Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

This is easily one of my top three childhood films. It is as comforting and familiar to me as the smell of my father's cooking.  Angela Lansbury is just wonderful, and I was always amazed by films that combined animation with live action.  I was amazed by how they managed to put real people together with something that I knew was created on paper.  It seemed extremely clever to me and I was fascinated by any film where it occurred (which led me to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as a kid; a decision I regretted.  That steamroller scene was upsetting).

I regularly hired the video from my local store and knew it back to front, but upon purchasing the 25th anniversary DVD, it turns out that there was a lot more to the story than was shown in the initial version that I saw.  There are quite a few songs that weren't in the video I saw as a kid, and the extended Portobello Rd dance sequence is lovely.  I mentioned previously that I resented the addition of a song to my DVD copy of Beauty and the Beast ("Human Again" wasn't in the original version, and I don't feel that the film flows smoothly in to it, so it jars my viewing experience), but I must say that the additional scenes in Bedknobs and Broomsticks work for me.  They give the characters more depth.  As a kid, I particularly never understood why Emelius suddenly shacked up with Miss Price at the end, but with the extended version their quiet affection for each other is shown and so it all makes sense. 


Final Thought:  It often happens that, as an adult, you'll go back and watch a film or TV show you loved as a kid and realise that it was actually a bit messed up.  It somehow didn't seem that way to you when you were young.  Yet with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I always thought the deflation of the suits of armour most creepy, even as a child.

Up Next:  Being John Malkovich (1999)