Tony Maietta:
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maeta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just the guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
Tony, I made a mistake watching Mary Poppins.

Tony Maietta:
Oh.

Brad Shreve:
It's not huge, but I have seen this movie 10 million times. So I thought, you know, I'll just wait till before we record this episode. I'll just watch it a little bit before, a few minutes, and then we'll be fine. Well, Jesus. I kind of had it in my head that it's a children's movie with a lot of animation. It's gonna be 90 minutes.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, God.

Brad Shreve:
I finished exactly two minutes before I had to log in. So the problem is I have every damn song from the movie swirling in my brain simultaneously as I'm trying to talk to you at once. 

Tony Maietta:
All at the same time, all at once. How's that different than you normally are?

Brad Shreve:
You know, I always have music going through my head, but unfortunately, one of them is tuppins the Bag, which is the one song that I hope I never hear again. I know.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, no, it's my favorite.

Brad Shreve:
Of course it is. I knew you were going to say that. No, no, no.

Tony Maietta:
It was Walt Disney's favorite, too. We're getting way ahead of ourselves. Well, I think that's good. I think you're starting out. I think you're starting out fresh. I think that'll be good. You have the movie clearly in your mind.

Brad Shreve:
I have it clearly in my mind. It put me in good spirits. I feel like doing Step in Time.

Tony Maietta:
Good. I was actually going to say. I was actually going to. I was going to say thanks for this, Brad, because we're talking about listeners. We're talking about Mary Poppins, if you haven't guessed by now. And this is kind of prompted by a very nice email we got last season from a listener called Fan o Disney. We hear you. We hear you out there when you ask us about things.

Tony Maietta:
And I thought, oh, we need to do a Disney movie. So Brad and I were talking about when we were playing the season, and I actually suggested Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is my. One of my very favorite movies, period, but certainly one of my favorite Disney movies. And Brad suggested we should probably do Mary Poppins. And I thought, all right, fine, fine. So I sat down to watch Mary Poppins, and can I tell you, I don't think I've sat down and watched it from beginning to end in at least 25, 30 years. It was such. For me, it was such a treat.

Tony Maietta:
I don't think I have. I came away with an entirely new appreciation for the artistry in this movie, the fun. I was absolutely. I was just. I was clamped when it was over, I was just like, oh, my God. I. I always think of this as a kids movie. I do.

Tony Maietta:
And then I realized, no, it's not. Yes, kids can watch it, and it's got animation, but I just. Oh, I got chills watching it. I just loved it. So thanks, Brad. Thank you for that. Well, I meant that sincerely, too. Not sarcastically.

Brad Shreve:
Less than Disney fan.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. And thank you, Fano Disney, for suggesting it. This also works out really, too, because Brad and I are beginning a little run of films. A little Best Actress. Not really a month. That's a little more than a month, but a little Best Actress, little mini festival. And this is the perfect way to start it because we got a Best Actress Oscar winner headlining, playing the titular role of Mary Poppins. So it's a really.

Tony Maietta:
It all came together beautifully.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, it did. Yes, it did. And, you know, it was. This was. It's been a long time since I've watched this movie. In fact, I forgot we owned it. I watched it on Disney plus and then I'm like, wait a minute. I could have pulled it up anytime.

Brad Shreve:
Didn't matter. It was available. But it's been so long, I forgot we even owned it. I think we just bought it at a whim one day and never watched it.

Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah, I just. I think it is a practically perfect movie. Mary Poppins is probably practically perfect in every way. And, yeah, it is a little long. There are some things that I think could have been trimmed, and we can. We'll talk about that. But. But the effect afterwards for me was just like, oh, oh, if I could only pop into that chalk painting.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. And live in that jolly holiday, I would be so happy there.

Brad Shreve:
Was. Having seen it, not seen it in so long, I looked at from totally different perspectives. First, from the analytical perspective that I typically do with the show, no matter how much I try not to. And I found I had more criticisms of it at the same time. It brought me more joy than I expected because it's been so long, I forgot.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I think that's the thing.

Brad Shreve:
And the criticisms are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but there were little things. One, the length, like you said. The length.

Tony Maietta:
The length. Yeah, yeah, it's a bit long, but I do think it's practically perfect in every way. I just think from the cast to the songs to the. To the artwork to the production design to the. God, the dance numbers. Step In Time. Exhaust me watching it. It's just so much.

Tony Maietta:
Just a fun, fun ride. So thank you, Fano Disney for suggesting this. I'm excited to start our Best Actress month, if you will, with Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins, don't you love us? Starring the one, the only Dame Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins.

Brad Shreve:
And you know what else I had forgotten is I use quotes from this movie all the time. Like if, if we're going somewhere and I'm ready and Maurice isn't, I always go, spit spot. And I am always like, we're discussing something and I learned I'm right. I'm like, see, I'm practically perfect in every way. I am quoting from this movie all the time. And I don't always think about where they come from.

Tony Maietta:
I always do. I've done Pie Crust Promise. That's a pie crust promise. Easily made, easily broken. I've done that one before. And I've also done, you know, close our mouth, we're not a codfish. Yeah, there's so many, there are so many quotable lines. There are so many quotable songs.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, you know, all the usual suspects. But of course, prime on everybody's mind, of course, is probably supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I mean, everybody knows this made up word that is from this movie. People think it's a real world. I think it actually has become a real word. I think it's maybe in the dictionary as a real word or referenced as a real word for when you don't have anything else to say. That's what you say. You say that.

Tony Maietta:
And I usually don't say that. So, yeah, let's talk about this movie, Mary Poppins, starring Dame Julie Andrews as the practically perfect nanny, Dick Van Dyke. We're back with Dick again, our second Dick Van Dyke episode. As Bert the Cockney. By way of Riverside, California, we have David Tomlinson, another David Tomlinson, and Glynis Johns. Brad. This is the one, this is the one where they, they met in Miranda and now they're reunited as George and Winifred Banks, which is, it's so fun to see them. It's so fun to see them in this and think of them so much younger in, in Miranda.

Tony Maietta:
In Miranda, yes. Karen Dottres as J. Jane Banks, Matthew Garber as Michael Banks. And then we have an incredible supporting cast. People don't really talk about the supporting cast, but we have Hermione Baddeley, Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Treacher, Reginald Owen, Ed Wynn, Rita Shaw. I mean, these, this is supporting. And finally, as the bird Woman, Jane Darwell in her final, final film appearance. And we'll get to Feed the Birds.

Tony Maietta:
I happen to. It makes me cry every time I hear Feed the Birds. Mostly the musical, mostly the beginning, because that's how the movie starts, with that beautiful duh, duh, duh. And I just think it's such a moving thing. And, yeah, it was Walt Disney's favorite song in his mind. Basically, the theme of Mary Poppins was Feed the birds. In other words, it's the small things, it's the showing kindness, it's taking care of each other that brings about the most joy. And I kind of see that.

Tony Maietta:
I see that theme when I see this film. I see a lot of themes, but that's to me, that's front and center.

Brad Shreve:
I agree. It's. The point is critical. I will say the reason I dislike it so much, it's like many of the older films. Well, let's start with the first one, Snow White and the Seventh Dwarf, the first animated. Yeah. So many of those songs are so slow. As a kid, it's just like, God, get it over with.

Brad Shreve:
And that. What I'm remembering as a kid listening to that song and hearing this fun movie and you had this very slow, somber song as a kid. It's like, get over it. And I will say that stuck with me. So I don't know if I'll ever give that song a fair chance because that memory stays there. Maybe one day I'll just try and just listen to it. I'll turn off the lights and I'll just lean back and I'll listen to it. Maybe someday I'll do that.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I think that's because, too, there are two lullabies. That's the second of two lullabies that she sings to the Banks children. Even Julie Andrews said, is this one lullaby too many? Because she sings the only sarcastic lullaby ever recorded. Stay Awake. Which I love. I always think about it when I can't fall asleep. She sings Stay Awake earlier in the film, and then she sings this. And they're both lullabies.

Tony Maietta:
So you're kind of like, well, that is true, but I don't know which one you would cut. I certainly wouldn't cut Feed the Birds. It's the theme of the movie and it's Walt Disney's favorite song. And I love Stay Awake. I think I love me a good sarcastic lullaby like, don't bother going to sleep. Stay awake. Keep your eyes open. So there's a lot to talk about with.

Tony Maietta:
With Mary Poppins. Just a couple things before we go into the background. I do want to say it was indeed the highest grossing film of 1964. Edging out. And this is really important because we'll get to it later. Edging out My fair lady by $1 million. Can you believe that? It was like neck and neck. And Julie wins by a neck.

Tony Maietta:
A very long neck, as you say.

Brad Shreve:
She showed them. Take that, Audrey.

Tony Maietta:
So that's about what. That's about $325 million today. So by any standard, a very big hit. 13 Oscar nominations at 1 5. And the Sherman brothers, who wrote the score and wrote the songs, won two that night. Two Oscars that night for score and song. Chim Chim Cherrie. So it was, you know, and here's what really is fascinating to me.

Tony Maietta:
It was the only Disney film to be nominated for Best Picture in Walt Disney's lifetime. Did you know that?

Brad Shreve:
No, I had no clue.

Tony Maietta:
It's amazing, right?

Brad Shreve:
No clue at all.

Tony Maietta:
Snow White not nominated.

Brad Shreve:
Well, it doesn't surprise me because yet most of, the, most of the non animated movies weren't that fantastic that I can think of. Off the top of my head. I'm probably drawing blanks and animated films at that time. I can't imagine them ever nominating for Best Picture or winning the Best Picture.

Tony Maietta:
I remember when it was such a big deal, when Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture. That was the only, I think that was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture and it was, you know, the second Disney film to ever be nominated for Best Picture. So this was really important to Walt Disney. He wanted that Best Picture, your Oscar, and thank God he got it because he died in 66. So it was just a few years, a couple years later he was gone. He was gone. So I know you, we've kind of talked about this before and I can't remember, are you or are you a not. Are you not a fan of saving Mr.

Tony Maietta:
Banks?

Brad Shreve:
You know, I actually really enjoyed it. I know that it wasn't accurate, but the tone was accurate. And so I, I accept that. I accept it. As long as I know that I'm never fond when they do, you know, I know biopics are always going to be changed, but. Or I don't even know, what do you call it? A biopic.

Tony Maietta:
But it was, I mean, it was,

Brad Shreve:
it was, it was a lot of fun.

Tony Maietta:
It was fairly close. I mean, it wasn't Ryan Murphy. I mean, it wasn't.

Brad Shreve:
That's for sure.

Tony Maietta:
They weren't throwing facts out the window like Ryan Murphy does. It was, it was. There were some pretty accurate things. Pl. Travers. Okay, first of all, I love Emma Thompson. I mean, I could watch. Emma Thompson is like Meryl Streep.

Tony Maietta:
I could watch Emma Thompson do anything. Anything. She's always brilliant. She is so wonderful in this film as P.L. travers. She almost. And I don't even mind Tom Hanks, I gotta tell you. You know what? He grows on me.

Tony Maietta:
I really love this movie. But it did get the essence of the story right in the fact that this woman was. Was a curmudgeon of the nth degree. And Walt Disney literally was after her for over 20 years to give him the rights to this story to the character of Mary Poppins. And she would not budge for over 20 years. And she finally, finally gave in. And then she was still a real pain in the ass the entire time they were putting it together. She hated the animation.

Tony Maietta:
She did. Didn't like it. The fact that it was a musical. She wasn't about to brook Dick Van Dyke in it. She was like, what? That's all true. She really did. In fact, at the premiere, she wasn't invited to the premiere. Just like in the film, she managed to wangle an invitation, and she showed up, and after the premiere, she said to Walt, well, we're going to have to cut that animation.

Tony Maietta:
And Walt Disney said, pamela, that ship has sailed.

Brad Shreve:
Yep, I read that, and I was wondering if it was true. So I'm glad you validated that for me.

Tony Maietta:
Absolutely true. The only reason Disney was able to do it, she did have script approval, however, and this is how Disney got her. Disney had final cut. So it doesn't matter if you have script approval. Whoever has final cut is the last person to see it before it goes out. So she could say, I don't want the animation, but he has final cut. He can say, well, I do, and it's staying in. So that's how he got around that.

Tony Maietta:
And they were able to do it. But, yeah, she was. She really. She was a piece of work. But Walt Disney, this was a passion project for him. His daughter Diane, loved these books. There were eight Mary Poppins books. Have you ever read any of the Poppins books, Brad? No.

Brad Shreve:
You know, watching this movie made me feel like I really should watch the first one. Especially thinking of the. By the way, if you hear explosions, I'm okay, because one just went off right outside my window. This week is fallest week in the Valencia province here in Spain. And I'm. It's a huge. It's probably the biggest celebration of the year in this region. And there's a lot of stuff that goes on all week.

Brad Shreve:
What has been going on for a month and is going to get worse every day till Thursday is every kid has fireworks and then adults are setting off fireworks and the city is setting off fireworks. It has been non stop explosions.

Tony Maietta:
Wow.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm talking about 3 year olds out there throwing firecrackers. So typically they usually go till the wee hours of the morning. And so I'm just bringing it up because I don't know if you just heard that one, but. Yes, yes. Earlier today they were on the terrace next door. In fact, there just went another one. They're on the, the terrace next door throwing fireworks. So.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, and it's like 2am it's like 2am There, right?

Brad Shreve:
Or no, no, no, it's 10:30 right now.

Tony Maietta:
10:30, that's crazy.

Brad Shreve:
10:30. It's not that bad. And it's not the. The Admiral shooting tank.

Tony Maietta:
That's not Admiral. Boom. So where was I? So Disney was able to. To get the rights to the story and began working on this in about 1961, hired the Sherman brothers who had written for him before they wrote that song in the Parent Trap and they created this score. They played Feed the Birds for him. He said, you're hired. And that's. And it went into production as it was very important, as I said, for Disney to make this.

Tony Maietta:
Now there are differences between the book and the movie and we're not gonna go into them. The biggest, probably one of the biggest differences is the book, like Breakfast at Tiffany's, like so many books we talk about, is episodic. There is no plot in the first Mary Poppins book. It's just adventures. The adventures they have. The adventures they have. The character of Bert in the Mary Poppins book is more periphery. They combined a few characters to create this part of Bert that Dick Van Dyke plays.

Tony Maietta:
The book takes place in the 30s.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, really?

Tony Maietta:
And that's something interesting. Yeah, that's something interesting. So Mary Poppins Returns. The. The. The movie with Emily Blunt is in the 30s, but it's also later. They're all grown up, the Banks children. Disney moved it back to 1910 to the Edwardian period, which is another really interesting similarity has with My Fair lady, which we'll get to.

Brad Shreve:
And I want to say something about Mary Poppins Returns.

Tony Maietta:
All right, go ahead.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't hate it. I didn't hate it. I was actually impressed and I think it's because I expected it to be pure garbage. So I went in with such low expectations. I actually enjoyed it.

Tony Maietta:
It's good to have low expectations.

Brad Shreve:
It wasn't any anywhere near this film. But like I said, I love. That was pretty good.

Tony Maietta:
Again, love, Emily Blunt. And speaking of Emily Blunt, her characterization of Mary Poppins is much closer to PL Travers.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
PL Travers version of Mary Poppins was much harsher, much more. She's much more vain, much more obstinate than Julie Andrews is in this film.

Brad Shreve:
Except Mary was not pretty. She was not pretty in the book at all.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. Yes, yes, yes. So that's that. Those are some of the major differences. But I was looking through this, and I want to talk about Julie's characterization, because watching it again after all these years, with everything I know now, life experiences and acting and everything, there are some amazing things about her performance I want to point out. And we'll talk about that in the Oscar and everything. But did you know this? This made me laugh out loud. Do you know who Walt Disney's first ideas for Mary and Bert were, by any chance?

Brad Shreve:
I've seen the list of names and I know. Oh, my God. Bedknobs and broomsticks. I can't think of her name. You mentioned her.

Tony Maietta:
Angela Lansbury.

Brad Shreve:
She was considered for the film. Angela Lansbury was considered for it. I don't know if she's the one you're referring to.

Tony Maietta:
No, no. Mine is unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Brad Shreve:
And Bert, I don't remember either. I know that there was, like, Bette Davis and.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, that's it.

Brad Shreve:
Okay.

Tony Maietta:
Mary Poppins practically perfected every way.

Brad Shreve:
Can you imagine?

Tony Maietta:
I mean, what. Yeah, he wanted. He. He thought of Danny K as Bert and. Which kind of makes sense. And Betty Davis. I mean, but here's what. Here's what's really crazy.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, like nut job crazy. Real world crazy. And I think. I mean, R E E L. So ironically, after he had the idea of Bette Davis as the nanny and Mary Poppins. In 1965, Bette Davis plays a nanny in a film called the Nanny, in which she attempts to murder one of her kids.

Brad Shreve:
That would have been a nice twist on this film.

Tony Maietta:
That would have been a. That would have been a nice twist on this film. That was just crazy. In fact, somebody said it was kind of a sly, you know, little jab in the rib to Mary Poppins. I don't know about that, but it's so funny. She's. She. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
A homicidal nanny. I can see Bette Davis playing the practically perfect Edwardian nanny. I just don't get Walt Disney. But anyway. But you said.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, it would have been A much different film.

Tony Maietta:
Much Marriott Poppins, Patrick Lee. I'm not gonna give any more Bette Davis. So we also thought of Mary Martin, Angela Lansbury, Judy Garland, Barbara Eden, Jayne Mansfield. I read. I'm like, huh? And for Bert, Burt Convey, Sean Connery, Andy Griffith, Cary Grant, other than Cockney, I don't really see that happening. But Disney had seen Julie, Dame Julie on the Ed Sullivan show doing a scene from Camelot, and that immediately sparked his interest in Julie. So he went to New York to see her in after a performance of Camelot, and he said, I have this idea for this film. I'd like you to play Mary Poppins.

Tony Maietta:
And she didn't immediately say yes for two reasons. First reason was she was pregnant. And he said, that's okay. We'll wait for you. And the second was that she still wasn't sure that she was completely out of the running to play Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady. But of course, we all know that didn't happen. She was crestfallen, but she said yes, now I can do Mary Poppins. And I think hindsight being 20 20, and we can talk more about this later when we talk about the Oscars, I think it was the correct.

Tony Maietta:
Not that she wouldn't have been a beautiful Eliza Doolittle, and it's tragic she didn't get to. But everybody still identifies her with that role. I mean, she's still so famous as I think so in My Fair lady, that it's okay that she didn't do. It's not okay she didn't do it, but it's all right in a certain level. But this film, I mean, she wouldn't have had Mary Poppins. So I think that that really set her on her way to. To Maria von Trapp and to an incredible film career.

Brad Shreve:
I think I would agree. I want to go back to differences between the book and the movie, because there's one similarity and it's something that. Not in a bad. But it's always driven me crazy since I was a kid. Oh, what is Mary Poppins? So I did. Had to. I did a deep dive because I'm like, okay, the book probably says so. And no, the move.

Brad Shreve:
The book is like the movie. Yeah. It's not likely that she's a witch. She's just a spiritual being that apparently in the book it's written like she's almost like a. Just a part of the earth and the universe, and that's why animals speak with her. And. And she just kind of Moves through this, like, almost dimensional for that wouldn't be a term they would have used back then, but it always drove me crazy. Why are they so vague as to what she is? And the book is that way.

Brad Shreve:
And she did that on purpose. She wanted it that way. And I like that, though. Exactly. I do, too.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I like that. I kind of love that. It makes her. Even. Makes her even more mysterious, you know, the fact that she lives in the cloud. She's not really a witch. She's a magical creature. Does she have magical powers? Doesn't she? Well, obviously she does, but it's.

Tony Maietta:
She's not. I love that. I love the fact that it's. She's very elusive. I think it fits that character so well. I love that. Then we have Mr. Dick Van Dyke, who we just talked about recently as Bert.

Tony Maietta:
This was. This was Dick Van Dyke's time. I mean, he was heavy into the Dick Van Dyke show, like the third season. He did this movie. And Walt had seen him, of course, on his show, was very, very, very impressed with Dick. Dick is wonderful, as we said, not trained in the. As singer or. Or a dancer or an actor.

Tony Maietta:
However, we need to talk about when

Brad Shreve:
everybody talks about accent.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, it is true.

Brad Shreve:
Apologize, too.

Tony Maietta:
And yes, to Dick Van Dyke's credit, he has apologized for his Cockney accent time and time and time again, in fact thereof. He got a BAFTA, a special BAFTA award in 2017. And he apologized publicly to the British people for the Cockney.

Brad Shreve:
And, you know, I never noticed that. And you didn't the first time. I, like, I, you know, I just never thought about it. And this time I watched, I'm like, oh, my God, that is bad.

Tony Maietta:
That's bad. But in his defense, you know, his, his. His British, his coach, his dialect coach was J. Pat o', Malley, who's Irish.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And played his father in the episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show. We talked about the Rosebud episode. Jay Pat o' Malley played Dick's father. So you have an Irish tutor teaching you a Cockney accent. So his accent, sometimes it's Irish, sometimes it's Cockney, sometimes he sounds like he's from West Covina. You know, it's all. It's just. It's an amalgam of things.

Tony Maietta:
Sometimes he hits it and sometimes he doesn't. But to his defense, he admits it. He knows it. It's bad. You see, you didn't even notice it until we watch it this last time. So.

Brad Shreve:
No, but I will say Kevin Costner and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves talking like he's from Indiana. Hasn't beat so Dick and rest easy.

Tony Maietta:
Almost as bad. Almost. Yeah, I think Dick. Yeah, Dick's is more Peoria than West Codina. So. Yeah, I think so. It's more Peoria, Illinois. But give him credit, you know, it's Dick Van Dyke.

Tony Maietta:
We have the beautiful Glennis. Your. Your pal Glynis Johns as. As Winifred Banks.

Brad Shreve:
I smiled when she marched down that street. She is so full, full of energy. Like I told you. She always spoke so, so highly of this film and it really showed. I was, I was so happy to see her. I wish I had watched it with her, but that's okay. She, like I told you before, she used to quote Mary Poppins to me all the time.

Tony Maietta:
It's amazing.

Brad Shreve:
Not Winifred lines. She would quote Mary Poppins both from the movie and the book. And so she always talked about Miranda as her favorite film and that was her crowning glory. But I think if you really thought about it was probably Mary Poppins because she beamed when she talked about this film.

Tony Maietta:
Well, certainly her most famous. Her most, you know, I mean, yes, every. Everybody knows Mary Poppins and it was

Brad Shreve:
just a fun ass role.

Tony Maietta:
She probably quoted Mary Poppins because she thought she was going to play Mary Poppins. When Walt Disney came to her and said he wanted you to Mary Poppins. And she was like, oh, I'm. I'm not playing Mary. No, no, Julie Andrus is doing that. And she. So she was hesitant. According to an interview I saw with her, she was hesitant and she asked for her own number, she wanted her own song.

Tony Maietta:
And they played Sister Suffragette for her and she loved it and she agreed to do it. I'm so happy. That's just, that's wonderful. It's a wonderful song.

Brad Shreve:
I really am. Because that role fit her because it was so vivacious and fun and optimistic and Mary kind of flowed in and out between kind of melancholy sometimes. She was fun, but not in the same perky manner that Winifred was.

Tony Maietta:
You know, I love about what Glynis gives her, gives the character of Winifred such charm, of course, but also feeling. You know what I mean? She clearly loves her children. She's just distracted. This is the story about a dysfunctional family in which the parents are very distracted by other things and not paying attention to their children. They're not evil parents, they're not bad parents. They're distracted by life. You know, she has things she wants to do and one of them is, you know, the suffragette movement, so good for her. But Glynis Johns gives her so much empathy.

Tony Maietta:
You feel for this woman. She's not an evil woman. She's a very loving woman. She's just distracted, that's all. Same thing with David Tomlinson. You don't hate him. I don't. I don't hate Mr.

Tony Maietta:
Banks. He's just trying to provide for his family. And he is very caught up in being the breadwinner, the family. And that's why these children are being ignored. And that's why Mary Poppins needs to come in and save, basically save Mr. Banks. I mean, that's the whole conceit behind saving Mr. Banks is Mary Poppins isn't there to save the children, she's there to save Mr.

Tony Maietta:
Banks. And it's really lovely when you think of it that way. But you know who else this movie, Mary Poppins also saved Mr. Disney because Walt Disney had very, very conflicted feelings about his father. His father was apparently a very harsh, almost brutal man, as they kind of were back in the day, back then.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Very abusive. And Walt was always trying to build him up in his mind. Build him up in his mind to being this great man. You know, I think in Disneyland, there's his shop. He has a shop. Elias Disney has a shop. So he was always trying to rewrite his history. Walt Disney was.

Tony Maietta:
And this, in a way, was also saving Mr. Disney, because the father in this is saved by Mary Poppins, just as Walt saved his father in that way. So I think that's kind of beautiful. I think that's really beautiful.

Brad Shreve:
That really is.

Tony Maietta:
And then we have the two kids. We have Matthew Garber and Karen Daughtris. And I hope I'm saying daughteress. Right. I've heard daughters. I've heard Dotrice. Datrice. Dotrice.

Tony Maietta:
I'm going with Dottress. Daughteress. And, you know, Matthew Garber very tragically died in 1977 from hepatitis. He was only 21 years old.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And, you know, he only made three films, and every one of the three films he made were for Disney with Karen Dottres playing his sister. Isn't that funny?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
They did one before this and one after this. Yeah, it's very cute. They're wonderful. They're wonderful.

Brad Shreve:
That's cute.

Tony Maietta:
Karen daughter said that very frequently. They didn't know. Nobody told them what was going to happen in the scene. So. So, so many of their reactions are genuine.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Like the medicine scene. She had no idea. That was all practical. That was practical. And they didn't tell Her. That was happening. And she screamed.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly.

Brad Shreve:
SHE SCREAMS and Matthew, I gotta say, he didn't have nearly as many lines as Karen, but he. He spoke so much with his face.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, my God. And isn't he a mini David Tomlinson? I mean, can you see?

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely. He was a perfect choice.

Tony Maietta:
He was a perfect choice. He looks like a mini me. David Tomlinson. I love it. I love David Tomlinson. I love him in Bedknobs and Brute six too. He's just. He's a wonderful, wonderful character actor.

Tony Maietta:
He's fantastic.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
Do you want to. You mentioned a little bit about special effects. I mean, this film has a lot of special effects, obviously, and they are all practical effects and they're quite, quite amazing. Are there any that, like, stick out to you that you. That you like or. Since you just watched this, you know,

Brad Shreve:
I would say to one, the most of the animation scenes are pretty well done. There's a few times where they don't. You know, it's like, oh, they're not even close to looking like they're there. But that's by today's standards.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
A lot of times I was, like, really impressed. Like, this is before computers and they did a good job of making them look like they're interacting. You know, there's a moment where Dick is on the horse and the fox slides down the pole into Dick's lap and it looks like he's right there. I was like, that is so impressive. So that really impressed me a lot. And the whole scene, the step in time and first of all, as a kid, I just. That probably was one of my favorite scenes. I.

Brad Shreve:
I will say I didn't appreciate the dancing at that time, but I appreciated the fact that it was all done on rooftops and I wanted to go walk with them on those rooftops and dance on the rooftops and walk around on chimneys and it looked great. I don't know if it would be like an outstanding special effect compared to so many of the other things they've done. Well, it just really stands out to me how well it was done.

Tony Maietta:
The things that they do in that, though, that whole Chim Chim Cherrie sequence, when she blows the smokestack and it turns into steps.

Brad Shreve:
Very cool.

Tony Maietta:
And they climb up the steps and that's. Yeah, it's so cool the way they did this stuff. The jolly holiday scene. You know, first of all, that's not the first time, obviously, that animation and live action was. Walt Disney was doing that back in silent film.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
You know, before Mickey Mouse Walt Disney was doing that with a character named Alice in the Alice comedies. He was doing that kind of stuff. Song of the South. Nobody can see it now, but that's what. They do that in Song of the South. MGM did it in Tom and Jerry in Anchors Away, so it wasn't unusual. But what's amazing to me is the way the actors react to the animated characters. Because they ain't there.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, they are not there. They are reacting to nothing and they are so good. And when Dick Van Dyke does that penguin dance and his foot goes over one penguin and over the other, it's astounding to me to think he's doing that to nothing, to err. It's incredible.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, okay, I'm gonna give a confession here, but it's actually a praise at the same time. I love Dick Van Dyke, but I also know he's a huge fan of Stan Laurel, and that's why he bases a lot of that on. He's also very clownish. And so when he does his clownish stuff, it gives me the willies, even though he doesn't have the makeup on, because I am so absolutely terrified of. I'm just absolutely terrified of clouds. So even though he doesn't have the makeup on, when he acts clownish, it gives me the willies. But at the same time, I just watched him and I'm like. Because I don't know how old he was.

Brad Shreve:
He wasn't a young man, but he was 38.

Tony Maietta:
38, 39.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, he was 30. I'm like, he's so playful and just having so much. At least he shows and it had to be real. He just shows. He has so much joy and zest for life and that.

Tony Maietta:
I really, really loved the energy. I mean, we talked a little bit about this in our Dick Van Dyke episode. You know, the man was. Karen Dottres compared him to one of those things that are outside car dealerships that the wind just blows. The wind socket things. You know, let's go back and forth with no structure. We said before, he's like Gumby. He has.

Tony Maietta:
He's so pliable. He's so malleable. He. This man had no formal dance training, and you watch Step In Time and he is up there keeping up with every single one of these dancers. It is phenomenal.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
How he does it, it's incredible to me, the energy at 38 years old. You know, I mean, that's. It's astounding. It's astounding to me.

Brad Shreve:
And he doesn't come across as a 38 year old man acting goofy. He just comes across as a 38 year old man that just loves life.

Tony Maietta:
No, he has so much energy and

Brad Shreve:
not everybody could have pulled that off.

Tony Maietta:
He has so much energy. I mean, I get what you mean about sometimes it can be a little bit like. But that's why he works so well in children's films. That's why he works so well in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That's why he's so good in this. You know when he would do adult things like the Art of Love, not so much. But this stuff works. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm not criticizing for it. As far as his ability and his acting. It's a personal thing that it's, it's. You know, I don't have many fears in my life, but clowns is one of them. Clowns and lightning.

Tony Maietta:
It's so funny. So funny. You know what? I love that I didn't notice. But this is just shows you how these craftsmen, the people who made this film were so genius. Tony Walton was the production designer. I think it's important to point out he also made the costumes. He was Julie Andrews husband and he met Walt Disney at the same time. Walt Disney was offering the part to Julie and asked Tony what did he do? And, and he says I'm, you know, I do.

Tony Maietta:
Because he also did the production design on Broadway. So how he started and he gave him his portfolio when he said he's hired. So Walt Disney hired Julie and her husband. But hey, Tony Walton was not going on anybody's coattails. Tony Walton was a brilliant, brilliant production designer. And so he wasn't riding anybody's coattails. That and I want to point out in the jolly holiday sequence when they're on the carousel horses and the carousel horse, which is my favorite scene, they come to life and they're in the horse race. Next time you watch it.

Tony Maietta:
And if you haven't watched it, listener watch it. The faces of the carousel horses are modeled after the actors faces. So take a look at Dick Van Dyke's horse. The chin on the horse is very, very long. Like Dick Van Dykes. It's these kind of little details like actors reacting to cartoon characters which are stunning to me about this movie. So, so we talked about the songs. The songs were by the Sherman brothers, Robert and Richard Sherman.

Tony Maietta:
This, the music adaption was by Erwin Costel. Who. Brad, you weren't with us at this time but Erwin Costell did music for Lucy in London. The TV special that we talked about. I talked about with Tom, last season. Erwin Costell was an astounding man. I mean, he also did Sound of Music. He was a giant in music adaption at this time in Hollywood.

Tony Maietta:
And also the matte paintings, the beautiful matte paintings of London. The impressionistic paintings in this film by Peter Ellenshaw are gorgeous. They give this film its magic. This film gets its magic from the performances and from the incredible design that's in this movie. Also the songs too.

Brad Shreve:
Everything about the stage production. This movie was magical. As you know. None of it was filmed in England at all. It was all filmed, I think, in California.

Tony Maietta:
All filmed in Burbank.

Brad Shreve:
All of it was interior. And sometimes you can criticize a movie. You're like, oh, that's a soundstage. But it worked in this movie because it's such a magical movie.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
And so it seemed like a magical place. I wanted to live on Cherry Tree Lane.

Tony Maietta:
It is a magical place. It's a magical place that existed in these artists minds. You know, this film was directed by Robert Stevenson. I wanted to say that too. Who is pretty much a Disney stalwart. He did all the Herbie movies. And the choreography by Dee Dee Wood and Mark Breaux. This was their first film choreographing.

Tony Maietta:
They knew Dick Van Dyke. He got them the job. All these people are at their utmost professionalism for Walt Disney. I think they were trying to make sure Uncle Walt was happy. And boy, they carried it off. Boy, they brought it through. They brought it through. It's astounding to me.

Tony Maietta:
So should we talk about some of these characters? Who are some of your favorite characters in this movie?

Brad Shreve:
You know, I always have to go to. Well, of course, Glennis, but yes. Just not just because it's Glennis. But I love her song. I love Suffering Suffragettes. I love that one.

Tony Maietta:
And Sister Suffragette.

Brad Shreve:
Sister Suffragette. And the one at the bank. I can't remember the one where they're. They're singing about saving your topic.

Tony Maietta:
Tuppence. Yes. Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.

Brad Shreve:
There's a character in this film who I adore this actress. And so she. I think everybody loves her when she watches this. But I don't think she's ever talked about enough. Because every time I see her in a film or anything, I get excited. And that is Rita Shaw. I love Rita Shaw. I don't know what it is.

Brad Shreve:
I just want Rita to be my grandmother. She's the one that played Mrs. Brill, who. I think they pretty much almost always just called her the Cook.

Tony Maietta:
She was Cook.

Brad Shreve:
Probably was brought Up.

Tony Maietta:
Cook.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, cook. Cook, yes. And she is the very large, dirty, no nonsense cook at the household, who also does a song and dance routine with. With Mrs. Bags. I just love her. And I know Hermione, she's. I presume it sounds like she was more well known at the time because I know she was very popular actress.

Tony Maietta:
She was a popular British actress. But, you know, she also played. I knew her from Maude. I knew her as Mrs. Nagatuck on Maude. She went later. Was on maud.

Brad Shreve:
Was she Mrs. Nagatuck?

Tony Maietta:
She was Mrs. Nagatuck on Maude. Yes. Yes. Hermione Baddeley.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, my God, I had no idea. Oh, I love.

Tony Maietta:
And also you have also Elsa Lanchester in here. The bride of Frankenstein herself is Katie. Nana. Yeah. I love the. I love these ideas. I love these people. He cast these with the creme de la creme of character actors in England and the United States.

Tony Maietta:
They're all. They're all at the top, top, top of their form. I love these songs, though. You know, I love the Spoonful of Sugar sequence. I love the song, of course. But do you know the story behind that? How the Spoonful of Sugar, the genesis of that song.

Brad Shreve:
I know it had to do with somebody. They saw medicine being put with sugar cubes or something like that. I did. I glanced over it.

Tony Maietta:
They couldn't think of a song because they had written this song called through the Eyes of Love. And Julie Andrews, God bless her, loved everything except that song. She's like, I'm not really at it like that song in her most Julie Andrews way. So they had to think of another song to replace it. And they're like, they. They had the concept of making something that is a chore into a joyful thing because they're cleaning up the nursery and Robert Sherman's son came home from school one day and he said, how was school today? And he said, oh, we got our polio vaccine. And he said, oh, did it hurt? And he said, no. They put it on a sugar cube and we swallowed it.

Tony Maietta:
And. And Spoonful of Sugar was born. It's great. It's great, it's great. I love. I do love Chim Chim Cherrie. I love. I love the music hall songs.

Tony Maietta:
You know, Jolly Holiday is pretty much a music hall songs, and that's what Julie loved about this film. And she could identify with it because it's set in 1910 and she, you know, grew up in the English music halls. This has a very English music hall flavor. And. And of course, probably the Most famous song of all, if not Chim Chim Cherrie. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is very much in the style of an English music hall song. You want to do the umdi lil um delay umdiddle, um. That's English music hall.

Tony Maietta:
And Julie loved that. She thought that was so great. I think my favorite song, though, is the last song is let's Go Fly a Kite. I get chills and choked up every time I see it.

Brad Shreve:
I'm glad to hear you say that. I just love that. Is a song that sometimes. Well, a lot of these songs, many times. But I think of any of them. If I'm just walking down the street and an older song, an old musical song comes to mind. It's a lot of time. Let's go fly a kite.

Brad Shreve:
Because it makes me just want to grab a. Yeah. First of all, I used to love to have a kite. I used to just lay on the beach and fly a kite. And it. There's something magical about flying a kite.

Tony Maietta:
It is. It's me. It's. It's. It's. What? What could they possibly do that would top anything Mary Poppins could do? How about flying a kite? You know what I mean? When you send it flying up there all at once, you're lighter than. I mean. So that's.

Tony Maietta:
That's the whole point of that. And what I love about that is, if you notice, David Tomlinson Talk sings all of his songs throughout this movie. Fidelity, Fiduciary, bank, the Life I Lead. But he sings let's Go Fly a Kite. And what is that telling you? That's the joy that he's found. Now he's saved. He's singing. Music is love song.

Tony Maietta:
Now he can sing because he's been. He's been saved by Mary Poppins. Basically. I'm saying that really badly. But you get my idea.

Brad Shreve:
I do get your idea.

Tony Maietta:
It's not obvious apparent, but when you realize it and you realize, oh, okay, he's now found the joy of life. So he's singing. And I think it's a beautiful, beautiful little, little subtext that you don't always get. But you realize it when you see it. You're like, that's genius. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And talking about what the premise of this film is. It really is Mr. Bank's story. You don't realize that until you really look at it. It's totally Mr. Banks story. But what is interesting to me that I don't think I ever really noticed until tonight was the movie really goes Nowhere. And so much of it.

Brad Shreve:
And that's. That's not a criticism of it. They go into the chalk painting. Okay. Which I think was too long, but it was fun. And other than having the kids learn an adventure and going back and telling their father about it, it doesn't really carry the story anywhere. This is almost like you said with the. With the book Mary Poppins.

Brad Shreve:
It's a series of little vignettes that. That don't tie together in a. You know, like the. They go here, they go, and then they go there, and, you know, they're up on top of the chimney. And it's all about adventure. It's not like, let's learn something from this adventure. The kids don't learn anything, per se. I don't think they're just having fun.

Tony Maietta:
I think the parents are the ones who need to learn something. I think that's. That's the point.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, but the parents are not in any of these scenes. That's what I'm saying. It's carried back to them. And that's where I'm saying there's so much that if you really analyze it scene by scene, it's almost like the movie's not going anywhere and it's still enjoyable. But then at the end, it all ties it together.

Tony Maietta:
I think that's what I mean. The kids lessons.

Brad Shreve:
It's not a criticism. I'm just saying it's an interesting premise, the way they did it.

Tony Maietta:
No, I get it. The kids lessons are more subtle than the parents lessons. The kids are very unruly. You know, their song. Perfect nanny never give us castor oil or groomer. You know, they wouldn't put. They won't put pepper in her tea and all that because they've been driving these nannies crazy because they're being ignored by their parents. So you have this loving, stern, but charming, magical woman who comes and shows them the attention they've been craving, and they all come together.

Tony Maietta:
The children learn their lesson, and the parents learn their lesson at the end. And they all go off and fly a kite, which I think is beautiful.

Brad Shreve:
Well, a lot of reasons that is. Is, you know, Mr. Banks, we see him being stoic. We see him being. No nonsense. We only hear that the children are bad. You never really see them being bad.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right.

Brad Shreve:
Even when they ran away from the bank, they were terrified. They were so, you know, we know they ran away with the kite. And there's no. None of these things that they list that they won't do to an Annie. We never Saw any of that.

Tony Maietta:
That's true. That's true. So we hear about it. We hear about it secondhand through their songs.

Brad Shreve:
Exactly.

Tony Maietta:
I think if there's one thing. And I. It breaks my heart to say this because I love him. I love Edwin. I think he was a true jewel gem. Just delightful, delightful actor, comedian. But the I Love to laugh scene is probably the one scene when I go, if you can lift anything out of this, it's probably this because it goes on a bit too long and it doesn't. As you just said, it really doesn't move the plot forward at all.

Tony Maietta:
Except here's another crazy, eccentric character who knows Mary Poppins. I think that's what I think about that song. Still love it.

Brad Shreve:
But I loved it. I loved it when I was a kid because it was just so fun. I didn't know why. When you laugh, you float in the ceiling. But I like the idea. I think of other things I think could have not necessarily been cut, but cut back. I enjoyed it, but, yeah, it didn't go again. It just was.

Brad Shreve:
Other than to learn that, you know, the jokes that they told, which had. Were significant later on. It didn't add a whole lot of punch to it. I was absolutely shocked because I love Edwin as well. I was absolutely shocked. He died so early. I. Well, not early.

Brad Shreve:
He was older, but. Because he was almost 80. But I didn't realize he died in the mid-60s. I thought for sure he was around in the 70s.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Soon after this. Soon after this.

Brad Shreve:
Right after this film.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And he was a delight.

Tony Maietta:
He was a delight. It's a delightful scene. It is. I feel terrible saying that, but I'm always like, oh, it's this scene. And that's always when I get up to go. Go get something to drink if I'm watching this, because I. I get it. He loves to laugh.

Tony Maietta:
I get it.

Brad Shreve:
And you sure as hell can tell he was vaudeville.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, well, this whole thing is vaudeville. You know, that's the thing. This whole thing is vaudeville. I think now we need to speak about Julie. I really want to talk about Julie because I think it's important.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, Julie Schmolln.

Tony Maietta:
Julie Andrews in the mid-60s. You couldn't get bigger than Julie Andrews was. I mean, think about this. This film and then Sound of Music. I mean, she was everywhere. She was the. Literally. I say this all the time, but she was literally the biggest star in the world in the mid-60s.

Tony Maietta:
And then she fell so fast. So fast. Because the times, they were a changing. And she Caught on the very cusp of the end of the middle, the early to mid-60s optimism before, you know, culture just went upside down, topsy turvy. But I think Julie still, to this day, it's better now, but she still gets a bum rap. I think. I think people think of her as sugary, sweet Julie Andrews, the Nanny, because she played back to back. Well, she didn't play back to back nannies, but she played two very famous nannies close to each other.

Tony Maietta:
There was a wonderful movie in between Mary Poppins and Sound of Music called the Americanization of Emily, in which she ain't no nanny, but nobody thinks of that. But here's what I love about Julie is Julie gives Mary Poppins, and this is also credit to the producer and to Walt and to the director. She gives Mary Poppins so many layers that aren't obvious, but they're very, very subtle. But you get them if you look for them. She is crisp and starchy on the outside, but she's very cheeky. Her words underneath, you know, she's sweet and she's kind, but she's also a little vain.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, she's very vain.

Tony Maietta:
She's headstrong. She's judgmental. She's fickle. You know, she'll totally. If the children remember when the children talk about all their adventures to their parents and she totally denies them, she says, I'll call a policeman. This is not true.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
That's not the best. You know, she's basically letting the children look. Look like they're liars.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
And so in Julie's mind, she said that she always believed that Mary Poppins had a secret life. And so she worked with her husband, Tony, Tony Walton, and they did things like that. They let, like, put bright linings in her coats and her petticoats were pink. Because you get the idea that Mary Poppins does have a secret life. You know, what exactly is her past relationship with Bert? We're never really sure. No, you know, but there's something there, and I love that about her. I love the fact that it's not just one layer. It's not just one level in this character.

Tony Maietta:
She really does give Mary Poppins a lot more dimension than perhaps another actress would have. And I don't think she gets enough credit for that. Yes, she got the Oscar. We'll get to it. But I think people give a lot of criticism to her that I don't think is warranted. How do you feel about that?

Brad Shreve:
I don't think it's warranted either. I think. I think the world of her. I think she had a beautiful voice. I think she was a great actress. As you said. She, you know, she came in a wrong time when things were really changing. She was right at the end of this.

Brad Shreve:
You know, there weren't many musicals after this for a long time. And she was a victim of the time.

Tony Maietta:
Changing times.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, yeah, she was a victim of the changing times. I will say I'm very sad about something for her. And, you know, she wanted to change her image because we know backstage she's More than. A few have said she talks like a sailor, she's crass, and Which I absolutely love.

Tony Maietta:
She grew up in the music hall. Yes, yes.

Brad Shreve:
Somebody did a skit. I wish I could remember who it was, where they were just. It was basically backstage with Julie Andrews and every word out of her mouth was bleeped. They said they couldn't show it. I mean, it's all done as a joke. Yeah. Because of that whole background. But, you know, she wanted to kind of shed that image and unfortunately, her husband gave her the opportunity to do so.

Brad Shreve:
And that was that horrible film S.O.B. because it said, okay, we're gonna have Julie bare her breasts. Yeah. And I get why she wanted to do that. I just wish she had done it in a better film because it was awful, in my opinion.

Tony Maietta:
Well, yeah. When we talked about a little bit about way back in our first episode, we talked about Blake Edwards and how sometimes his taste level is questionable. There are some things he does which I absolutely think are brilliant. I think Victor Victoria is a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful, brilliant film. I love Days of Wine and Roses. But then he'll do things where you're just like Blake, and one of those is SOB I think it's just a crass. Yeah, it's hard for me to watch S.O.B. i'm like, oh, don't do that.

Tony Maietta:
I think if she had just done Victor Victoria, perhaps maybe her image would have changed a little bit.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
But you know what? That's. That's what it is. That she's. She, she, you know, she gets a bum rap because she played these nannies. But anybody to a T you talks says what a bawdy, funny, down to earth woman she is. And I think people get that more and more. But she's Julie Andrews and for Christ's sake, she's. She's narrating Bridgerton now.

Tony Maietta:
So she's still working. It's amazing to me. One of the things I love about some of these stories, you know, she did not like first of all, she was not fond of all the wire work, you know, because she was up on a wire.

Brad Shreve:
Who would be?

Tony Maietta:
Who would be? And actually that famous entrance of her coming in from the sky and then going up and over the gate is not Julie Andrews. That's her double. That's her stand in because they thought that was too dangerous. But she did a lot of wire work and they dropped her one time. She said she could feel it. She's like, boys, I'm feeling something. And she said she went down. But luckily it was near the end of shooting, so she was okay.

Tony Maietta:
But, you know, and I would imagine

Brad Shreve:
back then, without CGI and everything else, they were probably a lot more complicated and uncomfortable harnesses they were having to wear.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, God.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
They had to make the costumes bigger to hide the harnesses because they were very uncomfortable harnesses.

Brad Shreve:
And little Matthew Garber wasn't happy about being up in the air either.

Tony Maietta:
No, I don't think any of them were.

Brad Shreve:
He was afraid of heights. He was afraid of heights.

Tony Maietta:
That's right, he was. And they didn't. They say something like, we'll give you a dime every time. And I guess he made quite a. He made quite a chunk of change from that. Another thing Julie didn't like was the parrot umbrella. She didn't like the fact that it talked. She said it gave her the creeps.

Tony Maietta:
The parrot umbrella that talked. And it was actually supposed to talk throughout the entire film, but because it gave her the creeps, she had. It's only that one scene where the parrot talks at the end. And I think that's fine because it is kind of a creepy thing that your umbrella handle talks to you.

Brad Shreve:
But I like. She says, you know, basically shut up without saying shut up. Squeezes that beak. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
So, Brad, before we talk into. Before we talk about the stats, and I do want to talk about the Oscars of 1964, 65, because they're very important to this movie. Is there anything you want to say to the people about the podcast or anything else?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, I do. Please rate and review our podcast. It is how we get paid. You've heard us say before. Tony and I don't make any money on this. In fact, we spend some. Not a whole lot, but enough. We would love to at least hear from you.

Brad Shreve:
You know, we hear so many great things and lots of emails and please don't stop those. We really enjoy them. But also let others know, go to Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, as they say, and rate and review the show so others can see that you like it. And maybe they'll think, maybe I should check this out, too.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we do not make any money off this. Matthew Garber made more money with his dimes. But it is a labor of love and we love doing it. And we so appreciate when people reach out to us. Fan of Disney, perfect example. Here we are talking about Mary Poppins. So we need to read some reviews, too, later in one of our upcoming episodes, too, because we've been getting some.

Tony Maietta:
And I always like to give people a thank you for that and suggestions. So as we talked about earlier in this, Mary Poppins was released. It was released about a month and a half before My Fair Lady. You really can't talk about Mary Poppins without My Fair Lady. And as we said, it made it edged out My Fair lady by a million dollars. Thirteen Oscar nominations, It won five Oscars. Best Actress, Julie. Best Song, Chim Chim Cherrie.

Tony Maietta:
Score, editing and visual effects. So let's talk about these Oscars because it is legendary. Because as we all know, or maybe we don't know, maybe we should talk about this now. Julie. The reason Julie was able to do Mary Poppins was because she was not cast as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. It went to Audrey Hepburn. Now we're not going to talk about My Fair Lady. Maybe we'll do that sometime.

Tony Maietta:
This is about Mary Poppins on My Fair Lady. However, the situation is important because it changed Hollywood. This whole thing with Julie and Audrey Hepburn changed Hollywood because Jack Warner paid a record $5.5 million for My Fair Lady. That's about $59 million today just for the rights to do My Fair Lady. So obviously he needed a star in that film. He wanted Cary Grant to play Professor Higgins, he wanted Audrey, and he wanted Jimmy Cagney to play Alfred Doolittle. And Cary Grant refused, saying he wouldn't even go see the movie if Rex Harrison wasn't playing Professor Higgins. But he needed a star and he offered Audrey a million dollars.

Tony Maietta:
So, I mean, come on, really? You're going to turn down a million dollars for this part? And by the way, he had a point. Julie had never made a film before, so he had to have some kind of insurance that he was going to get a return on his investment. So Andrews was crestfallen, but she went on, you know, allowed her to do Mary Poppins. And as I said, Poppins beat My Fair lady to release by about two months. And it was a phenomenon, but so was My Fair Lady. But what happened. When it was released, the controversy about the dubbing started. Now, Hollywood has always, always, always done vocal dubbing.

Tony Maietta:
It is not. It was not a new situation. Rita Hayworth was dubbed. Sid Charisse was dubbed. Angela Lansbury with her glorious voice was dubbed. When she was doing Hollywood movies, it happened. But what really got people upset was, was the fact that it really began with Gypsy in 62, when Rosalind Russell got the part over the merm, when she got Rose over the merm. And people were really pissed off about that.

Tony Maietta:
So it kind of primed the pump for this. Hepburn was told that she was going to be doing the singing in My Fair Lady. She trained for it. There are recordings of Audrey Hepburn singing the score of My Fair lady, but it just wasn't good enough. So she was just as surprised as everybody else when she found out that wasn't her voice coming out of her, it was Marni Nixon's. Okay, so that got a lot of people upset. None of this. All this happened after the movies were released and were in the theaters.

Tony Maietta:
So there was a huge swell of sentiment on Julie Andrews side by the time the Oscar nominations came out. And Hepburn was unfairly criticized by the press for taking this role because they said she was only giving half a performance. Now, as I said, this is a new development because just a few Years before, in 1957, Deborah Carr was dubbed also by Marni Nixon in the King and I, and she got an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. So this is a fairly fairly new development in Hollywood. It just. People were becoming more sophisticated and more aware of the tricks that Hollywood did in these films. So both Julie and Audrey were nominated for Golden Globes for Best Outstanding Actress in a musical or comedy. And Julie won.

Tony Maietta:
And here's where I love Julie Andrews. And this is. So this is Julie Andrews. This isn't this stereotypical Julie Andrews. Julie Andrews got up to thank the Hollywood Forum press, everybody, for the Golden Globe. She won for Mary Poppins. And at the very end of her speech, she said, finally, my thanks to a man who made a wonderful movie that made this all possible in the first place, Mr. Jack Warner.

Tony Maietta:
And that she walked off the stage and everybody was like, gasping, like she just threw this incredible shade to Jack Warner. But Julie said she was a little taken aback. She did it, too. But she saw he was laughing and everything was fine. So anyway, I'm getting somewhere. I really am. So anyway, the time came for the Oscar nominations, and it is true, Audrey was not nominated for Best Actress. Julie was.

Tony Maietta:
The other nominees that year were Debbie Reynolds in the Unsinkable, Molly Brown, Kim Stanley in Seance On a Wet Afternoon, Ann Bancroft in the Pumpkin Eater, and Sophia Loren in Marriage Italian Style. Now, Ann Bancroft and Sophia Loren had both just won Oscars, so you kind of think you can kind of take them out of the running. I love Debbie Reynolds. This was Debbie Reynolds first Oscar nomination and only Oscar nomination, by the way. But I don't really think her performance in Molly Brown warrants it. So the only person really that would give Julie any competition was Kim Stanley. And she's wonderful in Seance On a Wet Afternoon, but she is a theater person. She rarely, rarely did films and they weren't gonna give it to her.

Tony Maietta:
So Julie pretty much had this in the bag, okay? Not just for sentiment, but because she actually arguably gave the best performance that year out of these nominated actresses. So here's where real life is even stranger than fiction. And by real life, as I said before, R E E L life. So Rex Harrison is nominated for Best Actor for My Fair Lady. He wins. He's presented with the Oscar by Audrey Hepburn, his co star in the film My Fair lady, and Julie Andrews wins best Actress for Mary Poppins. So you have Rex Harrison winning for My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews winning for Mary Poppins. And in the papers the next day, you have the two stars of the Broadway My Fair lady standing next to each other holding Oscars for two different films.

Tony Maietta:
And. And some of the pictures had Audrey Hepburn in between them. It's crazy. Crazy to me. I just. That way, the way things work like that, it's an. Isn't that an astounding story? Or did I just bore you to tears?

Brad Shreve:
That really is. Excuse me, I need to Wait. I need some coffee. Did you say something?

Tony Maietta:
But here's. Here's what's really sad to me. So Julie said because of all this thing about Sheena, it was a consolation prize because she didn't get to play Eliza Doolittle. Julie. This really affected Julie for a long time. For many years. She said she felt very conflicted about this Oscar. Did I really deserve it? Did I not really deserve it until about.

Tony Maietta:
She said 10 or 15 years ago? And these are my words, not hers. She said, you know what? Fuck it, I'm an Oscar winner. She used to keep it in the attic. She was so conflicted about it, she brought that Oscar down and put it on her mantle. She said, and that's where it stays today because she won an Oscar, for God's sake. So I think she deserved it.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
I don't think it was a consolation prize. And I'm glad she did it. But here's what's really, really interesting of all this. This really changed Hollywood, as I said, this dubbing scandal, because that's why later on we have this to thank for getting a singing Clint Eastwood and a singing Lee Marvin in Paint yout Wagon or a singing Elizabeth Taylor in A Little Night Music, a singing Russell Crowe in Les Mis. All because of the fact that the dubbing thing caused such a furor in 1964. It really was the end of an era in Hollywood. Hollywood, End of innocence. It's astounding to me, this one movie.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And that's who cares, right?

Tony Maietta:
I, and I personally love Audrey in My Fair Lady. I think she is wonderful in My Fair Lady. She gives a beautiful, beautiful performance. She worked very hard. But that's Hollywood, folks. That's how it works in Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
You know, it. It's like I think of Kevin Bacon and Footloose. You know, people are always like, that was astounding. Dancing. He's like, yeah, it wasn't me. And nobody batting an eye. So why is singing any different?

Tony Maietta:
You know, what about Jennifer Biel in Flashdance? You know, having the dance double, you know, she got grief for that, though. Maybe it's a misogynist thing. Maybe it's a misogynistic. I don't know.

Brad Shreve:
Could be.

Tony Maietta:
I don't know. I just think it's kind of fascinating that this one movie caused in something that Hollywood had been doing for decades, this one time. It brought it all up and it never. I'm trying to think. I'm really hard pressed to think of an actor in a musical. There aren't that many more musicals that didn't do their own singing after this. And if anybody knows out there, let me know. I can't think of one at the top of my head right now, but I tell you right now, if it was done, it was done.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, we can thank them for Lucy and Mame, I gotta say, right now. Oh, Brad. Well, I think that's Mary Poppins. We just talked about Mary Poppins, so that was a lot of fun. I'm really glad that we. We took this. This is our first film for our best actress little festival, and I'm excited about starting it with Mary Poppins.

Brad Shreve:
It was a lot of fun and I'm. I'm glad to have watched it again. It really. It was just so fun. And like I said, I forgot how fun it was. Yeah, I really did. I sat down like am I gonna enjoy this as much as I used to? And I did. So I'm glad we did it.

Tony Maietta:
It is. I urge people, if you haven't seen Mary Poppins in a while, do yourself a favor. Especially now, with all the craziness that's going on in the world, just put it on and sit down and watch the whole thing. You will be transported into a wonderful, lovely world that you just will carry with you after you watch the movie. You really do well, Brad, I guess that leaves us with only one thing left to say. But as usual, I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's say going Hollywood podcast, practically perfect in every way.

Brad Shreve:
No, let's say supercalifragilisticexphialidocious.

Tony Maietta:
I knew you were gonna do that. That or a bad cockney. Goodbye, everybody. That was bad on purpose. Goodbye, everybody.