Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Gimly March 18, 2018

★ 8/10

When I was younger, I used to spend a lot of my life alone in a studio with one of those tiny little 15cm TVs you wouldn't be caught dead with nowadays, plugged in to a VCR player, and exactly three movies on VHS. One of those three movies (the best of those three) was _Bedknobs and Broomsticks_. I watched it multiple times a day, every day, for months at a time. A period piece musical that saw orphans and their witch-friend get an army of sentient suits of armour to fight the Nazis... Is it any bloody wonder I turned out the way I did? Great movie though. Wouldn't kill me to see a remake with modern technology. So long as it kept the vibe and setting of the original. _Final rating:★★★★ - Very strong appeal. A personal favourite._

CinemaSerf November 26, 2022

★ 7/10

It's very much in the vein of "Mary Poppins" (1964) this, with a very similar style of live-action and animated sequences used to tell a slightly more menacing story. When three siblings arrive in a rural English village, evacuated from London during the Blitz of WWII, they are placed with the rather eccentric and definitely unwilling "Miss Price" (Angela Lansbury). Things start to look up for all concerned though when the kids discover that she is a trainee witch, and when they meet "Emelius" (David Tomlinson) they embark on some adventures using their magical bed as their vehicle in the search for the missing part of a substitutiary locomotion spell that might just thwart the Nazis. As with "Poppins", the music and lyrics come from the Sherman twins and "Beautiful Briny" and "Portobello Road" are probably the two best from their not so catchy soundtrack this time. Lansbury and Tomlinso…