Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes

family guy ruined this one for me forever

I don't know if this is a good or bad movie. I think it's a pretty good one, but my mom thinks it's a bad one, and I'm willing to recognize that it's gotten to the point that I've watched enough crappy movies that I can no longer tell what's quality anymore.

It made me laugh my ass off though, which is why it I feel it deserves a place on the blog.

The story goes something like this: Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) is a crackpot inventor (plays on words are, like, a big thing in this movie, they even have a little ditty about it), who, in essence, has a lot of ideas, but doesn't have a lot of cash. That's not really the major thematic conflict though, although that's probably the closest thing there comes to one; most of the plot can probably just be described as a sequence of incidents.

Caractacus has two kids, Jeremy and Jemima, but their mother is unexplainedly absent. Fortunately, Truly Scrumptious (another frickin' play on words) (Sally Ann Howes) shows up in the second or third scene. So does Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a magical car that takes them on a fantasmagorical adventure.

Scratch that. Reverse it.

As is befitting a film from the late sixties, there's a certain element of surrealism which is, well, awesome. There's this whole musical number where this guy dressed up in a safari outfit is sitting in a tiny hut, being carried over the North Sea in a giant blimp as the water laps over his feet, his calves, his knees. He goes on singing, apparently oblivious to it all, as the operators of the blimp are throwing shit overboard. Pretty weird. But pretty awesome.

For a film from the late sixties, some of the sexist crap was less than awesome, some of Dick Van Dyke's lines kind of pissed me off; although I'm not entirely sure if his character was supposed to be insensitive or not, but that was definitely how it came off. Don't get me wrong, I like Dick Van Dyke, he just wasn't believable as an egghead.

As I watched the film for the second time, I realized that the large majority of the scenes were done against a blue screen, so, considering, it's quite well realized. I can really appreciate the effort and attention to detail. Actually, on that subject, this is a really well-produced film. The casting for the supporting actors is spot on, there are a large number of difficullt-to-render special effects, some really decent song writing. Unfortunately, I think that this is the case where the whole is less that the sum of it's individual parts, in general, this isn't a movie that really works. I coudn't tell you why; but it's really a shame.

the main character wave goodbye to vulgaria.  bye bye!