Julie Andrews is Mary Poppins, a magical, musical, nanny, with rosy red cheeks, hired to control a couple of kiddies who are naughty in a turn-of-the-20th-century upper-class type way (they chase kites so are home late for tea).

"I always found suffragettes completely beguiling... did they all wear bustles like that?"

"Well, if you allow a man to fire a cannon on the top of your house what do you expect?"

"Oh! The life of a chimney sweep looked so much fun!"

"It is all very clean and nice to start with and then those chimney sweeps ruined it for me. At times a messy, dusty, movie. "

"I can never watch the 'feed the birds' song without a tear coming to my eye. Thank goodness feeding the pigeons is illegal today."

Mary Poppins leaves because the wind changes... The father (George Banks (played by David Tomlinson)) gets sacked from the bank (he gets his job back at the end). He recognises that he has been too grumpy with his children (Jane Banks (Karen Dotrice), Michael Banks (Matthew Garber)) and changes on the advice of a chimney sweep, don't laugh it could have happened in 1910... Chim chim...

One of those memorable childhood movies which is still pleasantly watchable today.

The cartoon and live action pieces are memorable and tuneful. Thank goodness this movie is not too sugary sweet. The movie's heart is in the right place: it's sort of educational in a light-hearted frivolous kind of way.

Julie Andrews was pretty much perfectly cast in the roll. Dick Van Dyke was also well cast, although his accent sounds funny to an English ear, not quite cockney (which he is supposed to be) and not quite not American.

"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

"In every job that's to be done there is an element of fun..."

A nice movie, peppered with memorable scenes. A little too pro officialdom perhaps but everything turns out nicely in the end. Nice tunes, cutting edge (for their time) cartoons and live action and Julie Andrews could not have been bettered.

April 10, 2004