Review of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) by Paul N — 04 Jul 2008

I know I saw this as a kid, but I effectively didn't remember squat. Now with midget communists of my own, I thought it might be good to watch a 'classic' together.

Most of all I'm fascinated by the changing tastes in entertainment that this movie engenders. It is arguably Dick Van Dyke's biggest cinematic success, and was very successful. And yet, it's really very strange and disjointed. Hard to believe that Ian Fleming wrote this - though his Bond films aren't that much more coherent, in my opinion.

The car is really a secondary or tertiary character in this movie, which is rather odd considering it's the title character. There's little explication of what is going on with the vehicle - is it somehow possessed? The only clear answer is yes, but it's never really explored. The car serves as a point of discussion and a launching pad for the story within a story that takes up a good portion of the movie. But that's about it.

Dick Van Dyke just amazes me as someone who seems too incredibly nice to be true. Yet, he seems to be real enough, and this is yet another film that showcases that warmth and friendliness and knack for physical humor as well as dancing - even some singing.

It's a cute movie if you have young kids. It's thoroughly clean and inoffensive. I don't quite understand what made it so popular, but it's nice to remember a time when children weren't being dragged into adolescence while still in single-digit age.