Price and her army of knights, all to music, so definite echoes of The Sound of Music there!
What I liked above all in Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the kids' role in helping to initiate the magic, particularly young Paul who was owner of the magical bed knob and successfully worked out the secrets of Astoroth long before the adults. All three children helped in the magical investigations and making the all-important spell of Substitutiary Locomotion work properly by singing along with Miss Price. The kids were part of the spell-making process in Bedknobs not just the beneficiaries of the magic as in Mary Poppins.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks has the best unintended funny moment
Of course there are classic moments in both movies but my absolute favourite appealed to my childish schoolboy humour when young Paul Rawlins declared in Bedknobs and Broomsticks: "What's that got to do with my knob?" in one unintended piece of innuendo. Whether the producers intended it or not, it's a snigger-out-loud moment for most of us watchers even today. See the wonderful clip below...
There's no such moment in Mary Poppins I can think of, but my favourite is when Michael Banks was taken out for the day to the bank where his father worked and demanded his penny back. The day at the bank must have been so dull compared to the days out with Mary and Burt riding cartoon carousel horses and flying through the air whenever he laughed.
The faults
I have to admit there just aren't too many faults in either Bedknobs and Broomsticks or Mary Poppins aside from the laughable Dick Van Dyke cockney (I wont' even say 'mockney' as I think Dick himself thought he was doing a good job). But in its way the accent had charms of its own and became part of the immense Mary Poppins history.
As per above, I still don't think the songs With a Flair and Step In The Right Direction should ever have been cut from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I loved all the songs on my album and these two were just as good as those that remained in the final cut.
It's also a shame we never got to see more of Roddy McDowall's vicar character Mr Jelk in Bedknobs. A hero of mine since the early Planet of The Apes movies, Roddy only gets two short scenes, one that involves flying clothes and his hat levitating. Apparently Roddy had more scenes than this, but they were cut as the film was thought to be overly long! I personally would love to see a 'Directors Cut' longer version, a bit like they did with Apocalypse Now, so director Robert Stevenson could put back in Roddy's scenes and also include the deleted songs (there I go again!).
Where you can watch both Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins so you can compare.
Make a lazy Sunday of it and watch both Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins back to back so you can judge for yourself.
Both are currently available on the Disney Plus streaming service, plus regularly repeated during holiday seasons like Easter and Christmas on the BBC.
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