Mary Poppins

Robert Stevenson’s 1964 film brings a magical nanny (Julie Andrews) to a London banker’s children in 1910. It took thirteen nominations at the 37th Academy Awards and won five: Actress for Julie Andrews, Film Editing, Music Score (substantially original), Song for “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, and the branch then called Special Visual Effects. The other eight did not convert: Best Picture, Directing, adapted screenplay, Color Cinematography, Color Art Direction, Color Costume Design, Sound and adapted scoring. It met My Fair Lady in nine of those, losing seven, winning only Film Editing; the adapted screenplay went to Becket. P. L. Travers put her objection in writing. Her 2 September 1964 letter to her publisher called it “Disney through and through, spectacular, colourful, gorgeous but all wrapped around mediocrity of thought, poor glimmerings of understanding”. Dick Van Dyke plays two parts: Bert the sweep and elderly bank chairman Mr Dawes, billed as Navckid Keyd, an anagram of his name. He asked Disney for that role, was refused, and paid $4,000 for it. He apologised for the accent at BAFTA in 2017. A good fit if you want the change to land on the father not the nanny, and read one actor holding both sweep and banker as deliberate. Not for anyone who finds 139 minutes and the animated interlude long.