Practically Perfect

Julie Andrews as the magic nanny

And now, for another movie review -- one of my favorite movies from childhood. When I mention "Mary Poppins", most male acquaintances are dumb-founded. Isn't that the girly movie about a magic nanny? Can you be serious? Yes -- I can be as serious as Walt Disney himself; "Mary Poppins" was his favorite, of all the movies that Disney made up to that time.

The story behind the story is that Walt saw his daughter reading P.L. Travers' story some 20-odd years earlier, and wanted the movie rights. When he finally secured them, and his screenwriters read the Poppins books, they were perplexed. The books were a series of small vignettes, without any clearly defined villains or elaborate plots. Also, Mary Poppins was in some ways portrayed as a middle-aged crone (albeit magical). In fact, Bette Davis was at one time considered for the role. Rather than see these facts as limitations, the screenwriters, Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, saw them as a chance to enlarge the scope of the story -- a creative carte blanche. The first thing they did was scrap Davis, and pick the lovely, 27-year old Julie Andrews to play the lead. Not many people had preconceived ideas about who should play the part anyway. Miss Andrews' crisp English enunciation, singing voice and physical beauty made her a natural.

Next, there was this problem of no real plot. The handling of this problem was brilliant. The screenwriters presented the Banks household as one experiencing both family disintegration and a battle of the sexes. Both topics were significant for mid-century America, and the handling was witty without being preachy or finger wagging. Mrs. Banks was presented as a militant suffragette, and Mr. Banks was presented as a somewhat arrogant, chauvinistic head of the household. Both parents' zeal had closed their eyes to the fact that the children were without love or supervision. Though Mary Poppins herself was female, little was made of that -- the movie wasn't really a feminist screed. Both parents were held accountable (lovingly so, at the end), and the larger point was that family togetherness trumps money or career goals. All that said, it's interesting that the movie came out shortly after the Kennedy assassination -- a point where it seemed like a world run by men might experience total destruction through nuclear war. There was something altogether charming about a magic nanny who could effect wonderful changes through magic, songs, finger-snaps and changes of attitude most of all. In the fiction world, super powers are normally given to muscled men in capes, and they're gifted with powers of force and coercion. Mary Poppins and to some extent Samantha on TV's contemporaneous "Bewitched" put forth the bold proposition that things like subtlety, kindness and charm might work their own kind of magic.

Lastly, I'll go "out on a limb", like Shirley McClain. The metaphors in the movie are very strong -- the fact that the nanny comes out of the clouds has a highly theological connotation. Some of the songs' lyrics can make you think twice. Amid the treacly sugar-sweet lyrics are wry little ripostes aimed at various targets. "Perfect Nanny" and "Jolly Holiday" merit repeat listening. The Sherman brothers wrote the songs and never did so well before or after “Mary Poppins”. All things considered, the movie about a “practically perfect” nanny is practically perfect itself.