SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS...

 

Once upon a time Walt Disney had his heart set on making a movie based upon a book about a unique nanny named Mary Poppins.  And he did make the movie the whole world would fall in love with, released in 1964.

However, if you have been reading this blog very long, one thing in my years as a Theatre Scene Designer and my penchant for Theatre, film musicals, and Vaudeville History, is in Show Business, the most hilarious, interesting, amazing, and unexpected things can happen.  And they DID!  They DO!  

There's just no business like Show Business...this business we love...this business I love.

With my Minor in Theatre History, and my vast knowledge and books on the subject, over the next few months every other week, I will be taking you on fascinating journeys often hilarious, behind the scenes into our most favorite musicals, Broadway Shows, and Vaudeville.  You will not even need a ticket.  So on with the Show!

When Walt Disney set his heart on making Mary Poppins, he knew there would be challenges, yet he plunged forth anyway because that is what Disney did.

Some backstory first.  

Pamela Lyndon Travers (P.L.), published the first Mary Poppins book in 1934.  Because Disney's daughter Diane loved it so much, sometime during the early 1940's he began to envision what an amazing film could be made of the books that not only children, but adults too would love.

I have not seen the 2013 film, "Saving Mr. Banks," which details the years of conflict and drama between Disney and Ms. Travers throughout getting the rights to the story, of how the story was to be portrayed, and the film itself.  Though I shall touch on some of this here, I am going to refrain from getting into all that as I would rather focus on the more interesting and concise stuff having to do with behind the scenes events in making the film itself instead.

Briefly, the Mary Poppins books were inspired by the stories Ms. Travers told to her younger siblings to keep their spirits up as their father was an alcoholic, dying young, and their mother very sadly unstable mentally.  But in the Mary Poppins stories Ms. Travers portrayed a much different scenario by having Mary Poppins be a very prim, proper lady while Mr. and Mrs. Banks were happily married and quite attentive, loving parents.

After Disney envisioned in the early 1940's how grand a film Mary Poppins could be, it took him many years of visiting Ms. Travers, sending telegrams, and telephone calls trying to convey his vision for the film and to get her to sign over the film rights. 

Of all things Ms. Travers detested that Disney was best known for was threading songs and animation into his work as he did in Mary Poppins too.  Outraged, at the film wrap party Ms. Travers demanded he remove all songs and animation from the film.  This is when Disney famously told her, "Why Pamela, this ship has sailed," not caring what she demanded because he knew what a gem of a film Mary Poppins was about to be when it hit theatres.

Now then, the behind the scenes goodies.

The creation of "that word."  

THE word.  

 

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS.

The two Sherman Brothers who wrote the music for Mary Poppins and other Disney films knew they needed a really unique, funny, magical kind of word that Mary Poppins herself would use.  The brothers always claimed "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" came from parts of crazy words they made up at summer camp.  

So when they needed a long rhyming word they combined parts of the past and present into what became "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."  But believe it or not the Sherman brothers soon found they were in a copyright infringement lawsuit!  

Two songwriters claimed THEY created a word close to "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," in 1949 by coming up with then, "Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus."  Only in Show Business, you see.

The judge eventually threw the case out of court.  And then...AND THEN...unbelievably, wouldn't you know a number of years later a librarian working for Disney discovered a newspaper clipping from 1931 used this version, "supercaliflawjalisticexpialadoshus" of what the Sherman brothers thought was THEIR creation!

Another beloved song from Mary Poppins written by the Sherman brothers was "A Spoonful Of Sugar."  As a kind of metaphor with having fun while cleaning one's room, something far more serious in reality became the basis for the song...something many of us in the early 1960's remember well, yet appreciate more as adults.  Until 1963 polio shots were injected by needle along with smallpox and others.  I received the injections in 1962.

By 1963 though, polio vaccines were given in an oral form by adding the liquid of the vaccine to a sugar cube, which was actually used as a way to administer other vaccines back then too.

Anyway, on a day when the Sherman brothers were still stumped on a song needed for that scene, Robert gloomily went home only to learn his kids had received the polio vaccine that day.  Concerned he asked them if it hurt very much.  That is when he learned the polio vaccine was being administered via a sugar cube, thus the dear "A Spoonful Of Sugar" song was born and began entering our hearts.

Like Theatre Scene Design and film, the same amazing special effects in Computer Graphics were still far in the future.  Not until the 1990's.  I remained in demand as a Theatre Scene Designer long after the amazing Computer Graphics took off, because I was schooled in the "old way."  Many smaller theatres could not afford the new Designers educated in Computer Graphics or the equipment.  Regardless I would have loved being a young Designer these days with all they can do now!

So as you can imagine, creating special effects in a  film like Mary Poppins during the early 1960's really took some ingenuity.  Especially in combining animation with film too.  This is where the Disney Magic created many new groundbreaking effects in Mary Poppins far ahead of their time I am proud of.

Predating what we know as "the green screen" now with Computer Graphics, was a combination of sodium vapor compositing which I am not going to try explaining here because we are not going THAT far behind the scenes unless by popular demand you would like me to in a future "Behind The Scenes" blog on special effecting in theatre and film during the dark ages of which I worked and created.

Anyway, what I will say is how sodium vapor compositing is what enabled real actors to seemingly appear in cartoon settings right along with animated characters as in Mary Poppins. 

One of the actors playing a Banks' kid remembers that since the special effects were filled in later, there were these prop guys trying to dance about with cut-out horses and penguins to show them what was going on so they appeared to react to what was later animation.

Often, so the director could get the best reactions from actors they wouldn't reveal anything about the special effects so they could capture the best reactions.

There of course is a lot of "flying" in Mary Poppins which involved special camera angles and the infamous harnesses and hanging from wires...while trying to act their character and remember their lines.  Trust me, hanging in these harnesses in a theatre or film studio is NOT comfortable!  

But fun to try.

Julie Andrews had an accident that happened to her during one of many flying scenes while in the harness.

In her words:  "I was hanging around up there for the longest time with the umbrella.  I thought I felt the wire leave and drop about six inches.  I was nervous and very tired.  Then I called down to the crew to let me down slowly, but a wire broke as I was lowered, causing me to fall.  I plummeted to the stage and there was an awful silence for a minute, then I did let fly with a few Anglo-Saxon four-letter words, I have to admit."

Did you know the beloved actor Dick Van Dyke actually played two roles in Mary Poppins?  Besides the Chimney Sweep Bert, he played the old Banker, Mr. Dawes.  Wanted the part so much he offered to do it without accepting payment for the role.  He donated $4,000.00 to a charity to play Mr. Dawes.

Audiences and critics absolutely enjoyed Van Dyke's singing and dancing throughout the film, though some

were critical of his attempt at a cockney accent.  As Van Dyke explains, "I was concentrating on the dancing mostly, and they had given me a voice coach who turned out to be an Irishman, and HIS cockney wasn't much better than mine!"

Thankfully for Van Dyke the dear citizens of England could forgive him.  Why?  While he was accepting a BAFTA award, he said, "My accent could very well be the most atrocious cockney accent in the history of cinema."  They loved it!

I am going to write about a part in Mary Poppins so small many are unfamiliar with it.

The part of The Bird Woman had only one line, but not only was it at the heart of the film, Disney had his heart on the 83 year old actress Jane Darwell to play the part long before he even had obtained the film rights.  Disney rightly believed only Ms. Darwell was capable of bringing the humanity and warmth so needed to the scene.  And dear Ms. Darwell lived humanity and warmth in spades both onscreen and in her life.

Ms. Darwell was best known for her Oscar winning portrayal as Ma Joad in "The Grapes Of Wrath" with Henry Fonda.

Ms. Darwell was suffering with a heart condition and had concerns but Disney assured her filming would take only a day and had a limo take her to and from the studio.  To be sure she was comfortable on the set, the crew cut a hole in the stairs so she could sit on a pillow. Mary Poppins was Ms. Darwell's last film.

And finally, do you know the scenes where the children and Mary Poppins sit upon the stair banister appearing to magically ride up it?  Wonder how it was done?  And what prevented their butts from hurting?  Plaster casts were made of their bottoms...in wet plaster...OF THEIR BOTTOMS.  

Then after the plaster hardened those casts were fitted up with wires and used as a sort of form-fitting seat that literally pulled them up the railing.  The casts were hidden by the clothing throughout the scene and made the actors appear to be moving on their own.  One even thought it fantastic getting to have one's bum made imprinted in plaster, going on to say, "It's not quite Mann's Chinese Theatre, but it sure is close."

And that is some of the behind the scenes goodies of the 1964 Mary Poppins film.  So hope you have enjoyed the journey with me and will look forward to these unique journeys yet to come.🎭💫