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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $11.21
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is one of the fondest memories I have of my childhood. I watched it every year as it was played around Christmas time (in England). Very playful and fun...what a great way to spend an afternoon.

I don't think it was as big a hit in the US...my American wife just does not get it. Everybody should see it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Film Ever!!!!!!!
Review: i was born in 1988, years after the film came out but it was on tv once and we taped it, i watched it nearly everyday, now at 15 whenever i am bored or sick i watch it. I know every word every song the whole thing. This is a movie staring Dick Van Dyk, and is about a inventor named caractacus pots. He fixes up a old motor carr and they name it Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. A King finds out about it and wants to steal it. I say you just have to buy the movie and watch it for yourself its an remarkably unforgettable experiance. There is also so many songs, i love P.O.S.H posh. chitty chitty bang bang of course. Tot sweet. there is one bad point about this film and that is the love song, i fastforward that part as it is too slow and lovey dovey. I LOVE THIS FILM. well im off to watch it bye

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: NEVER AGAIN!
Review: I am really sick and tired of people saying how wonderful this movie is and how it's the greatest childs movie. Well your wrong, this is a pathetic movie that is trying so hard to be a big hit like Mary Poppins it's unbelievable!
I saw this movie when i was a child and hated it as it was so long and boring, and recently i watchd it on TV at christmas, i was very very bored O.K! And was i the only one hoping the child catcher would lock up the children forever as i was fed up with their dreadful cockney screetchers.
Dick Van Dyke was no good in Mary Poppins and is no good in this. Sally Ann Howes was meant to be the Julie Andrews of the movie, but wasn't half as good an actress or singer to potray the character convincingly.
I hate this movie, but love Mary Poppins and yet people say that they are similar
WHY?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Finally, the treatment it deserves
Review: I have been waiting for this for some time now. When Chitty came out on DVD a while back, at first I was thrilled. But I never bought it because it was Pan and Scan which is a travesty. I refused to buy it and preferred to play my old widescreen laserdisc. This edition promises to deliver all I would expect, and more. High-quality video and audio transfer and a plethora of very cool extras! This went on my wish list immediately (and I will buy it if I don't receive it as a gift).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An all time family movie now back for a new generation
Review: I was a child when this first came out and I can still remember the sheer enjoyment I felt 25 years ago, now that I am much older. It is GREAT that a classic movie like this is now back in video version so that a whole new generation of 13 year olds and more can be enraptured by so delightful and enjoyable a story. Make sure that the younger generation gets this for Christmas - and watch it several times yourself before wrapping that present.... Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003), who saw this in the cinema in 1968

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Truly Scrumptious Classic
Review: Our family is on a retro trip, having bought this movie, as well as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The King and I, Willy Wonka, and Pete's Dragon.

One of the reasons is that we want our 2 year old to experience the movies we grew up with, and the other is nostalgia.

Before watching this movie again recently, I could only remember that there was a flying car, a nice title song, and something about children being kidnapped. Watching it again for the first time, I discovered that I had forgotten most of the movie.

Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) is an inventor way ahead of his time, whose inventions don't always work the way they are intended. If you think his name is weird, the female lead is Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), the daughter of a rich sweet manufacturer. This unlikely pair, along with his two kids and the wonderful car, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, are the star players in a story which starts out being about pirates, and ends up as a rescue mission. With comic support from Caractacus' father, and a toy maker (Benny Hill, in an uncharacteristic G rated performance), they defeat the schemes of spies (kind of like Laurel and Hardy combined with Boris and Natasha), an evil Baron and Baroness,and a wicked childcatcher, to bring the story within a story to a predictable but entertaining end.

The scenery is breathtaking, especially the Vulgarian castle and surroundings, and since this is a 1968 movie, we can forgive the lack of finesse in the special effects, where the characters stick out like sore thumbs from the backgrounds, and wires can be seen attached to Professor Potts during a dance sequence.

It's a little harder to swallow the concept of Truly Scrumptious running around on the beach dressed in tons of white cloth and coming up spotless, and her song about needing a lovely man is way too over the top and much too long. I will admit to skipping over that one.

The sing along feature is a nice touch, and catchy songs (other than the theme song) include "Me Old Bamboo", "Toot Sweet", my personal favorite "P O S H (Posh)", and the nearly too sugary "Truly Scrumptious".

Overall, this DVD is a refreshing family movie that you will watch over and over again.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Why do critics hate this film?
Review: I remember seeing this film in the early 70's as a child and will never forget the experience. It was playing at a revival house, on a double bill with another film, and this one (not the film I was going there to see, by the way) carried me away so much that I cannot remember what film was paired with it. Since then I adored this enchanting fantasy epic. Upon seeing it again as an adult I was expecting to be disappointed (most of what we loved as children tends to pale as we get older), but I was not, in fact, I think I adore this charming concoction of tenderness, humour, fantastic situations and great musical numbers even more now than I did then.
And that leads me to my opening question: why do critics hate this film? I have never heard or read any professional critic say a good word about this film, in fact, it's on many critics' "worst films of all time" lists, and even popped up in that bible of bad cinema, Medved's "Golden Turkey Awards" book. I could never figure this out. Perhaps too many critics compare it to "Mary Poppins" and find it wanting. Surely, a temptation to do so is overwhelming, seeing as it popped up in that stream of (mostly poor) Poppins immitations that followed in the wake of Poppins' incredible box office and critical success, it stars Dick Van Dyke and features a score by the Sherman Brothers, songwriters for the Disney classic. But, while this film is certainly no Poppins, a comparison with the earlier film is unfair. Ian Fleming fans, of course, dislike the film because it bears little or no relation to the book (the screenplay by Roald Dahl was, to my own childlike imagination, however, fare more enjoyable - I found the book disappointing after viewing the film, unusual for me). But I will always cherish this film, its score, Dick Van Dyke's genius, Sally Ann Howes' charm, and Dahl's fantastic screenplay. I would recommend any parent to share this film with their children to show them what great fantasy ffamily film-making was like in the late sixties and early seventies.
However, a wide-screen issue would be most appreciated.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Great Family Movie That Demands a Widescreen DVD
Review: Compared to the "family" garbage that Hollywood regularly chucks out like McDonalds bags to the suburban roadside today--the Rugrats, Spy Kids, etc.--"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is one or those rare gems that sports both a superb cast and a great story. Terribly underrated as a musical (several songs are quite good, and the score overall is lush), what separates it most from the celluloid fertilizer that stinks up the local cineplex is that the family here truly is held together by love and kindness. Thus, there are no wise-... kids thinking they're smarter than the adults, no adults whose selfish pursuits blind them to everyone else's needs, no cynicism to poison children too young to realize yet that life, indeed, can be quite enjoyable. Instead, this whimsical story about a kind-hearted, if daffy inventor who resurrects for his children a hunk of junk into a kid-friendly version of the car from "Goldfinger" (no coincidence--Ian Fleming wrote this story, too.) delights with its good center. Along the way, the family, joined by the beautiful daughter of a local candy magnate, is transported to a magical kingdom where children are illegal. If your family life was a trainwreck, you just won't get the sweetness of it all, but for those of us who had truly loving parents, the film resonates (even if there are typical overtones of British ethnocentrism and one or two risque lines). The only real problem is that the widescreen version is not available--what blockhead decided to release it in scan-and-pan?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pan and Scan [stinks]!
Review: Do NOT purchase this wonderful and immensly satsifying movie on DVD! It's ONLY available in Pan-and-Scan, the worst sort of way to view a movie in it's purest! Buy the laserdisc instead, which is in the letterboxed format and THE only way to truly enjoy this movie.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Ok Family movie
Review: This movie is ok family fun. I remember seeing this movie in the Saturday matinee theatre in the sixties when I use to live in New York. Leonard Maltin says the score is forgettable. The songs are annoying, except for the oscar nominated title song. The characters are annoying, especially the King who thinks he is still a child.

The Movie is about a flying car taken from a story written by Ian (Bond, James Bond) Flemming. In movie The father, played by the very talented Dick Van Dyke, Tells a story about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The father and children become characters in the story. The children are captured and forced to work as slaves. In this country no children are aloud. The country is ruled by a tyrranical King who forces a local toy maker, Played by the great British comedian Benny Hill, to make toys just for him. The father and his friend Truly Scruptious try to recue the children.

The story is not all that good but many people growing up in the sixties my enjoy it because it brings back memories. The cinemotography is quite good. And any movie with Dick VAn Dyke in it cannot be all that bad.


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