Film of the book: ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ (1971)

A delightful, quirky and underrated Disney film I have always enjoyed, which has several things in common with Mary Poppins: wonderful music from the Sherman Brothers, one of the same actors (David Tomlinson), children going on magical adventures with seemingly prim ‘n’ proper women, an animated segment, good special effects and – most importantly for this blog post – a vast improvement upon the original book.

First published as separate books in the 1940s, The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks by Mary Norton were published as an omnibus edition, Bedknob and Broomstick. This title then became that of the film, with added plurals (I don’t know why – there is only one knob and one stick!)

The concept, of three London children named Charles, Carey (Carrie in the film) and Paul, travelling on a bed via a magic knob with the help of a witch, Miss Price, is the same for both. There are few similarities apart from this. The most glaring difference is that the film is set during the Second World War, with the children being cheeky working-class evacuees reluctantly taken in by Miss Price (in the book, they are middle-class, it appears to be pre-war, and the children are staying with an aunt in Bedfordshire when they meet Miss Price). Rather than using magic to help her flowers grow, Miss Price (the marvellous Angela Lansbury) is learning spells for the war effort, culminating in a locomotion spell which chases the invading Germans away. There are many plot holes and mysteries in the film, which I don’t mind because it’s fun. The book is not nearly as fun. Even the travel on the bed is not fun (it lurches and makes everyone feel ill), while in the film it’s a fabulous magical moment, false-colour landscapes and stars whizzing by to the tune of ‘The Age of Not Believing’ while the bed’s occupants grin and hold on to their hats.

The first place in the book that the children travel to is their mother’s house, where they find she is not in, so they hang around limply until dark and are picked up by the police, who question them at length about the bed. Eventually they get back to their aunt and the next adventure is to a cannibal island, which is not at all politically correct, and after they return they’re sent home in disgrace because their aunt doesn’t believe the bed got soaking wet from the sea. Compare these rather uninteresting events with the brilliant ‘Portobello Road’ sequence, Miss Price’s fierce and cynical black cat Cosmic Creepers, the jolly charlatan / father figure Emelius Browne joining the adventure (he features in the book as Emelius Jones, a 17th century apprentice necromancer, and is not the same kind of person at all), the quest for the other half of the spellbook which will complete the locomotion spell, the ‘Beautiful Briny Sea’ sequence, hilarious soccer match on the island of human-like animals, etc. I love the film; the book is comparatively mediocre and I wouldn’t recommend it.