Christmas would not be Christmas without watching old musicals, some of which many would consider as children’s films, on repeat. I don’t have access to the internet never mind AI right now so everything in this snoop is from memory. You are not going to get dates and directors and even most cast members may be a struggle but genuine highlights and specific scenes I of course will include.
1. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
I’ve probably watched it over 50 times. Caractacus Potts and Truly Scrumptious, Dick Van Dyke at his absolute best with Mary Poppins coming in a close second and Sally Anne Howes as his Beautiful heroine and love interest Truly. And children Jemima and Jeremy, grandpa played beautifully by Lionel Jeffries.
Favourite Scenes, have to be the breakfast making machine at the beginning of the film and sweet factory number, when Caracatacus takes his “Toot Sweet” invention to factory owner and Truly Scrumptious father for investment. And when the toys come to life at the Barons birthday party.
Scariest scene, when the Childcatcher finds Jeremy and Jermina in the toy makers workshop (Played by Benny Hill) and takes them off to the castle of the Baron and Baroness.
Funniest bits include the hair cut at the fairground when Barbara Windsors husband Arthur Mullard (The Big Man) gets his hair cut using Caractus Potts hair cutting invention and when Grandpa Potts gets captured in his shed mistaken for his inventor son’s workshop. Everyone is after the secret to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the mysterious magical floating, flying car.
2. Mary Poppins
The academy award winning 1964 production, also starring Dick Van Dyke as Chimney sweep Bert and Julie Andrews as Mary, Jane and Michael Banks nanny in the lead roles. Glynis Johns plays the children’s mother Winifred Banks, the stuffy banker Dad played by David Tomlinson.
Favourite scenes, when the children write the advertisement for their father outlining the qualities they’d like in the person to fill the vacancy. The dance number on the rooftops of London when Bert shows Mary Poppins what life as a chimney sweep is like, I think the number is The Old Bamboo and the Votes for Women number in the Banks home when Mrs Banks show her feminist views which somewhat contradict her role in the Edwardian household at the time.
Scariest or saddest scene definitely at the end when the wind changes and Mary must pack up her things in her carpet bag and head off.
Funniest bits are when everyone goes to tea and Mary Poppins tries to control Bert and the children, and bring them back down to earth except their laughter keeps them all floating on the ceiling and Mary Poppins gets very exasperated and when Mary insisting the nursery needs tidying up decides to let a helping hand ending up with Mary measuring up the children using her own magic measuring stick, deeming herself Practically Perfect in Every Way.
3. My Fair Lady,
The film adaptation of George Bernard Shaws classic tale Pygmalion where a London flower girl is the subject of a bet between two gentlemen, the wager, whether the professor can teach her to speak so well she can be passed off as a royal princess at a grand ball. Wilfred Hyde Whyte as Colonel Hugh Pickering and Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins set about the endeavour with Eliza Doolittle played by Audrey Hepburn who despite not being nominated for her role in the film, the film scooped 8 Oscar’s and Hepburn presented the award to her co star Rex Harrison for best actor.
Favourite scenes include the opening in the flower market in Covent Garden, a massive number that begins early morning when the market is all but deserted and transforms into a hive of activity. When Eliza returns from the grand ball, high on life and performs I should have danced all night, alone in Professor Higgins house. When we meet Eliza’s father trying to scam the professor and colonel Pickering out of money for the use of his daughter for the speech experiment and his subsequent wedding nuptials and “Get me to the church on time’ big song and dance number in the pub is absolutely magic.
Scariest Saddest Bits, probably when Eliza realises her love interest Freddie wouldn’t be interested in her if he knew the truth and she is forced to end things.
Funniest bit, when Eliza attends royal ascot as a practise outing preceding the big test ball in award winning and memorable black and white costume by Norman Hartnell and despite her attempts to maintain her decorum doesn’t quite manage to hold it together, shouting at her horse “Dover move your blooming arse’ to the horror of the gentile folk assembled.
4. White Christmas
The holiday film starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen where a famous night club duo Bob Wallace and Phil Davis offer to help out an old army general save his struggling Vermont hotel, along the way connecting up with the Haynes sisters, Betty, Clooney and Judy, Ellen for Danny Kaye to create a secret love interest diversion for Bing Crosby. It’s super cute and very funny with some incredible dance numbers, namely Kaye and Ellen performing “The best things happen while you’re dancing” and Clooney and Ellen performing sisters, which is then taken off by Wallace and Davis to cover for the sisters as they make a fast escape from the nightclub where they are working.
Favourite Scenes are definitely at the end of the film when the four stars get together to put on the big show at the Vermont Inn with numbers “What can you do with a general” and “Gee I wish I was back in the army”
Funniest bit, probably the housekeeper in the Vermont Inn Emma, played famously well by Mary Wickes who makes me laugh the minute she walks into a scene.
5. Funny Girl
I absolutely love love love two Barbra Streisand films, well truth is I love all Barbra Streisand films but two particularly, The Way We Were with Robert Redford and Funny Girl, the Christmas classic, with Omar Shariff.
I have watched Funny Girl at least 50 times over the years, am pretty much word perfect on the exploits of clumsy struggling song and dance comedian Fanny Brice and her transformation into huge broadway star along side the complete collapse of her love life with philanderer, drinker, gambler and all round ner do well Nick Arnstein.
Rain on my parade is probably my favourite musical number of all time, Streisand performs with gusto as she runs for the train, electing not to be taken down by the man she loves’ poor treatment of her. Any one who needs a good track to lift you on a road race or when tackling a marathon or long distance run, I recommend this for the ultimate up lift keep going number. There’s a scene in the brilliant award winning film American Beauty where Annette Benning uses the track to inspire herself as she struggles in her real estate career, again with a marriage that’s failing apart. In this particular rendition as Carolyn Burnham, Benning is absolutely hilarious.
There are too many favourite scenes in Funny Girl to mention them all but one in particular near the beginning of the film where Streisand perform her first audition is standout for me.
The saddest moment in the film is when it ends. Fanny all grown up, a star, rich, famous, a mother with everything she dreamed of except the man she couldn’t change or control. The lesson for everyone.
6. Singing In The Rain
It was hard to choose number six, because there are so many musical films I absolutely love, On the Town, Carousel, Guys and Dolls, High Society, Chicago, West Side Story, Hans Christian Anderson, The Slipper and The Rose, Top Hat, Ziegfeld Follies, Finnians Rainbow, Billy Elliot That’s Entertainment, Sweet Charity, A Chorus Line, Follies, Stepping Out, The Epic Sound Of Music and Cabernet which I auditioned for myself, got the part, and like Lina Lamont got demoted from star to Chorus line because my voice wasn’t good enough so am pretty much word perfect on the score.
Singing in the Rain about silent film stars Don Lockwood Gene Kelly and Jean Haen as Lina Lamont in 1927 Hollywood, as they transition to "talkies," but Lina's awful singing and speaking voice threatens their stardom; Don falls for talented chorus girl Kathy Selden, played by Debbie Reynolds who secretly dubs Lina's voice, leading to romantic chaos, comedic mishaps, and ultimately, Kathy becoming the star, not Lina, much to everyone's surprise.
Favourite scenes Donald O’Connors song and dance number with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds Good Morning and his super challenging comedic solo Make Em Laugh but it is the iconic Gene Kelly number music by Nacio Herb Brown and lyrics by Arthur Freed, written in 1929, the title track of the film we come back for over and over again. Kelly’s syncopation, exquisite timing and technical expertise as a dancer make this solo one of the best known and widely recognised in musical history.
Singing In the Rain doesn’t have any lump in the throat sad or scary moments, there are a lot of laughs though out but the driest moments are Lina Lamonts screechy voice and the attempts by Don Kelly and Cosmo Oconnor to correct her eloquotion in the Moses Supposes number. It doesn’t work. The stunning dream, film within a film dance number The Broadway Melody with the iconic Cyd Charisse if you have never seen it, is reason to watch.