Revisiting Mary Poppins

(c) Gali_miau @ DeviantArt

Mary Poppins has always been one of my favorite movies. I remember watching it as a child and, strangely enough, being terribly frightened at the bank scene, when the mob of people start clamoring for their money. And, you know, Julie Andrews. Who, like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every way.

The songs are so delightful and the choreography for "Step in Time" still blows my mind -- and makes me wish I was a dancer.

So tonight, The Hubby and I rewatched it. ABCFamily conveniently aired it last night -- it can't be a coincidence that they air the film on TV two days before Saving Mr. Banks opens nationwide. And it was very interesting to watch it as an adult/scholar.

I can't help but be interested in "the truth" -- if we can ever know such a thing -- behind Saving Mr. Banks. So I'm reading the book and reading all the related stories on the Interwebz. My favorite, so far, is this one from D23: Why Emma Thompson Doesn't Wear Red. Apparently, P.L. Travers was quite..."demanding" to Uncle Walt, periodically insisting on random things for seemingly no reason. Emma Thompson says that, apparently, one day she showed up and said, " ‘I’ve gone off the color red and you can’t have any red in the film." And Disney was all, "What? It's England! You have red EVERYWHERE." So he gave in--temporarily. Because if you watch the film, there's little splashes of red scattered throughout the film. Apparently, while Disney gave P.L. Travers script approval, he eventually clarified that he didn't give her "final draft" approval. Which seems a bit of an uncool move to me, and we all know how much I love Uncle Walt.