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Summary: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Review: The movie is fantastic, but this edition of the DVD is NOT widescreen format!
Rating: 
Summary: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Review: This is a great Family Movie with great songs for the kids and action for the kids. I wonder if Leonard Malt...whatever his name is has kids or knows what a good kids movie is. The key word for this movie is its a clasic disney movie for KIDS. Both of my kids love it at 6 yrs and 3 yrs old. Dick van dyke is great in this movie and computer special effects are not needed or required in every movie. The special effects work just fine for this movie. I still like this movie for myself at age 38.
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Summary: "Chitty" is a MUST HAVE for anyone who owns a VCR
Review: This edition is fantastic - the digitally mastered VHS is much better than the previous versions. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is a must to anyone's collection of movies regardless of gender or age. The cinematography is fantastic and the charactors are delighful and of course, you will find yourself happily singing along. Great gift.
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Summary: A Must Have in ANY collection
Review: No matter what age or gender, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is a movie that will delight the viewer. It is not just a movie for females - Dick Van Dyke puts on a steller performance. On DVD you have the option of having the words to the songs come up and sing along - makes a great evening.
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Summary: Cute, but overly long, and some of the musical numbers stink
Review: When I was five, I saw "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." My dad said I fell asleep during it because it was too long. Thirty-two years later, it's still too long.This is decent family fare, and has some wonderful moments (for one, who would have thought Dick Van Dyke was such a good dancer?), and has terrific production values, but it's overlong and overblown. Take the opening sequence, for example: it takes about 10 minutes just to fill in the backstory of the car that would become Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and by the time it's done, we're not even sure what it has to do with the story. Wouldn't it have been more fun for the characters to come upon a car with a mysterious background, and find out the story later? The same can be said of the musical numbers, some of which go on far too long. The net result is a children's movie with an intermission, which is a prescription for failure. That's a shame, because this film has many strengths. It's chock full of good humor and energy, the gadgets and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car are ingenious and engaging, and Van Dyke's performance is very entertaining. I've seen the special effects maligned, but I found them to be pretty convincing, especially for 33-year-old work. I also liked the camera work and English scenery. However, after a while, the endless musical numbers get tiresome (they're not that great to begin with, particularly when you compare them to similar sequences in films of that era like "The Sound of Music," or even "Oliver!"), and the happy banter gets a bit too sweet. If the film had been shortened, and the weaker musical numbers edited out, it would have been far snappier and more fun. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was written by Ian Fleming and produced by Albert Broccoli, who are better known respectively as the writer of the James Bond books and the producer of the Bond movies, and you can actually see the Bond formula in this film. After all, the title is about a gadget-laden car (though Bond's 1977 Lotus Esprit submarine from "The Spy Who Loved Me" is still my favorite), and the heroine is named Truly Scrumptious. If that one wouldn't get laughts in a bond movie, what would? Gert Frobe and Desmond Llewellyn, better known as Auric Goldfinger and "Q" from the Bond series, make appearances. Also, look for Benny Hill (less the half-naked tarts, of course) as a toymaker. I suppose the length of this film does have a good point: kids LOVE this movie, so if you need a few hours alone, just pop this baby in and you're all set.
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Summary: Thanks for the warning...
Review: I was about to buy this for my kids, until I saw the disk was NARROW SCREEN ONLY (definitely not "full screen" on our new widescreen TV). what a shame to do this to a cute kids movie. 'will stick with our VHS copy for now.
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Summary: DVD transfer suffers from bad marketing strategy
Review: Whoever was behind the marketing strategy of the DVD version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was frightfully short sighted and just plain stupid. If you are a collector and like musicals and want this movie in letterboxed format, forget it. MGM has decided, "too bad, you don't get to have this one letterboxed." Here's what I suspect MGM's myopic, warped logic is: "this is a movie for children and children just won't be able to handle those black bars on the TV screen - this just wouldn't be 'family friendly'. " What a bunch of..., and what a regressive attitude on the part of MGM in an age of big screen TVs including the rising popularity of widescreen television. Not to mention us collectors out of luck who want to have a copy of the film with it's integrity intact! No! We have no choice in the case of this title. We have to put up with the horrific pan and scan transfer. No thank you! There's no logical reason why MGM couldn't offer an alternate widescreen transfer of this movie on DVD. Hell, even Disney releases it's titles letterboxed! This whole marketing strategy of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on DVD is so reactionary it makes me sick to my stomach. I won't recommend this ugly pan and scan transfer to anyone. Even my young children are upset that the DVD is not letterboxed!...
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Summary: Not for 4 and 5 year olds
Review: I saw the movie many years ago and thought it would be fun for the kids to see. We ordered the original book from amazon.com and have read it to them several times. They loved the book, but the movie was not for them. First of all, it is about 2 1/2 hours long. Secondly, it was nothing like the book (which is true for most movies), thirdly the entire "child catcher" thing terrified them! My five year old was also very uspet about the children living underground and having to "steal food from the kitchen." For children this age purchase and read them the book!
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Summary: My kids LOVE this movie
Review: We have rented the video version TOO many times from the library, so when I saw the DVD at Blockbuster, we just had to try it. My children LOVED that we could have the song lyrics at the bottom of the screen if we wanted - what a neat feature for a movie/DVD. That added to our enjoyment of a long time favorite. I have been looking for somewhere that carries this DVD for a month and am THRILLED to have found it here - I can't wait until we get it! :) Hope it blesses your families as much as it has mine - a CLEAN, fun film with adorable songs!
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Summary: Would you believe...
Review: ...the same author who gave the world Agent James Bond 007 is also the author of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"? Well, it's true the original book was indeed written by Ian Fleming, Mr.Bond's chronicler. I have to say, the movie version is a bit more fun than the original, and I hardly if ever hold such an opinion. I'm sort of a purist, in that I believe the original book is better than the movie, the reason being the book tells it like it "really" happened without the cinematic liscence(sp?) the movies invariably add. Be that as it may, I recommend both the book and the video with the added advantage that the book includes a recipe for fudge (pronouned "fooj") made by one of the book characters. Too bad the movie doesn't offer Prof. Potts' recipe for his toot sweets. I'd buy them!
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