Out of all the aspects of filmmaking that change over time, for audiences, special effects are one of the most notable. Something that is state of the art and truly astounding in one era looks old hat and obviously fake down the road. The 1971 Academy Award winner for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects, Bedknobs and Broomsticks still manages to look pretty good in its new "Enchanted Musical Edition" DVD release.
The film follows the story of an apprentice witch, Miss Price (Angela Lansbury), who, living in Southern England at the outset of World War II is forced to take in three children from London (a practice established in order to protect children from bombings). Carrie (Cindy O'Callaghan), Paul (Roy Snart), and Charlie (Ian Weighill) had no idea upon moving in with Miss Price that she was a witch, but an aborted attempt at flying on a broomstick quickly clues them.
After some aborted attempts at blackmailing Miss Price, the children settle in for a trip to London with her (via a bed) after her witch school shutters without warning – Miss Price desperately wanted to know the last spell that was a part of the course. To make a long movie (the runtime is approximately 140 minutes) short, the correspondence course was being run by a conman, Emelius Browne (David Tomlinson), who shut the school because he didn't have the spell. With the help of the kids though, Browne and Miss Price travel to a magical animated island in an attempt to retrieve it, and eventually manage to stop a mini-Nazi invasion (small invasion, not small Nazis) with the spell.
If one were looking for an easy way to describe the film, perhaps something along the lines of Mary Poppins meets The Sound of Music would be appropriate. It is certainly more the former than the latter, but it does take place during World War II and the Nazis are, as much as anyone, the enemy (even if their appearance at the end of the film does feel terribly out of place). The Mary Poppins aspects are far more prevalent – the film is a mix of live-action and animation, and while Mary Poppins is never classified as a witch, she certainly does have a bit of magic and spell ability about her.
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