18 December 1968 (USA)
Ken Hughes
Dick Van Dyke ... Caractacus Potts
Sally Ann Howes ... Truly Scrumptious
Lionel Jeffries ... Grandpa Potts
Gert Frobe ... Baron Bomburst
Anna Quayle ... Baroness Bomburst
This movie begins with a 7 minute race/credit sequence that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. This is unforgivable. I imagine when it was shown in theaters that by the time this monstrous intro was finished the children had already finished their candy and had begun throwing their popcorn, violently, at the screen in protest!
If you have the willpower to make it through this scene you are rewarded with cockney British kids whining about how they want to buy this crappy old jalopy. Later they hitch a ride from a crazy woman driver, she's named, get this, Truly Scrumptious. Arriving at the children's home she is accosted by their insane father, Dick Van Dyke. He flies around the yard in some crazy get-up in a fast motion sequence a la the Munsters.
After brow-beating the woman, Misogynist Van Dyke starts singing at his kids. Take off your coat; you're going to be here for awhile. He also shows off his steam-punk inventions which may be the only thing that makes this movie worth watching. Anywho, the dog blows on candy like it was a whistle so Dick goes to a candy maker to sell it. The candy maker turns out to be Truly's father. Dick annoys the candy maker by dancing and singing at him, eventually the entire factory is dancing around and blowing on these ridiculous candies. He then sinks even lower by conducting the factory workers like they were an orchestra. Thankfully this calls in a bunch of dogs which tear apart the factory and end this musical fiasco.
Not two minutes after this Dick tucks his kids in and sings at them again! This song has no redeeming qualities and will have you wincing in embarrassment for Dick. After this, a fair comes to town so Dick goes there to peddle his wares. He ends up merely torturing some poor sap in his 19th century electric chair. His victim chases after him but Dick swiftly avoids him by singing and dancing 'Me ol' Bamboo.'
Dick buys his kids the old jalopy and rebuilds it so it looks nice. If you prognosticated that there would be a song then you were correct in your prognostication. The song is based on the title of the movie and consequently the sound the car makes. I can actually tolerate this song and find myself singing it in public occasionally, if only to see what reaction I can get.
On their drive they encounter Truly, the crazy woman driver again and she drives into the swamp for a second time. So they take her to the beach. Ya know, I kind of miss the goold ol' days when women's bathing suits were full length bridal gowns! The kids sing at Truly in their horrible cockney accents.
Here's where the movie simply falls apart. While sitting in their car, still on the beach a ship appears in the distance. Dick tells his children some nonsense about how the boat belongs to Baron Bombburst, an evil German guy, because as we all know, all Germans are evil. But this isn't just a story, the rest of this movie involves this Baron's plot to steal their car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
This is the meat of this movie. German stereotypes chase after Dick and the kids. After Truly sings us a musical sleeping pill, the Germans kidnap Dicks father and take him to Vulgaria in their Zeppelin. Yawn. Dick, genius that he is, drives them off a cliff. They're saved by the lone fact that the writers gave Chitty wings. That's right, Chitty actually begins to fly through the air. Granpa now sings us a song from his flying outhouse. Fast forward through it.
The zeppelin now drops grandpa off in Vulgaria, all the while we still don't know if this is really happening or if it's just one long, boring dream sequence. Granpda meets the king who is a raving lunatic that rides a toy horse around the castle. Along the way there's plenty of midget jokes and sour-kraut jokes. By the way, I have one, How do you make a sour Kraut? The Treaty of Versailles. Lol. I love that one.
So a bunch of old men start singing a song that is so boring and without merit. Can I skip past this? After this song, it cuts back to Dick and friends still in the flying car. I mean, do they have to show us every second that Chitty is in flight? When they finally land, there develops a new Vulagaria's-children-are-missing subplot. What is this? This was no where alluded to during the first hour and a half of this movie and they just spring this on us??!!
After a bunch of long scenes meant to show us that Vulagia's children are being hunted down, the King and Queen are driving around and suddenly the Queen is launched a mile high into the air and her dress acts as a parachute. So the King SHOOTS HER DOWN!!!
Now this creepy pederast guy is going around screaming around lollipops. What drug did the writer's digest while writing this. It starts out like a normal movie, I guess they just ran out of ideas and had to write this 2 hour trip to Vulgaria subplot to thicken things up. Dick's kids now get kidnapped by the pedo guy and are brought to the king.
After Dick gives the children, now divulged to be living in the sewers, a much needed pep talk, we have yet another singing scene where the King repeatedly tries to KILL THE QUEEN! Seriously, what did America do to deserve this? We didn't bomb London, why wasn't this move made in German? This scene is highly watchable however as the Queen is in lingerie and she is hot, I mean she really has it going on. At least they give some fan-service to all the daddies in the audience.
Dick and Truly have a plan however to get the kids back. They dress up as giant toys. Oh well, let's give 'em an F for effort. They do get an A for their amazing ability to sing in counterpoint, however. I'm beginning to think this whole movie was written merely to showcase these songs.
The sewer kids then take over the castle while Dick and Co. provide a distraction. You know what happens now? They take us back to the beach where Dick has been yacking away at his kids for the past hour and a half. How do they pass this off as a proper movie when over an hour of the plot was merely the demented babbling of Dick Van Dyke?
I give this movie 5 stars because Truly was hot and the Queen of Vulgaria was hot.
