Bedknobs and Broomsticks

1971

Action / Adventure / Animation / Comedy / Family / Fantasy / Musical

40
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 73% · 35 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 73% · 100K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.1/10 10 43082 43.1K

witch flying nazi world war ii knight live action and animation

Plot summary

Three children evacuated from London during World War II are forced to stay with an eccentric spinster. The children's initial fears disappear when they find out she is in fact a trainee witch.

Director

Robert Stevenson Photo
Robert Stevenson

Top cast

Sam Jaffe Photo
Sam Jaffe as Bookman
Don Barclay Photo
Don Barclay as Portobello Road Passerby
Cindy O'Callaghan Photo
Cindy O'Callaghan as Carrie
John Ericson Photo
John Ericson as Col. Heller
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
864.66 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 57 min
Seeds 7
1.84 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 57 min
Seeds 42

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by evanston_dad 7 / 10

Brings Back Memories of Grade School

I will always have a soft spot for this Disney flick, another of their part live action/part animation entries that sought to recreate the success of "Mary Poppins" and never quite made it. When I was in grade school, every once in a while we would have a movie day, where the whole school would crowd into the cafeteria, and a movie would be projected the old-fashioned way, multiple reels and all. At the time, it seemed like a momentous occasion whenever this day arrived, and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" is one of the movies I can remember seeing this way.And from what I remember, it's quite charming. Angela Lansbury never put her name to anything that wasn't at least competent, and she's winning here as a witch with a magic bed (boy, that could be misconstrued, couldn't it?) who can take her and a couple of young kids on magic adventures to far-off places. Come on, what kid wouldn't want a bed like that? Grade: A
Reviewed by jbartelone 6 / 10

Good Film. But Various Different Edits Taint its Enjoyment

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is often compared to Mary Poppins and rightfully so as both films have a similar story line. A magical nanny is sent to look after children, both have the same leading protagonist (David Tomlinson,) both feature live film and animation, with songs by the Sherman brothers, and both came out of the Walt Disney studio.Bedknobs and Broomsticks involves an apprentice witch who wants to complete her correspondence course in beginning witchcraft, but to do this, she has to search for a magical spell called Subsitutiary Locomotion which will complete her training. The story involves Angela Lansbury, playing the witch, who flies on a magical bed with Tomlinson and her three caretakers, to an animated land attempting to retrieve the spell. In addition, the film is set in World War II, where a mixture of live Nazi's and animated creatures both try to help and hinder Lansbury, Tomlinson, and the children on their adventures. The five characters control the bed through a magical bedknob that transports them from a reality world to a fantasy world and back again.Years ago, I had a record that had the Songs From Bedknobs and Broomsticks on it and loved it! However, when I saw the film on Turner Classic Movies and later researched it, sadly I learned that this film, which could have been a classic, suffers badly because of editing and failed restoration work.The original release of the film played in limited areas and ran about two and a half hours. Disney decided to make its first cuts to the film several months later when it went into wide release. The wide release version is what I saw on Turner Classic Movies. While this film was trimmed by over twenty minutes, most likely to cater to the shorter attention spans of children at the time of wide release, you can easily spot the edits. The Eglantine number is shortened, only a few words of With a Flair remain, The Old Home Guard seems to start in the middle of the second verse of the song, and the wonderful perhaps best song in the film "A Step in The Right Direction" is not there. However, you can hear the instances of the instrumental on the soundtrack.In 1979, the film was re-released again and ludicrously cut even more to about ninety five minutes. For years this is what was played on Standard Cable and Broadcast TV. Only two songs remain in this version. In 1996, Disney attempted to reconstruct the film, but were successful only in spots. About twenty minutes of footage was found and added back into the movie. However, the song "A Step in the Right Direction" was mysteriously not found and remains "Lost." The audio track for the song was recovered, and you can hear this on the Special Edition DVD, with still shots from the film showing what the scenes looked like as the song was song.However, the discarded footage soundtrack was not recoverable, because it had been damaged or lost. Many actors were too old or had passed away and could not re-do their speaking and singing parts, so Disney had to hire extras to dub their voices over the restored footage. The dubbing is horribly bad, especially for the voice-over of one of the children, Charlie, and the voice-over for David Tomlinson, sounds nothing like him! You would think Disney could have at least found actors with voices that resembled the tones, accents, and pitches of the original dialog. It is great that several songs were recovered, but without "Step in the Right Direction," restored back to the film, which is such an uplifting and encouraging song, and the terrible dubbing, the film will be a mixed bag.Why Disney cut "Step in the Right Direction" is criminal! I think Disney should have taken more time to look for it when they did the film restoration project for the 1996 DVD. What SHOULD have been shortened is the animated soccer match, which remains a sequence that does not help the film at all. The "With A Flair" song, as well as "Eglantine" are at their full lengths on the restored DVD, as is the Portobello Road dance sequence. However, some critics feel that the extended version of Portobello Road is too long. The restored DVD has a new song called "Nobody's Problems For Me." My vote would be a choice of versions on a double-sided DVD for future release. Side 1 would contain the widespread DVD release that Turner Classic Movies plays. Side 2 would be the extended version, but WITH the originally undubbed dialog found and remastered with "A Step in the Right Direction" added in if it is ever found! The loss of "Step in the Right Direction" and the bad dubbing in the extended version hurts what could have been a great film. Bedknobs and Broomsticks has the important plot of searching for a missing spell. Tragically ironic that Disney took out bits and pieces of this film that may never be recovered. It is sad to think what this film could have been if the limited release had been LEFT ALONE!
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