Bedknobs and Broomsticks


Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a 1971 American live-action/animated hybrid musical comedy fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi and with songs written by the Sherman Brothers. It was produced by Walsh for Walt Disney Productions. It is based upon the books The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks by English author Mary Norton. It combines live action and animation, and stars Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, and Roy Snart.
During the early 1960s, the film entered development when the negotiations for the film rights to Mary Poppins were placed on hold. When the rights were acquired, the film was shelved repeatedly because of its similarities to Mary Poppins until it was revived in 1969. Originally at a length of 139 minutes, it was edited down to almost two hours before its premiere at Radio City Music Hall.
The film was released on December 13, 1971, to mixed reviews from film critics, some of whom praised the live-action/animated sequence. It received five Academy Awards nominations, winning one for Best Special Visual Effects. It was the last film released before the death of Walt Disney's surviving brother, Roy O. Disney, who died one week later. It was also the last theatrical film Reginald Owen appeared in before his death the following year on November 5, 1972; his last two acting credits were for television. It was also the last film work of screenwriter Don DaGradi before his retirement in 1970 and death on August 4, 1991.
In 1996, the film was restored with most of the deleted material re-inserted back into it. A stage musical adaptation of it had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne on 14 August 2021 before embarking on a UK and Ireland tour until May 2022.

Plot

In August 1940, during the Blitz, three orphans named Charles, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins are evacuated from London to Pepperinge Eye near the Dorset coast where they are placed in the reluctant care of Miss Eglantine Price, who agrees to the arrangement temporarily. They attempt to run back to London, but change their minds after observing Miss Price flying on a broomstick. Revealing that she is learning witchcraft through a correspondence school with hopes of using her spells in the British war effort against the German Army, Miss Price offers the children a traveling spell on a bedknob in exchange for their silence, which they accept. Later, she receives a letter from her school announcing its closure, thus preventing her from learning the final spell. She convinces the children to use the bedknob to go to London and locate her teacher Professor Emelius Browne.
Mr. Browne turns out to be a charismatic street magician who created the course from an old book as a joke, only to be shocked to learn that the spells work. He gives the book to Miss Price, who is distraught to discover the final spell, Substitutiary Locomotion, is missing key pages. The group travels to Portobello Road to locate the old bookseller who sold Browne the book; the missing pages reveal that the spell is not in the book, but engraved on the Star of Astoroth, a medallion that belonged to a sorcerer of that name. The bookseller explains that Astoroth experimented with magic on animals before anthropomorphism drove the animals to kill the wizard, take the medallion, and flee to the remote island of Naboombu. According to a notation in the book, a 17th-century lascar had claimed to have seen Naboombu, but the bookseller never found it. Paul confirms its existence by revealing a storybook that he found in Browne's townhouse.
The group travels to Naboombu and lands in a lagoon, where Mr. Browne and Miss Price enter a dance contest and win first prize before the bed is fished out by a bear, who informs the group that humans are not allowed on the island by royal decree. They are brought before the ruler King Leonidas, who is wearing the Star of Astoroth. Mr. Browne acts as a referee in a soccer match in order to appease King Leonidas and the animals' love for the game. The chaotic match ends in King Leonidas' self-proclaimed victory, but Mr. Browne swaps the medallion with his referee whistle, and the group escapes back to Miss Price's house. Miss Price exercises the Substitutiary Locomotion spell, which imbues inanimate objects with life, but they quickly go out of control. When she is informed that the children can be moved to another home, she decides to let them stay, realizing she has come to care for them and vice versa. The children even beg Mr. Browne to become their father so they can become a family, but Mr. Browne later bids goodbye to the group and sleeps at the train station so that he can catch a train back to London in the morning.
A platoon of German commandos land on the coast via U-boat, invading Miss Price's house to use as their headquarters for a fear-spreading raid while imprisoning her and the children in the local museum. At the train station, Mr. Browne subdues two germans and heads back to Miss Price's house, where he turns himself into a white rabbit to avoid the army. Reuniting with Miss Price and the children at the museum, Mr. Browne inspires Miss Price to use the Substitutiary Locomotion spell to enchant the exhibits into an army. The army of knights' armor and military uniforms chases the germans away, but not before they destroy Miss Price's workshop, breaking the spell and ending her career as a witch. Despite the setback, Miss Price is happy that she played a small part in the war effort.
Afterwards Miss Price decided to adopt the children while Mr. Browne kept his promise and became the children's adoptive father and must depart with the Home Guard he was enlisted in, while Mr. Browne and the soldiers leave, the children are upset the spells are over, but Paul still has the bedknob which still has the traveling spell and will take them on more adventures.

Cast

  • Angela Lansbury as Miss Eglantine Price. Miss Price is initially a somewhat reclusive woman, reluctant to take in children from London as she believes they will get in the way of her witchcraft, which she prefers to keep secret but hopes to use to bring the nascent World War II to an end. However, she bonds with the children and falls in love with Mr. Browne during their journey. She becomes the adoptive mother to the Rawlins siblings at the end of the film.
  • David Tomlinson as Mr. Emelius Browne. Introduced as "Professor Browne", the title by which Miss Price knows him, he is running a Correspondence College of Witchcraft based on what he believes to be "nonsense words" found in an old book. When Miss Price and the children find him in London, he is revealed to be a street performer and con artist, and not a very good one. He is, however, a smooth talker, which proves useful on the group's adventures, and believes in doing everything "with a flair". As the adventures unfold, he finds himself developing an attachment to Miss Price and the children, a feeling he struggles with; Browne becomes the adoptive father to the Rawlins siblings at the end of the film and enlists himself in the military, while promising his new family that he'll return.
  • Roddy McDowall as Mr. Rowan Jelk, the local clergyman. Deleted scenes reveal Mr. Jelk to be interested in marrying Miss Price, largely for her property.
  • Sam Jaffe as Bookman, a mysterious criminal also in pursuit of the Substitutiary Locomotion spell. It is implied that there is some history and bad blood between him and Mr. Browne.
  • John Ericson as Colonel Heller, leader of the German raiding party which comes ashore at Pepperinge Eye.
  • Bruce Forsyth as Swinburne, a spiv and associate of the Bookman's who acts as his muscle.
  • Cindy O'Callaghan as Carrie Rawlins. Slightly younger than Charlie, she takes on a motherly attitude toward her brothers, especially Paul. She is the first to encourage a friendly relationship between Miss Price and the children.
  • Roy Snart as Paul Rawlins. Paul is about six; his possession of the bedknob and the Isle of Naboombu children's book lead to the group's adventures as well as the eventual solution to the quest for the Substitutiary Locomotion spell. Paul is prone to blurting out whatever is on his mind, which occasionally leads to trouble.
  • Ian Weighill as Charles "Charlie" Rawlins. Charlie is the eldest of the orphaned Rawlins children; eleven, going on twelve, according to Carrie, an age which Miss Price calls "The Age of Not Believing". Accordingly, he is initially cynical and disbelieving of Miss Price's magical efforts, but comes around as time goes on; it is at his initial suggestion that Ms. Price uses the Substitutiary Locomotion spell on the museum artifacts.
  • Tessie O'Shea as Mrs. Jessica "Jessie" Hobday, the local postmistress of Pepperinge Eye and chairman of the War Activities Committee.
  • Arthur Gould-Porter as Captain Ainsley Greer, a British Army captain who comes from HQ in London to inspect the Home Guard and becomes lost in the area. He is constantly running into locals who suspect him of being a Nazi in disguise.
  • Reginald Owen as Major General Sir Brian Teagler, commander of the local Home Guard.
  • Cyril Delevanti as Elderly Farmer
  • Hank Worden as Old Home Guardsman

    Voices

  • Bob Holt as Codfish, a denizen of the Naboombu lagoon who judges the underwater dance contest.
  • Lennie Weinrib as King Leonidas, a lion who is the ruler of the Isle of Naboombu. He is a devoted soccer player with a fearsome temper, as well as a notorious cheat who is known to make up the rules as he goes along, according to Paul's book. Leonidas' voice is based on Robert Newton's interpretation of Long John Silver from Disney's live-action adaptation of Treasure Island.
  • * Weinrib also voices Secretary Bird, a prim and proper type who is King Leonidas's secretary, and often bears the brunt of the King's outbursts.
  • Dallas McKennon as Bear, a brown bear who is a sailor and fisherman on the Isle of Naboombu. He is the one who pulls the bed, with Miss Price's group on it, out of the lagoon with his fishing pole, and takes them to see the King after warning them of his temper.