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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Special Edition/Gold Edition (1968)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Special Edition/Gold Edition (1968)

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Released 8-Mar-2004

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Family Main Menu Introduction
Menu Animation & Audio
Booklet
Featurette-A Fantasmagorical Motorcar (9:43)
Theatrical Trailer-2
TV Spots-5
Song Lyrics-Sing Along With The Movie
Featurette-Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang With Dick Van Dyke
Featurette-Extracts From 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang The Musical' (9:59)
Featurette-The Real Caractacus Potts (9:42)
Interviews-Cast-Dick Van Dyke Press Interview (8:26)
Featurette-On Set With The Potts Children (2:57)
Gallery-Photo-(2:21)
Audio-Only Track-Sherman Brothers' Demo (30:30)
Storybook-Read Along
Game-2
DVD-ROM Extras-Colouring Book
Rating Rated G
Year Of Production 1968
Running Time 139:31 (Case: 145)
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (73:56)
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Ken Hughes
Studio
Distributor

MGM
Starring Dick Van Dyke
Sally Ann Howes
Lionel Jeffries
Gert Frobe
Anna Quayle
Benny Hill
James Robertson Justice
Robert Helpmann
Case Gatefold
RPI $34.95 Music Richard M. Sherman
Robert B. Sherman


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.20:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.20:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired
Swedish
Finnish
Norwegian
Danish
Portuguese
Hebrew
Greek
English Song Lyrics
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Over four years ago, I reviewed the original Region 4 release of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There was plenty wrong with that release, namely the fact that it was a Pan and Scan butchered transfer which destroyed all that wonder that so enthralled me as a child thanks to the widescreen presentation of the theatrical release. At that time, MGM DVDs were distributed by Warner Home Video. How times have changed. MGM moved onto Fox Home Entertainment for distribution, which did not see a reissue of the film, before starting their own distribution earlier this year. One of the brand new releases scheduled (rather than reissues of existing or previous releases) was - finally - a Special Edition of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. You can bet that my hand went up for this one real quick. And so it is that I find myself spending a pleasant couple of evenings reliving one of my earliest recollections of visiting the cinema!

    Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was only the second film I ever saw at the cinema, after Mary Poppins. I well remember being taken for a day out to Birmingham (in England) to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the cinema. I will always remember the film as, at the age of eight years, it was a huge, marvellous, wondrous film with dazzling colours and that really fantasmagorical car that could do all those cool things. And that huge widescreen presentation was really eye opening...

    Of course, in those days I did not really care about all the technical stuff that nowadays always impinges upon any film I watch, whether I am reviewing it or not. As I said in the earlier review, maybe we sometimes need to return to those days where we were just dazzled and entertained by what we saw, without the need for overanalysis?

    Of course in 1968 I was also not worried about who wrote the original book, even though it turns out to be a name more synonymous with a suave, debonair character by the name of Bond ... James Bond. Yes, Ian Fleming is the man responsible for this story, and a more extreme difference to 007 I doubt you could find. The person jointly behind the screenplay is a name very synonymous with good children's stories and films too - Roald Dahl. When you start seeing those sorts of pedigrees in the writing department, you do tend to take a little more notice.

    Ah, but the plot. How do you describe this little gem? This is broadly the story of a mildly eccentric inventor by the preposterous name of Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke), trying to raise his two children Jemima (Heather Ripley) and Jeremy (Adrian Hall) on the proceeds of his inventions - namely thin air. When the children pester him to save an old race car from the scrap heap for thirty shillings, he somehow wangles enough money to obtain the car. On a wing and a prayer, he manages to restore the car into something wondrous to behold - and with more tricks than a Swiss Army Knife. Along the way the children meet the equally preposterously named Truly Scrumptious (Sally Ann Howes), daughter of sweet (sorry, lollies for you Australians) magnate Lord Scrumptious (James Robertson Justice), who takes a shine to Caractacus and his children. Once the car is finished, the family and Truly embark on a ride to the seaside and a grand adventure which involves avoiding the clutches of the evil Baron Bomburst (Gert Frobe) and the principality of Vulgaria (is this a good time to mention that I also had a jigsaw of the Baron's castle?), where all children are banned, and saving their captured Grandpa Potts (Lionel Jeffries). Naturally this grand adventure involves overcoming the evil Baron and releasing the children hidden beneath the castle and has the obligatory happy ending. It might sound ridiculous, but what resulted is one of the greatest children's films of all time in my view. I have not seen the film since I reviewed the earlier release and to sit back and watch it four years later was certainly a tremendous joy.

    Forget the plot, enjoy the adventure. The wonderful story has been marvellously brought to life by a great cast, led by the great talents of Dick Van Dyke. It is often difficult to realise nowadays, but Dick Van Dyke was a big name during the sixties and will be remembered forever for arguably the two best children's films of that decade (nay, of all time) - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins. This time he again had a wonderful leading lady in Sally Ann Howes, who plays the role of the upper class lady very well indeed. But this film is really made by the supporting cast and this is headed by the marvellous Lionel Jeffries, who is simply incapable of a bad performance and plays the role of the ex British Army soldier with aplomb. Add in the wondrous talents of James Robertson Justice, a straight Benny Hill (yes folks, before his bawdy television days he actually was a d*** good actor) and our own Robert Helpman and this is quality across the board. It would be stretching it to say that the direction was brilliant but Ken Hughes did a good job of bringing the who thing together, no doubt under the very watchful eye of one Albert R. Broccoli. Add in the unforgettable music of the Shermans, who just so happened to also work on Mary Poppins, and there really is a lot of serious quality here. About the only real letdown here is that DVD still exposes the slightly poor blue matte effects work, thankfully limited to only those sequences involving the seaborne and airborne versions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

    Still, it is a tremendously enjoyable film, although it is probably now out of step with the modern world that rarely seems to allow children to be children and certainly does not make family films like this any more. Nonetheless, slap the kids in front of this one and it should still amuse. Slap the adults in front of it and it is guaranteed to amuse and entertain. Just be warned though - the Sherman Brothers were at their sweetly best with the songs here and so that song soon bores to the very core of the brain and is very difficult to get out of your head.

    "Oh, you, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, ... our four fendered friend..."

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Transfer Quality

Video

    Since they have taken over their own distribution, MGM Home Entertainment has come in for a fair deal of criticism for releasing original versions of DVDs that had already been replaced by Special Editions during the distribution period under Fox Home Entertainment. Frankly, this policy was not entirely unexpected as it seems certainly the sort of policy operated by their American parent: bare bones DVDs at cheap price points. However, what this release shows is that when the situation demands it, MGM Home Entertainment can come up with the goods. If one film amongst all their earlier releases demanded and deserved the Special Edition treatment, then it had to be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

    At long last we get the full wondrous 2.20:1 aspect ratio of the theatrical release on DVD, and further more it is 16x9 enhanced. Just that widescreen aspect ratio alone would be enough to recommend this DVD, as the film really made superb use of the widescreen format and anything other than full widescreen was just crippling to the film (even the old VHS tape release showed how bad the film looked in Pan and Scan - and that was when we all were resigned to Pan and Scan home video).

    The restoration of the film is generally amongst the best around and it finally gets a chance to shine here. This is generally a very sharp and very well detailed transfer that is only disrupted by a few minor lapses that are source material related and readily forgiven in view of the age of the film. It is in general a very clear transfer, so that all that detail can be seen too. Grain is not an issue at all during the transfer. Shadow detail was generally very good throughout the film, especially early on. There did not appear to be any low level noise problems in the transfer.

    The colours are very well rendered throughout the film, and are generally very vibrant. There is a glorious palette of blues, greens, reds and purples on display here and whilst they could perhaps have been just a little more vivid, this is as good as the film has ever looked colour wise. It would seem that they took a lot of care with the restoration to ensure that the colours came up so well. There are no problems with oversaturation and little indication of any colour bleed problems.

    There were no readily apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfer. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for film-to-video artefacts. Whilst they certainly are not always present, there are certainly times when it is difficult to miss those that do appear: the Potts' farm seems to be particularly affected by aliasing. Examples include aliasing in the car at 5:24, the barn at 10:20 and 46:20, the roof at 13:25 and 49:30 and so on and so on. I gave up recording the obvious instances after fifty minutes by which time I had more than a few notes in my note book. Thankfully it is only aliasing that is the issue. The restoration of the film removed most of the film artefacts and there are very few left here to raise any concerns over.

    This disc is an RSDL format disc, with the layer change coming at 73:56, just in a black fade-out between scene changes. It is completely non-disruptive to the flow of the film, as it was not even apparent on my system.

    There are eight subtitle options on the DVD, although I confined myself of course to the English for the Hearing Impaired effort. Nothing much wrong with them although they do drop some words in the dialogue in order to fit onto the screen.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The remaster for this widescreen Special Edition does, however, see the reduction in the number of available soundtracks to just one: what would seem to be the same English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that graced the original Region 4 release. Four more years of experience however now starts to raise some questions about the quality of the soundtrack.

    The dialogue and vocals were always clear and easy to understand. There were no major audio sync problems with the disc, although you should be aware that much of the vocal work was re-dubbed in post production and so if you are especially acute to sync issues, you may well be a little annoyed by the slight lapses here and there.

    The score by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman is another of their absolute gems, with some very nice songs - even the way-too-catchy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The song did cop an Oscar nomination in 1969 for Best Song. Take the music and songs out of this film, and it would go very, very, very flat indeed.

    Back in the review of the original release, one of the very first full bit rate efforts I reviewed, I said that the soundtrack was a wonderfully remastered effort, although lacking the ultimate edge that a more modern film would provide. This time round, though, it is quite clear that the soundtrack is not as, well, clear as it should be. Every so often I got the feeling that the sound was a little congested and as a result the vocals in particular were not as bright as I would have expected. The lack of the original soundtrack will also be noted by purists. The surround encoding is not the best and for much of the film there is nothing at all evident in the rear channels and little in the fronts either. There is some bass action where it is required, but you certainly would not be missing out on much if you cannot handle the full six channels. Not the greatest demonstration of six channel sound but way better than it ever sounded at the cinema on original release.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    The original Region 4 release of the film was not exactly blessed with much in the way of extras. That is well and truly rectified by the package assembled here! The packaging itself is pretty snazzy too, with a rather luxuriously embossed outer slip case into which is slipped a digipak with a booklet stuck to the first fold out flap. The only problem is that I have yet to see one that actually sits square, which might make it a bugger to put on the shelf with the rest of your collection. No amount of playing around has turned up a way of getting the packaging square and keeping it there. I can also attest that the packaging is not going to survive repeated handling, especially by the youngsters. The review copy provided is already showing noticeable damage even after a few uses (and the digipak insert slips out of the slip case far too easily so be careful!). Unless noted otherwise, video presentations are in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, they are not 16x9 enhanced and come with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Menu

    After a fair menu introduction on both discs, the menus themselves are decently handled with nice animation and audio enhancement. Note that, as is so depressingly usual with MGM discs, the MGM DVD logo thingy plays before the main menu at its usual thunderous volume level that is about five times higher than the rest of the audio level on the disc, threatening the hearing of anyone who is too slow at grabbing the remote control to turn the level down to something that will not destroy your neighbours house. Can't this idiocy be fixed?

Disc One:

Featurette - A Fantasmagorical Motorcar (9:43)

    Yes folks, the car actually is real and still exists in working order, having been in the possession of the same person, Pierre Picton, since 1973. This is a shortish featurette telling the story of the car and showing it being driven on public roads near its home in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England. This is quite an interesting effort, as it does delve a little into the car itself. There is a bit of aliasing floating around in the transfer. The presentation is blessed with surround encoded Dolby Digital 2.0 sound and has selectable English subtitles.

Theatrical Trailer (3:01)

    Under the heading of Vintage Advertising Gallery will be found the two theatrical trailers and five television spots. Very annoyingly, the mastering does not have a "play all" option and after each one you are returned to the menu with the selector against the top item on the list. Is it so difficult to have it automatically select the next item on the list, after the item just played? If you want to see how bad the film could have looked if it was not given a full restoration, then take note of this rather poor looking effort. There are plenty of film artefacts floating around this rather visually dull and soft looking effort, lowlighted by some fairly poorish colour. Perversely, the red credits at the end are oversaturated. The presentation is in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. No subtitles.

French Theatrical Trailer (3:27)

    If anything, this looks worse than the previous effort, and definitely loses plenty in the translation into French. The presentation is 2.35:1 by the looks of it and the language is obviously French. There are no subtitles. There are plenty of film artefacts, including a couple of very big ones towards the end of the trailer. The whole thing again suffers from poor colour and a softish look. No subtitles.

TV Spots (5)

    Since they are all a variation upon a theme, they are dealt with as a batch, which is also an aid to avoiding repetitiveness as they are uniformly very poor looking. With a very, very soft look to them, the colours are atrocious and the detail is even worse. They are woefully undersaturated at times, very poorly defined and looking as if they were mastered from a third generation VHS tape. They respectively run for 0:58, 0:54, 0:58, 0:16 and 0:20. I am battling to recall the last time I saw something that looked this bad on DVD, and they seem to get progressively worse as you get through them (which might of course be a psychological thing since they are so bad to start with). No subtitles.

Sing Along

    This is just a lyric subtitle option that you can select, so that during the songs in the film the lyrics are displayed with a blue colouring indicating the words as they are sung. Karaoke fans rejoice - the rest of us just ponder the point of it all.

Disc Two:

Featurette - Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke (25:58)

    One of the standout items in the package (it has to be said that a fair portion of the package is little more than filler I am afraid), this seemingly quite recent recording has Dick Van Dyke in wholesale reminiscing mood - and enjoyably so. He covers a lot of background stuff that certainly adds nicely to the film in an overall sense. Some of the specifics are a bit passé, but his memory is quite impressive. Whilst mainly interview material, there is some behind the scenes photo stuff included, as well as excerpts from the film. Overall, excellent stuff let down in two respects. Firstly, the presentation suffers a little from aliasing - nothing too major but there nonetheless. Secondly, and very annoyingly, we have to suffer seemingly endless copyright notices after the end of the actual presentation ends, and there is nothing you can do about it other than eject the DVD. I know that the copyright notices are necessary, but surely they don't have to run so long and isn't just one generic notice possible? A half star is dropped from the overall package rating for this lunacy. Selectable English subtitles.

Featurette - Extracts From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang The Musical (9:59)

    Funnily enough the featurette goes by the more logical name of The Making Of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang The Musical according to the credits themselves. Narrated by Sally Ann Howes, this is a mildly interesting look at the gestation of the musical that emerged 30 years after the film. It suffers somewhat from not being extensive enough (it borders on being an extended EPK effort). Check out a rather staid-looking Pierce Brosnan in the audience. Selectable English subtitles.

Featurette - The Real Caractacus Potts (9:42)

    This and the next two featurettes are grouped under the menu heading Vintage Featurettes. Take note of the word vintage - it implies something that is entirely apt about the look of these. This one is basically a look at Rowland Emmet, the man who was responsible for some of the whacky gizmos that appear in the film. It is mildly amusing as well as reasonably interesting. However, visually it is very ropey indeed, with poorish colour and a softness of definition that really does highlight the age of the piece. Some of the extracts from the film look near black and white (with a sepia tinting). The sound itself is also a bit distorted and muddied at times. Selectable English subtitles.

Featurette - Dick Van Dyke Press Interview (8:26)

    Obviously recorded a few weeks into filming, this has Dick Van Dyke offering his insight into all sorts of things, including the state of US television in the 1960's, the lack of hamburgers in England and every so often something that might actually be related to the film! One thing that comes clearly through the whole deal - the man is funny. Visually this is not as bad as some of the other efforts found on the DVD, but this time there are issues with the sound, which is very hissy at times. Selectable English subtitles.

Featurette - On Set With The Potts Children (2:57)

    Well, with Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall actually, who provide the narration. Some interesting, if ropey looking, behind the scenes footage is included here (a bit of grain as well as plenty of film artefacts are noted, along with some contrast problems). Of the three "vintage" featurettes, it is perhaps the least interesting, but even so is worthwhile checking out once, just to see the genuine rapport between the kids and Sally Ann Howe.

Gallery - Photo (2:21)

    A self-running presentation of 47 photographs from the film as well as behind the scenes. Interestingly, the presentation is 16x9 enhanced.

Easter Egg

    Highlight the profile of Chitty at the bottom of the first menu by using the down key on the remote and you will get taken to two pages of notes about the car itself.

Audio-Only Track - Sherman Brothers' Demo (30:30)

    Recently discovered, this is a demo tape made by the Sherman Brothers during pre-production for the film. As such, this is a valuable look at the original intent of the songs (the brothers provide a brief introduction to each song) and how things changed during the course of production. It plays unimaginatively over the listing of the songs. Very annoyingly, there is no "play all" option to the list so each song has to be selected individually. Also very annoyingly, the selector does not go to the next on the list but simply returns to the top of the list, so you have to use the down key to head down to the next song you want to check out. Another half star should be lost for this idiocy too.

Storybook - Read Along (8:30)

    Onto the kids section of the DVD. This is six chapters of the story which you can either read with or without narration. I know I am not the target audience for this piece but are the kids even interested in this sort of thing? Still, nothing wrong with it technically.

Game - One Person's Junk Is Another Person's Jalopy

    Wherein you have several junk hunts to gather the pieces of junk used in the making of various gizmos in the film. I never got to finish it, so don't know whether there is any reward for doing so. A test of memory and motor skills and of marginal interest.

Game - Toot Sweet Special Delivery

    One of those interactive games where you have to use the up and down arrow keys to fly over the top of kids and drop candy to them. The more candy the kids catch, the higher the score you get.

DVD-ROM Extras - Toot Sweet Special Delivery Chitty Colouring Book

    Navigate to the html file on the DVD and you can print out four pages for colouring in (well, strictly speaking one page is mainly a puzzle page but I suppose you could colour bits of it in too).

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    Judging by the reviews found for the equivalent Region 1 and Region 2 (UK) releases, about the only differences between the various regions are audio and subtitle options and slightly varying splitting of the extras between the two discs. Since there is nothing significantly different between the regions, this one is easy - whichever is cheaper gets the nod.

Summary

    Given that the original Region 4 release, now withdrawn, of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a Pan and Scan abomination, the fact that this new release is widescreen would make it immediately recommendable (especially if you already own that earlier release). In an overall sense, the DVD package offers little disincentive to indulging anyway, but all is not as rosy as it should be. A little more care in mastering would have been nice to eliminate the aliasing, whilst the audio definitely could have been better. The extras package is extensive but not high on quality (especially technically) and I cannot help but feel a better job could have been done here. The lack of an audio commentary is especially noteworthy, all the more so as several of the main cast members are still with us and it would have been interesting to hear what they had to say about the film thirty odd years on. So something of a mixed reaction here, although the film itself is still recommendable.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (Biological imperfection run amok)
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Review Equipment
DVDDenon DVD-1600, using RGB output
DisplayLoewe Aconda 9381ZW. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationYamaha RXV-795
SpeakersEnergy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right C-2; rears EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL

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