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| Genre: | Family |
| Year: | 1971 |
| Rating: | G |
| Length: | 2 Hours 19 Minutes |
| Cast: | Robert Stevenson, Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Roddy McDowall |
Reportedly, Walt Disney had wanted to produce Bedknobs and Broomsticks before making Mary Poppins, but the rights to the Mary Norton novel eluded him. As it turned out, Bedknobs came out after Poppins, and was unfavorably compared to the earlier film. While there are striking similarities between the two productions (notably the presence in the cast of David Tomlinson), Bedknobs has a charm all its own, and deserves to be appreciated on its own merits. Set in wartime England, the film stars Angela Lansbury as a would-be witch who hopes to use her newly acquired conjuring powers to forestall a Nazi invasion. Saddled with three surly kids who've been evacuated from London, Lansbury wins over her charges by performing various and sundry feats of magic. And, yes, she manages to foil a few Germans along the way. The film's best episode is an elaborate undersea fantasy, combining animation with live action on a gargantuan scale, dwarfing all previous Disney sequences along these lines. While Bedknobs and Broomsticks made money, it failed to match the huge success of Mary Poppins; time, however, has been very kind to the film. Hal Erickson
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