Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
SiCo
EnglandPosts: 1,371M
If you haven't bought the new special edition DVD boxset get it!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000BZND8/absolutelyj0d-21
It is one of the best collectors DVDs I have bought, not to mention all its Bond connections!
Unfortunatley it isn't available in the US by the looks of things. The box set even contains a small car from Corgi, did the Bond DVDs with cars ever materialise?
If you like the film buy it, if you didn't buy it and you will like it!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000BZND8/absolutelyj0d-21
It is one of the best collectors DVDs I have bought, not to mention all its Bond connections!
Unfortunatley it isn't available in the US by the looks of things. The box set even contains a small car from Corgi, did the Bond DVDs with cars ever materialise?
If you like the film buy it, if you didn't buy it and you will like it!
Simon
Comments
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was written by Ian Fleming and produced by Albert R "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman!!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Gawd luvva duck, Guvnor! M'name's Bond, Jimmy Bond.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000C2IQD/absolutelyjam-20
Studio: M G M, Inc
DVD Release Date: November 25, 2003
DVD Features:
New high-definition digital transfer with 5.1 audio
32-page storybook
Sing-along feature
Chitty The Musical sneak peek
"Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke"
"A Fantasmagorical Motorcar" featurette
Read-along featurette
Sherman Brothers song demos
"The Ditchling Tinkerer" featurette
Original Dick Van Dyke interview
The Potts Children's featurette
Vintage advertising gallery
2 interactive games
DVD-ROM printable coloring pages
Full-screen and widescreen anamorphic formats
Number of discs: 2
If it is identical it will come in quite a nice cardboard sleeve, I will leave you to discover the surprise!
National Post
Swap martinis for sugary treats
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is like a bizarro Bond world
Chris Knight
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Quick quiz: This 1968 film was based on a book by Ian Fleming, produced by Albert Broccoli, and features a love interest called Truly Scrumptious and a character played by Desmond Llewelyn who introduces viewers to a car equipped with an ejection seat.
If you're trying to remember whether James Bond was played by Sean Connery or George Lazenby, give up. The film is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, based on the one children's book Fleming wrote, and best described as a bizarro Bond world in which vodka martinis and caviar are replaced with sugary treats, and clever gadgets fry up eggs and sausages instead of dispatching spies.
The DVD out today features a fullscreen and widescreen version of the story of two kids, their crackpot inventor dad (Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts, which could almost be a Bond villain's name) and the no-double-entendre-intended Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes). Together they pilot the titular flying car to an exotic yet evil (i.e., threateningly Germanic) realm in which children have been banned by a nasty baron (Gert Fröbe, another Bond link; he also played Auric Goldfinger).
It's not the fastest-paced kids' film around, but at close to 2 1/2 hours will fill up a good chunk of a rainy Saturday. No commentary track, but there is a cute sing-along feature that puts the words to the various musical numbers up on the screen. There's also a short feature on Rowland Emmett, the eccentric English inventor whose oddball machines populate the film (they will, incidentally, be on display at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto from Dec. 20 to Jan. 4); an interview with the man who owns the street-legal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car; and a bizarre contemporary interview with Van Dyke, in which journalists visiting the film set solemnly ask the comic actor what's wrong with American television, how family values can be upheld, and what he thinks of those new mini-skirts.
Van Dyke also has a line in the film I always imagine coming from a young Sean Connery: "You'll find a slight squeeze on the hooter an excellent safety precaution, Miss Scrumptious." He is, of course, referring to proper use of the automobile's horn.
Now, if true Bond is your thing, MGM also released last week volumes 2 and 3 of its James Bond collection, meaning all 20 films are available in box sets. They're a mixed bag -- volume 2 includes Connery at his finest in You Only Live Twice, and Roger Moore somewhat less so in Moonraker; volume 3 has latest outing Die Another Day, and also-Bond Lazenby's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. However, each disc comes with a commentary by the director, and sometimes cast and crew. There's a making-of on each, and usually another feature that covers one aspect of the franchise: a biography of Fleming; a tribute to producer Broccoli and another to his partner, Harry Saltzman; a brief history of title sequences, music, set design, special effects and so on. Some of the more unusual tidbits:
Curse of the Bond titles: We Have All the Time in the World, the theme to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was the last recording made by Louis Armstrong; Duran Duran's A View to a Kill theme was their last before the band split up. Coincidence?
Everybody does it better: Skim through 40 years of television, radio and theatrical trailers and you'll quickly realize a pattern. "Bond is back," they say, followed by some variation on how this movie will top all others. Following this reasoning, the next Bond movie, number 21, will knock Citizen Kane from its perch atop greatest movie lists.
Somebody does it better, so we'll borrow from him: The theme music to The Spy Who Loved Me is based on a Mozart piano concerto.
Merchandising madness: You thought The Cat in the Hat was big on the product tie-ins? A gallery of photos on Thunderball shows the movie-themed pillowcase, pencil case, binder, watch, camera, race car set, belt buckle, water gun, pen, action figure (with more clothes than Barbie), trading cards, lunchbox and thermos, jig-saw puzzle and about six different board games. For the older fan, a toiletries set with the disturbing slogan: "007 gives any man the licence to kill ... women."
Spooky predictions: Lana Wood as Bond girl Plenty O'Toole asks Connery in a deleted scene from 1971's Diamonds Are Forever: "You're not a knight or anything like that, are you?"
The longevity of the Bond franchise really comes down to making a virtue of the films' formulaic nature, and the propensity of those involved to keep going as long as they have life. Maurice Binder, who created the signature gun-barrel point of view opening, worked on the title sequence of almost every film from 1962's Dr. No until he died in 1991. Llewelyn played Q in From Russia With Love (1963) and every film after until dying in a car crash in 1999. Set designer Peter Lamont got involved early in the game and has worked on almost every film, later joined by his brother, Michael, and his son, Neil.
And Broccoli had a full-time job as producer of every film from Dr. No to Licence to Kill, making only three other pictures during that span, one of them Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Its Bondian similarities end, of course, when you consider the clunky nature of a closing line like, "Oh, Caractacus ..."
You and me both! "Lollipops......"
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy!!
Ah, those money gouging Bond boxsets when you only need one disc.
90 dollars -thanks so much MGM. It's CCBB for me next shopping spree.
I remember during Christmas of 1999 I was visting a Bond web site when my dad called me into our living room, Chitty Chitty was playing and it was the scene with Desmond Llewelyn (Q) as Mr. Coggins with the Potts children, it was quite sentmental for me to see him on screen since he had just died shortly be this.
I just got the new 2 disc set for only $17.99, at a Target in New York over Thanksgiving,
I watched the newer interview with Dick Van Dyke, it was interesting to hear him talk about working with Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and many of the Bond vetrans on filmamong other things.
By the way was Gert Frobe dubbed again?
I remember in Goldfinger he was due his thick accent
A sexy Baroness in a corset with braids flowing past her rear becomes an innocent victim of the Baron's hatred.
First why is this semi S&M scene in the movie, an second (from an adult's perspective) why is he tring to Kill his wife. She spends time wooing him, doting on him and them flirting with him in the sexiest attire I have ever seem. I found her much more attractive then Truly.
Puzzled Bill?
It is on Christmas Eve at 1:50pm on ITV1.
CCBB is a fantastic film, and there is no need to mention that it is a classic - everyone has seen it!
I agree on the points about the Child Catcher - though I thought he was cool, not necessarily scary. I thought good ol' Gert Frobe put in a fantastic performance as usual, and Benny Hill should get a nod too.
The item goes on to say: The popular musical with the magical flying car is to be remade with big-name stars, a multi-million pound budget and cutting-edge special effects.
The project is being developed by Eon productions, maker of the James Bond movies. It owns the rights to the children’s story, written by Bond’s creator Ian Fleming.
"It will probably go into production next year after we’ve finished with the latest James Bond film," said one Eon executive.
Johnny Depp is being courted to play the infamous child catcher, played in the original 1968 film by Benny Hill (York Membery got that wrong, Benny played the toymaker, it was Robert Helpmann playing the child catcher). "We’re hopeful that he’ll say yes," said the source.
It follows the succes of the stage revival of the musical at the London Palladium which ran between 2002 and 2005 and earned £70 million. The show became one of the Palladiums biggest hits, beating both Oliver and Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Can we but hope that they don’t decide to re-design Chitty and make one that looks nothing like the Chitty we know and love.
They did the same with Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, and many others.....
A definate no-no!
Chitty should have been better than it was. It has a hollow vibe to it somehow, and the special effects were pretty rubbish. And it goes on for way too long. Mind you, the idea of a CGI chitty whizzing around like a jet plane or Doctor Who TARDIS chills the blood.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Well, true, Chitty isn't a masterpiece. You can fault Cubby for clearly trying to capitalize on Mary Poppins--hiring Van Dyke and getting the Sherman brothers to provide the songs--and it has flaws a-plenty. But it seems that when filmmakers today decide to remake a movie they tend to darken it up and add bizarre twists to seeming innocent material. That Babs and Mickey want Johnny Depp for the film suggests the direction in which they want to take it!
. . .That said, the original is pretty twisted in its own way. I think the underwear Anna Quayle wore in the "Chu-chi Face" number started my puberty a little early!