Visual Index ~ Mary Poppin's Best Shots

For this week's 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' we wanted to highlight a film that will be the subject of robust conversation this year. I saved this visual index until this afternoon to make sure all the articles were in. See, this Christmas Disney will be releasing Saving Mr Banks which is about "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) and her resistance to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) making the movie back in the day. We discussed that new film's trailer recently so let's hit the source material, Disney's classic Mary Poppins. 

The film opened in August 1964 quickly becoming the most popular film of its year -- adjusted for inflation it was as big in its day as The Avengers was last year. Imagine that! The musical went on to score 13 Oscar nominations and 5 statues: Actress, Visual Effects, Film Editing, Original Song and Original Score.

OSCAR TRIVIA NOTE: This is the only film in the history of the Oscars to win both Best Actress and Best Visual Effects. Mary Poppins best shots after the jump

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Best Shot: Mary Poppins Makes Your Heart Feel Light

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Mary Poppins never explains anything! That's true of both the character and the film, actually. There's no back story (Hallelujah!) and no fussiness about the how and why of her "magic". (Sadly, this movie would never be made today when the mystery is drained from everything). More surprising for a family film there's very little overstating of its message (though Dick Van Dyke does a little bit of singing it directly to Mr. Banks just to make sure he's clear). If you don't believe me, really watch it again. Despite the imposing length (2 hours and 20 minutes) it's structurally smart and so light on its feet that it simply blows in on the East wind and then floats away when the super nanny's mission is accomplished. Like its heroine, the movie is practically perfect in every way.

"Cheeky" - my favorite shot of Julie Andrews in the film

I'll do my best to emulate her and keep my "best shot" explanation brief -- if only I could sing it! though it's a bittersweet task since, if I was choosing a different shot, I'd get to talk at length about how brilliant Julie Andrews is in the movie. Her Oscar win is one of the most unusual choices the Academy ever made for a Lead Acting trophy (no histrionics, no "clips", nothing one might define as Oscar-Bait) and one of their smartest, too. But I'll have to wax rhapsodic about Julie another time and jump right to my choice for Best Shot.

When I was a kid my favorite song in the movie was "Jolly Holiday". I'm not sure if it was because I wanted to dive into the chalk paintings or if I just found it catchy or if I just loved that incredibly funny moment when all the barnyard animals get solo lines and they each sound EXACTLY like a singing version of that animal should. As an adult I still love the song mostly because its such an accurate description of how one feels in Mary Poppins presence: light and grand... your heart starts beating like a big brass band.

Best Shot -- I wish I could see this on the big screen!

But, as anyone familiar with Mary Poppins know, there's a beautiful melancholy undercurrent to the plot and the feeling which is why I'm choosing this moment, right after the chalk painting adventure when Mary and the children have left Bert in the park. It's gray and stormy now but Bert's mood is unaltered. He keeps dancing in the rain, still enjoying the imagined holiday as the colors lose their shape but glow like memories.

This visual motif with a man in near silhouette with a telling splash of color is repeated again (only more empathically) in both the showstopping "Steppin' Time" number (blue) and when Mr Banks is fired from his job (red) but here is where it most beautifully summarizes the film's smart disposition (both firm and truthful but  loose and magical) and the color Mary brings to people's lives.

When the day is gray and ordinary
Mary makes the sun shine bright!

Mary Poppins warns us over and over again -- though not in hamfisted redundant ways -- that all things are temporary. One day childhood will end. Very soon the chalk paintings will wash away. As soon as the wind changes Mary herself will vanish. Mary Poppins would never say anything as mundane as "seize the day" but in her cheeky way she's making sure that we get that each day counts. She recommends feeding birds, flying kites, and a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

Best Shot Steppin' Time
Antagony & Ecstasy - on Julie Andrews' brilliant star turn
Allison Tooey - the feeling it gives
Encore Entertainment - Mary Poppins needs you to get your act together
Entertainment Junkie - on magical realism
Film Actually - defying logic, physics, and gravity
The Film's The Thing - a familiar silhouette
Manuel Betancourt - Julie Andrews Steppin' Time
Stale Popcorn - actually hates the movie!
Serious Film - praises David Tomlinson's Mr Banks
Victim of the Time - the measure of a woman
We Recycle Movies -on childhood nostalgia

Buy a Flower Off a Poor Girl

Another edition of May Flowers is blooming...

abstew here with a look at a film that's so enamored with flowers that beautiful blossoms show up on screen even before the title of the film:

But, the flowers aren't merely decorative... although they are loverly. They line the streets of Covent Garden where the rich come to take in the refined, artistic pleasures of the Opera. And the poor, including our film's heroine, Eliza Doolittle (played by Audrey Hepburn), try to make a decent day's wages by selling the flowers to the visiting elite. The whole series of events that changes Eliza's fate all happens because she tries to sell her violets to one Colonel Pickering (Stanley Holloway). Little does she know that her conversation with the gentleman is being phonetically transcribed by a linguist professor named Henry Higgins (or as Eliza would say, 'Enry 'Iggins and played by Rex Harrison in his Oscar winning performance). Higgins, wondering "Why Can't the English Learn to Speak?", makes the case that it is Eliza's Cockney accent that keeps her in the gutter selling flowers. If he taught her how to speak properly he could pass her off as a Duchess at a ball. The next day she takes him up on the offer, wanting to get a job in a flower shop if he can teach her to speak more "genteel".

And thus begins the transformation of this Eliza:

To this Eliza: 

Instead of selling rain-soaked, trodden bunches of violets, she is now bedecked in rosettes made of pink chiffon and surrounded by lilies in a hot house. What a difference some voice lessons can make!

Unfortunately, Audrey's own voice (singing voice, that is) was more flower seller than Duchess. Though she was cast thinking she would do Eliza's singing herself, producer Jack Warner was secretly having Marni Nixon record Eliza's songs. (Nixon was, of course, the singing voice to the stars. She also did Deborah Kerr's in The King and I and Natalie Wood's in West Side Story. Too bad they didn't ask her to step in for Helena Bonham Carter...). The film went on to receive 12 Oscar nominations (and 8 wins, including Best Picture), but no nomination for Audrey.

Who did win Best Actress that year? Oh, just a British actress making her film debut. She just happened to be the original Eliza Doolittle from Broadway. She took the part in Mary Poppins after Jack Warner determined she wasn't a big enough star for his film. For Julie Andrews, I'm sure success never smelled so sweet.

The Two Maria Von Trapps

The Two Maria Von TrappsTwenty-five years ago today the real Maria Von Trapp passed away or, shall we say, climbed that last every mountain. I recently tried to find footage of her with the other real "Maria Von Trapp" Julie Andrews -- The Sound of Music is so embedded in culture that it's one of those movies that's as real as fiction gets, yes?  YouTube has a bit from the Julie Andrews Variety Hour from the early 70s but it's hard to watch due to the loud buzzing sound on the recording. Pity that because it looks fun.

I've been thinking about The Sound of Music a lot recently since the Captain himself, Christopher Plummer won the Oscar just last month. I want to watch it again right now. Or at least "The Lonely Goatherd" or something.

How many times have you seen it?

5 Days Until The Supercalifragilistic Big Night

Has this film year overstayed its welcome? Let's take a flashback then, way back to April 1965 when Sidney Poitier read out Julie Andrews as the winner of Best Actress. Julie was her typically gracious self repeating her ambiguously directed gratitude (she only really thanked Walt Disney) so much in her short speech she had to stop herself. "...but then I've already said that!"

Sidney Poitier escorts Best Actress Julie Andrews off the stage

I don't think we've ever talked about this particular win (strange that) at The Film Experience but it's quite atypical. "Mary Poppins" isn't a particularly baity role, however iconic. She's also "practically perfect in every way" which leaves virtually no room for a character arc.  Can you think of a Best Actress win that's correlative?

Julie's speech was much cheekier at the Globes. Do you know who she thanked in her speech? The answer is after the jump.

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