ExclusiveDick Van Dyke: Dancing Through a Hundred Years of Happiness

What do you see? Your people gazing at me You see a doll on a music box That's won by a king How can you tell? I'm under a spell I'm waiting for love's first kiss You cannot see How much I long to be free Turning around on this music box That's won by a king Tell me, why... Pardon me, have you seen Professor Potts? Professor what? Uh, Corecticus Potts. He was here just a moment ago. Why, I'm sure I don't know anyone by that name. I'm just waiting here for my friend Bert. What? Oh, I simply must find him and the children. The children? Do you mean to say you've lost them? Why, I'm sure I would never be so careless with my children. Oh, they're not mine. I'm just a friend. They like me to go on rides with them in their motor car. Motor car? How dreadful. Oh, but it's a wonderful car. It's called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Chitty? Chitty what? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Professor Potts made it himself. Why, you'll never see such outlandish goings-on under the watchful eye of Mary Poppins. I'm Rebecca Brannan. I'm Tiffany Brannan. This is Real Thoughts on Cinema. Welcome to the Dick Van Dyke 100th Birthday Special. You know, it can be a bit depressing as classic film historians from our generation because all of the great classic actors we love are dead. Yeah, even people just one generation before us. Could have had the opportunity to interview some of the greats. Even actors whose heyday was in the late 1960s, which is the tail end of the golden era we love, are few and far between these days. One notable exception is the incomparable Dick Van Dyke, a one-of-a-kind performer who recently celebrated his 100th birthday. In an amazing career that has spanned stage, television, and movies for seven decades, he has made such a lasting contribution to entertainment in general. Two films that especially stand out and have really made him lastingly famous are Mary Poppins from 1964 and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from 1968. Mary Poppins is a Walt Disney film starring, of course, Dick Van Dyke alongside Julie Andrews, Glynnis Johns, and David Tomlinson. It was co-produced by Bill Walsh and the director was Robert Stevenson. Mary Poppins is the story of what happens to a British family in the year 1910 when they are visited by a magical nanny. Jane and Michael Banks are two adorable children who have a bad habit of making their nannies quit. Their father is a stodgy British banker and their mother is a flighty but loving woman who's more interested in being a suffragette than a mother. All that changes when Mary Poppins, a magical nanny, comes flying across the wind to apply to the advertisement which they wrote. She quickly proves that she not only is fun-loving, cheerful, and rosy-cheeked, an excellent leader of young minds, she takes the children on a series of fun adventures alongside her good friend, chimney-sweep artist and one-man band Bert, and the children, as well as their parents, learn that there's more to family life than simply following routine. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a British film made by Warfield Productions and released in the United States by United Artists. It was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli. It stars, of course, Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries and Gert Ferb. The unusual title of this film refers to a race car which after a bad crash ends up in a junkyard. An eccentric inventor, Caractacus Potts, at the request of his two children, takes the car and rebuilds it into an amazing, shiny new vehicle. One day, as they take it on their first drive to the seaside, he tells the children a fanciful story all about an evil baron who has come from the mythical country of Bulgaria to try to steal the car. But the film ultimately begs the question, is it a story or did it really happen? I've always found these two films are almost inexplicably linked. They just go together. They make for a very long double feature because each one is 140 minutes. The most obvious thing which they share is that they both star Dick Van Dyke. He is sort of the ultimate small town boy makes good story and his career is just wild. It's just a wild ride, kind of like these two films. How many varying paths it took. Just starting out in a small town of Danville, Illinois. He was in choir and did some theater in high school. Then he dropped out in his senior year of high school to join the Army Air Force. In World War II? In World War II, that's right. It took him a while to be accepted because he was underweight. But finally after he ate a lot of bananas and drank a lot of water before going for the physical, he finally was able to get it. That reputation of being really tall and skinny is something he has kept his whole life. That's right. He got into doing radio announcing while he was in the Army. Then he ended up doing some different radio work in his early career and did a sort of a mime act with another performer and eventually ended up on the CBS morning show with Walter Cronkite. While that was a good job, he really didn't enjoy that because he was a physical performer. Just sitting there being a newscaster was really not what he wanted to do. He ended up actually kind of sabotaging the show because he kind of wanted them to fire him. Meanwhile, he was in New York, so he was constantly auditioning for every show. His big break came with Bye Bye Birdie in 1960. He played the lead role of Albert Peterson in that show and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. That just opened the doors because Carl Reiner, a great television writer and comedian, had this concept for a TV series with himself as the star because it was based on his own experiences as a comedy writer. Right, being the writer particularly on the Sid Caesar show. Right. The idea was that it would perfectly blend an office comedy with a home comedy all about this writer's professional life and his personal life. But the pilot just didn't go over well, so he thought that was the end of that. But then the producer told him, this concept is good. I don't want to let this die, but we need to recast you. You need to find somebody better to play you. And the producer suggested Dick Van Dyke. And Carl Reiner went to see Bye Bye Birdie and he said, there will never be a better version of me than Dick Van Dyke. So he cast him in the role and that show just took off. And it was just sort of something new in television, the way that it blended these two styles of showing someone at his work and at home and just really sort of set a mold for what television comedy really should be. And it had this great vaudeville talent in it with Maury Amsterdam and Rosemary and then new young talent with Mary Tyler Moore. So that ran for five seasons and it really showcased an interesting blend of Dick Van Dyke's personal background because they say his character is from Danville, Illinois. His character worked on radio. Blending his own experience with that of Carl Reiner. And people got to see just all the things he could do. He was, even though now he's so old, 100, at the time, he always felt that he was born too late because he loved silent comedy. That's right. He was born in the 1920s and he would have needed to have been an adult in the 1920s to actually perform in that, although he did throw in some silent style comedy. The very physical comedy he did, yes, really had root. And in The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as in some of his movies, he would do things that were like silent films. Even the very famous opening of The Dick Van Dyke Show, where he comes in and trips over the Ottoman, is inspired by something from Charlie Chaplin's last silent film, Modern Times. And now talking about these two films, I think that the reason why people really know who Dick Van Dyke is today is mainly Mary Poppins. Right, because a Disney film, it has that lasting legacy as a Disney film. And he got so many offers to do movies while he was doing The Dick Van Dyke Show, but because of his personal beliefs and his religion, he was a Presbyterian, has been his whole life, he just wasn't interested in doing what the content was starting to be like at that time in films. And he did make the film version of Bye Bye Birdie in 1963, but he said in an interview, I don't think there's enough quality entertainment being made for children. And Walt Disney saw that interview and called him and asked him to play Bert. So Bert is an interesting character in that he's not the father of the family, he's not definitely a romantic lead. I know some people say that there's no romance between Bert and Mary. I've always felt there is. Well, the author of the original books, P.L. Travers, who it's been quite publicized she was not very happy with this film, but she did have script approval, that was part of the contract, and she very explicitly stated, I don't want there to be any interromance between Mary and Bert. But I think they kind of put it in anyway. Yeah, and they're not engaged or anything, but it's sort of like everyone loves Mary Poppins. Right. And the thing is, you don't really know anything about what her background is. And Bert doesn't seem to have any magical powers per se. He certainly has a lot of talent, he's always doing something different. There's something about him, though, he matches her whimsical nature. He seems kind of timeless in the same way that she does. And he clearly has a history with her. He knows that she has the ability to jump into chalk pictures and be flying around on the ceiling laughing. And because of that whimsical quality of his character, Dick Van Dyke was able to show off a lot of his different talents. Singing, dancing, jumping around and doing all his athletic things, making funny faces, and doing his different accents and voice imitations. And the amazing thing about a really great performer is to see it when they're very modest. And he's always been very modest about it, like, I wasn't really a singer, I wasn't really a dancer. And he kind of became a song and dance man doing Bye Bye Birdie. But, you know, Julie Andrews was this very trained singer. He said it was difficult because she would sing almost sharp, almost on top of the pitch. And he had a little bit of a tendency to be flat. So he had to really kind of rise to her level. But they just really hit it off immediately. And she thought he was just wonderful to work with. And his career has included more references to Mary Poppins over the years, hasn't it? Yes, definitely. They finally were able to make a sequel in 2018 because they wanted to right after the success of this film. And the author said, no way, you're not touching my story again. But they finally were able to in 2018 with Mary Poppins Returns. Emily Blunt. Now she can't do anything. That's right. And he made a cameo appearance in that as the son of the old banker in Mary Poppins, which was the other part that he played in the film. And that's such an interesting, funny thing about this movie. Not only does he play, of course, his own character of Bert, but he plays Mr. Dawes Sr. And people now love commenting that at 100 years old, he actually looks like he looked then. As they aged him forward. Because all too often in movies or stage works, there's a look they give actors like, oh, he's being old. They'll tend to make the character have grey hair, maybe some facial hair, draw in some lines. But usually there's a certain structure that remains of the face and a slenderness that unfortunately not everybody retains in old age. But Dick Van Dyke basically looks like that. He looks old, but he still has white hair, a beard, wrinkles, and he's still thin. So in Mary Poppins Returns, he played Mr. Dawes Jr. and he did a dance number on the table at 92. And then recently, wasn't he in a stage version? Yes, there was a revival of the Broadway version of Mary Poppins and I believe he played the role of the old banker in the film. I was sort of, I think it wasn't for the length of run, I think it was one performance and he made a special appearance, but that was very recent. It was like 98. And the two children in Mary Poppins were not told that that was Dick Van Dyke doing the part. And they were both afraid the whole time that the horrible old man was going to fall down and die. He's very convincing, it's very impressive. I remember my first kind of cognitive memory of actually seeing this film, I remember our father's like, do you know who that was playing the old man? No. And then it goes to the credits where it says Nav Kid Cade and then it unscrambles and it's Dick Van Dyke and I was just blown away, I couldn't believe it. First watching it now, you can recognize him, but it's just, you wouldn't think, I mean, why would that be him? That doesn't even enter your mind if you don't know that. He just, when he first read the script for the film, he just thought that character was so hilarious, he was loving to play the part and Walt Disney actually made him audition for it. Because, you know, obviously he thought, how are you going to play that old at his age? But it's just perfect. Now that movie ended up winning several Academy Awards, didn't it? Yes, it was the most, it's the most Oscars any Disney film has won. And the first time that someone won an award for acting in a Disney film. Oh, interesting. That being, of course, Julie Andrews won the Oscar for Best Actress. Because of the success of that film, that actually led to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That's right, producer Albert R. Broccoli really wanted to recreate the success of that. It's not a remake in any way, sort of, but it was inspired by that and he got the same talent for the music, so the Sherman Brothers to do the music and Dee Dee Wood and Mark Rowe to do the choreography. It's very unusual that the Sherman Brothers were doing something that's non-Disney. Because from this era, it was after my entire childhood that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a Disney movie. Because it was Dick Van Dyke and it was the same kind of music. I was like, wait, this isn't a Disney movie? And he said in an interview at the time, this film will out Disney Disney. It's sort of like a British version of a Disney film, but it has a lot of that same magic. Once you're a little older and if you really study the films, you can see that it's not a Disney film, but it has a similar magic. And I think the reason why these two movies, along with The Sound of Music, another Julie Andrews film from 1965, I always consider these special movies because they're unlike movies that were being made at that time. And our main focus in film history is the era of 1934 to 1954, which is the motion picture production code era when Joseph Breen was in charge of the production code administration. By the mid-60s, it had been the Sherlock era for 10 years, and that was Geoffrey Sherlock, who was British, and Mr. Breen's successor at the PCA. So under his not-too-watchful eye, Hollywood just fell apart. Now the one thing that remained much more traditional, family-friendly and wholesome was Disney. As long as Walt Disney was alive and in charge, he kept Disney having those same wholesome family values. But I always was struck by The Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for being equally wholesome, decent and uplifting when they weren't in the films. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is interesting because it's a British film. And during that class era, British films were kind of racy because they were not of the same standards. But clearly, he was inspired by that same style, that family-friendly nature. Originally, the first choice for the role of Truly Scrumptious was Julie Andrews. That role was tailored specifically for her, and no one's sure why, but she turned down the part. Interestingly, Sally Ann Howes, who ended up playing the role, replaced Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady on Broadway when Julie Andrews went to join the London Company. So that was what they thought, she took over for her in that, she can take over for her in this film. I personally am very glad that that happened because as much as I love Julie Andrews, I think Sally Ann Howes is so perfect in the part. And it makes it less of just a spin-off. Yeah, I think it would have made it too much like, okay, we're just trying to be Mary Poppins. Yeah, it's different. She's very different as a performer. I mean, you can see the similarities, but I think she really brings a unique quality of her own. Yes, she does. And maybe by not being as much of a star herself, I think Nicola Knight gets to shine even more because it's really his story. Yes, it is. Yeah, it's interesting to see how, although the stories are kind of similar, the characters have shifted. They both are about two young children, a little boy and a little girl. Of course, the father is a widower in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Right. But there is, in both cases, this woman who is not their mother who plays a really important role in the children's lives. She comes in and kind of changes their lives. Yeah. And Dick Van Dyke goes from being this lovable friend to actually the father in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And so as a result, he is much more the focus of the movie. He gets to have a more dramatic acting performance. Although it's only four years later, he seems much older. Yes. Partly just allowing him to be more his actual age because he was a little like Greg Temples because he's playing a father. Yes. It's automatically a more mature role. You get the impression he's, you know, a bit older than truly, but not... Not a lot. Not a lot, yeah. And something interesting I just found out about this film is that it was based on a book by Ian Fleming, who is best known for being the creator of James Bond. Yes. And Roald Dahl, a famous author of Willy Wonka and James and the Giant Peach, wrote the screenplay and kind of did the story adaptation. And he had also just adapted You Only Live Twice, one of the James Bond movies. And Albert Broccoli was the producer of those. As a matter of fact, this was the last non-Bond film he made once after starting that series. So this is basically the whimsical version of James Bond. There you go. You've got a lot of gadgets. You've got fancy cars. You've got Nazis, reportedly. And reportedly, Albert Broccoli actually called Dick Van Dyke in his office during the making of this film and offered him the role of James Bond. And he said, You heard my British accent in Mary Poppins, right? And then Albert Broccoli was like, Oh yeah, that's right. Well, never mind. Speaking of that, in Mary Poppins, as Bert, he does a Cockney accent throughout. I've always thought it's really good. Yeah. And apparently, no one said anything about it during filming, but afterwards he received a lot of criticism for it. Particularly from British critics, because, you know, they're British. They're British and they're snobs. Yes. Understandably, you know, it's your native accent. You're going to be more sensitive about it. But the whole thing about Mary Poppins, and this is something else that sets it apart from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, it's very much an American look at English. It really is. Even though most of the actors are British, like you've got Admiral Boone, this retired naval admiral who's always firing off cannons from his roof. And he says things like, Oh, I'm going to find it. The expressions that he uses, the expressions that David Tomlinson uses. Yes, they're British, but they're a bit stereotypical. Right. And I understand he uses one nautical term, which was from the American Navy, not the British. So even though they had more British performers than the average American film, it still is an American look at British. Yeah, it wasn't nearly as British as Miss Travers wanted it to be. She wanted an all British cast. And I think the fact that it's, maybe it's not a perfect Cockney accent, but it's very unique to this character. He's a very unique character. There's nobody else like Bert, so there shouldn't be anyone else with an accent like Bert. That's right. And it bothered me. I don't know. I know he, when accepting the part in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, he said, I won't even try to do a British accent. He really didn't want to do this film, I think for that reason. They hadn't, they had to offer him, I understand, something that was in seven figures and a share of the film's profits before he would do it. And I think it was, he felt kind of insecure about doing something British. But I honestly never, ever thought about that growing up. Like, this is set in England. How come he's American? I've always imagined, you don't know anything about his mother. I've always thought maybe his mother was American. Maybe he went to school in America because his father is very British. But I think if he had been trying to do an accent in this particular role, it works in Mary Palpins, for this role, I think it's so sincere and it's a very human character, very down to earth. And I think if he'd been doing any kind of an accent, that would have been too much of an affectation. You wouldn't have been able to see through this. True, you find that with many actors, even if they do a good accent, they don't seem as natural. It's hard to act really naturally when you're feigning an accent. And Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has always been very close to my heart growing up. You know people talk about this film like defined my childhood. It's always kind of that for me. And I think I always just related so much to seeing Dick Van Dyke as the father in this film because he reminds me a lot of our father. And so I think I just, it felt very personal to me and I just, I love his character in it so much that he's so much fun and so whimsical and you have to wonder about, you're truly concerned about like his children aren't in school but you just see how much he loves them and you know that they've been well brought up just because of having so much love in their hearts. It's an interesting contrast between the Potts children and the Banks children because the Banks have a very well ordered life. They've got a nanny, a cook, a maid, both a mother and a father and a series of nannies but neither of their parents really gives them the time of day. They don't get that personal family love. Mary Poppins is the first one who really cares about them and they end up turning to Bert as a more loving father figure than their own father. And so Mary Poppins has to teach them how to be a loving family as opposed to the Potts children. Maybe their clothes are on inside out and they're kind of raggedy and they have dirt on their faces but their father really loves them and their grandfather really loves them. And they just have a fun whimsical life. They truly believe that they live in a castle that King Alfred inhabited. The magic of the character of Cractacus Potts is that he never lost that childhood whimsy and I think that's something that makes it feel like a Disney film. Disney was always all about keeping that joy that you have as a child. And I always love a story where you're kind of like, did it happen? Did it not happen? And then the crossover between reality and fantasy is just very beautifully done. And I understand that was a very last minute addition to the script. It was supposed to be this whole adventure to Bulgaria really happened and then they decided to frame it as this fantasy story so then you have that kind of mystery quality to it. That is one of the more interesting things about it. It's interesting to look at the two different scores. Some of the songs are very similar. For instance, Step in Time in Mary Poppins which is a dance that Bert and all the chimney sweeps do is very similar to Mule Bamboo in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which is a dance that Krafticus Potts performs with this troupe of dancers at a carnival. And the melodies are very similar. The choreography has some similarities. I'm sure those are some of the same dancers. Yeah. Like I said, the melodies are very different because there's a definite Sherman Brothers sound and I think that they did a good job of stepping outside of themselves on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang because some of the melodies are very different. You've got like Hushabye Mountain. Such a tender, beautiful lullaby. Probably the most comparable to Feed the Birds. Or perhaps Stay Awake because it's a lullaby from Mary Poppins. But the way it's that minor melody. The score of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has, in some ways, I think, more of a mysterious kind of sound and even more classical at times. Perhaps because it was a British production even though they were both set in England. And I definitely think that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang seems more like it could have been a stage work first. Of course, we know that they both were made as movies and later adapted into Broadway musicals. How? I don't know. Honestly, they both really they're so magical. They're so iconic. I see a little more of it. Yeah. The flying car. I love that flying car. Of course it's done and I've seen clips of it. But I just think how can you recapture the magic of those original performers? That's thrill. As well as what they did with the cinematography. But I definitely see what you mean that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang feels so much more European because they did all this location footage. And being just four years later or maybe it's because it's British. I think you really start to see kind of more of the shift in the way movies were looking. Even just the color. Some cinematography. There's a moment that's always stood out to me which is right after he sings Hushabye Mountain there's this scene where Crack Kiss goes out into the yard and he leans on this fence and they show him with the sunset kind of shining on him and I've always thought that scene looks like it could be from a much later film. Yeah. It could be from the 70s or 80s. And there's just something about the quality of the look the way the light is reflecting off the camera that you just didn't really see earlier in film. And you see it throughout this movie but because it is whimsical and very bright colors so it has sometimes the feel of an old MGM Technicolor musical. But there's something about that moment and it's interesting. So you see how this film was sort of at a crossroads. Yes it was. Mary Poppins stayed more in the classic storybook style typical of Disney to capture that era. Even including the most memorable animated sequence combined with live action. This is one of the few times you see Disney doing that in the 1960s because that's what they did back in the 40s. That's right. Their first live action films were these crossovers because animation was Disney's thing. But to see how they have that so beautiful whimsical jolly holiday number which is definitely the most whimsical part of the whole movie. Yes. And the most colorful. But they bring in that even the makeup is much more old style color. Yeah. With the way Mary Poppins looks as opposed to like you said the more modern look of the makeup and the color cinematography in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There are some more sophisticated themes in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which you appreciate even more as an older or you know an adult. Or even just if you know more about the history of the world or the history of time that there's very strong messages in that relating to World War II. And almost even World War I as well because the movie takes place around 1913 right before the beginning of World War I. Both of these films you know they're set right around the same time and neither of them were in their source material were set in that period. They were both in the modern day. Really? So they're both made into period pieces. That's interesting. It definitely makes sense with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang they were trying to make it like Mary Poppins. Mhm. And it you know it begins in the typical English countryside. Very fanciful. You've got the sweet factory the huge musical number. And then it takes on this foreign fairy tale meets Nazi-ism. It still is in that old European style like the costumes of the Baron Bomberst and all his court are a bizarre blend of eras. Like sometimes he's wearing a costume that looks like what an Austrian emperor would have worn. One of his associates looks like Napoleon. Yeah. I've always noticed that. Yes. Sometimes he's very Wagnerian. He's learning opera. Lederhosen. He wore Lederhosen at one point. There definitely is some Nazi symbolism as well. It's pretty obvious. Notably in when they go to Bulgaria that they find all the children are being hidden underground because the Baroness hates children they've been out a lot. I think that was sort of play on the Jews having been hidden in Europe. And a very memorable character in this I remember scares you very much when you're a little girl the Child Catcher. Yes. It's amazing when we found out that he was played by Robert Helpman who was one of the great British ballet dancers in the 40s and 50s and very memorably in the Red Shoes. He did a lot of stage acting as well didn't he? Right. And he's a very creepy character. He's so scary. He has so pale long black hair and his prosthetic nose but if you know he's a dancer you can see he's kind of like dancing. And it's not a lot but if you weren't a dancer you couldn't do it. And that character is said to have been inspired by a Nazi scientist named Josef Mengele who did a lot of human experimentation particularly on children and he would give them candy to kind of gain their trust. And if you really think about it that scene when the Child Catcher kidnaps Jeremy and Jemima it's actually a very good cautionary message for children because that's how I don't know what the statistics are but so many kidnapping cases and things like that it's kind of like step into the truck there's ice cream inside that scenario and so it's and that's one of the more frightening parts of the film and in the aftermath when you see how concerned their father is about them and going to save them something that really struck me re-watching Mary Poppins when I was watching particularly the Step in Time number is I know that the big Broadway dance number goes back a long way but there was something about the style of that number in this film and then the Mule Bamboo or the Tootsie number in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that I think it kind of set the mold for ushering in a new era of Broadway and styles musicals and even they're very few and far between now but the few movie musicals that you see more recently like all the men doing the sort of acrobatic balletic dancing it reminded me of Newsies and that of course started as a Disney film so I think this Mary Poppins particularly that Chimney Sweep number I think that really became sort of a benchmark for what a big Broadway musical number could be yeah these both are very interesting in that they have that Broadway style but neither one was a Broadway musical at the time and I think that although most Disney films were musicals at this time most live action there's something about the music for Mary Poppins that is more Broadway in style because the two stars were Broadway stars and Dennis Johns was also a Broadway star she I'm not sure how much she done up to that point but I know later she would debut Desiree and a Little Night Music by Sondheim so that's right like the three main performers were all Broadway stars who originated some very big parts and they wrote so many songs for that movie over the course of production there were only 30 songs there were a lot of songs in the film but a lot of them didn't make it one was later used in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Walt Disney just loved this score so much particularly Feed the Birds that was his favorite song sometimes after day work he would call up the Sherman Brothers and ask them to come over and he would just say play it and Richard Sherman would play it and sing it for him and he'd say all right have a good weekend play to the steps of St. Paul's the little old bird in her own special way to the people she called by my bags full of crumb feed the little birds show them you care and you do so bless his tuppers from you tuppers a bed that's what she cries to the skies all around the cathedral the saints and apostles look down as she says her who can't see it you know they are smiling each time someone shows that he cares simple and few listen she she's calling to you feed the bird tupper sub tupper I always have found feed the birds so moving and it's it's such an unusual moment and you see the the old bird woman who is actually played by Jane Darwell, who was a much older actress back in the 30s. She was in a lot of the Shirley Temple movies. She plays the mother in Grapes of Wrath, so this was her last film appearance. She actually was retired, she was living in a retirement home and they asked her to do this film and she didn't want to and Walt Disney went and personally called on her because he really wanted her for the part and so she was moved that he wanted her that much and she agreed to do it. It's such a wonderful tribute, this movie. You've got Jane Darwell, along with Arthur Treacher, who also was in some Shirley Temple movies, alongside Broadway performers like Dick Van Dyke, who was also a television star, and Julie Andrews, these great child actors. Reginald Owen, who plays Admiral Goleman's great actor in the 30s. So it's an intersection of these wonderful actors from the past, stars of the future, big television stars and stage stars of the day, and then all of that was beautifully mixed up and recreated in a very different, but equally charming way in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And I was fascinated to find out, quite recently, I'd forgotten this, that Roald Dahl did that screenplay because, especially in the Tooth Sweets number, you know, it's a candy factory, you can really see how that would later inspire Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and also the names of the characters, how they... Obvious names, Crackpot, Crackpot, yeah. Truly scrumptious, so that's very... Which you also see in Mary Poppins. That's true. Mr. Banks, he works at the bank, Admiral Boom, you know. There's less of it than that, but... First of all, Roald Dahl didn't originate it, Charles Dickens was noted for doing that. I think one thing that makes these movies so timeless is the fact that they weren't set in the 60s. They were set in sort of the end of a golden era, before either World War, which would have changed the world. Not even in the 30s, the original time periods. Yeah, because it had that, like, that last golden age of peace before the lost generation and all the depression and wars. It's true. So it's a final look at the golden age of Europe before that time. My outfit is based on the first and most famous costume worn by Mary Poppins. She has a full blue skirt with a white blouse, a little red bow, a black coat, a smart little hat with cherries and flowers on it, and of course, always her signature, sometimes talking, umbrella. While Truly wears some beautiful Edwardian outfits, I went with a more unusual costume, which she wears when she's disguised as a doll in a music box during the fantasy sequence. It is a very traditional German dirndl, which is a full skirt, an apron, a white blouse, and a bodice, with a very German or Bavarian hairstyle. It's amazing to see, like, especially in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, you can tell that Dick Van Dyke isn't 20 anymore, he's a mature man by that point, and the movie was now made so long ago. It's like, how could he possibly be alive? It's amazing. But it's equally impressive, and you can see how he would have such longevity and agility because he's keeping up with those other dancers who are probably half his age in all the dance numbers in both these films. Yes, one of my favorite stories from behind the scenes in this movie is that during filming of the Tootsuits number, he felt something pop in his leg, and he thought, oh, just hold a muscle, it's fine. Because he would never warm up before doing a dance number. And then after a couple days, he couldn't walk without limping, so he went to the doctor. And the doctor told him, you have arthritis all over your body, you won't be able to walk without a cane or wheelchair in five years. And he surprised the doctor by getting up and dancing for him. And then, of course, 50 years later, in Mary Poppins Returns, at the age of 92, he did a dance unassisted. And I know he's been a big advocate of Tai Chi and other forms of exercise throughout his life, and it's important to just keep going. He's quite an inspiration, I think, for how you should try to stay agile and active throughout your life. You see on The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as in both these movies, how agile he was. He probably is double-jointed and has hypermobility in his joints, which is probably why he was having arthritis when he wasn't that old. That's true, that makes sense. People who have that can get arthritis much younger. So it's like a two-edged sword. You can both have amazing flexibility, but it's too much flexibility. But he says, at the age of 100, he has no pain. That's crazy. I know he sort of joked, if I knew I was going to live that long, I would have taken better care of myself. He was doing something right, I don't know what to say. I mean, I have a 17-year-old who's riddled with arthritis, but you know. A lot of it is spiritual, too. He said he's never really given to anger or hate. He's just tried to just really love life and love what he does. I know he said he thinks hate and anger is a thing that ages you, so that's why he's tried to avoid that. And if you are familiar with Dick Van Dyke, or you've seen his name trending on social media, as it has been since his birthday in December, I'd say watch these two movies. Explore them. It's just one tip of his great talent, but definitely two of his greatest features. You can find them very easily for rent or for purchase on Amazon Video, YouTube. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is often free on Tubi. Of course, if you have Disney Plus membership, you can see Mary Poppins for free. And both these films are available in remastered DVD collections. However you decide to watch these movies, they both are wonderful, clean, inspiring and just heartwarming entertainment for the whole family, no matter what age you are. Thank you for watching our special. Goodbye!