Tuesday, November 03, 2020

Movie review - "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968) **1/2

 It looks gorgeous. I think people took the quality of photography in films like this for granted at the time. Huge budget. Ken Adams' sets are stunning. Lovely costumes. Well cast. Dick Van Dyke ideal for this. Sally Ann Howes is very winning. I liked the kids. Benny Hill is fun as is Robert Helpmann. Loved seeing Bond actors like Gert Frobe. Pleasant tunes.

It's just too long. Pointlessly so. The car doesn't start to play a role until 50 minutes in. Fifty minutes. They don't get to the land until ninety minutes in. They could and should have junked most of the first half, just made it a nice tight ninety minutes.

And why make the whole thing a dream? Why not have it just as a pure fantasy?


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