‘Saving Mr. Banks’ Reveals the Battle Over Disney’s ‘Mary Poppins’

Daily Beast ^ | Oct 21 2013 | Nico Hines

[WilliamIII]

No wonder Mary Poppins needed a spoonful of sugar. The forthcoming Saving Mr. Banks is a dark film that tells the heart-breaking true story behind one of the great characters in children’s movie history.

P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the nanny’s formidable creator, is pitted against Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), who promised his daughters that he’d bring Poppins to the big screen. The thing is, that pledge goes against the author’s wishes.

Saving Mr. Banks goes behind the scenes of the ferocious battle to make what was to become the famous 1964 musical adaptation. For 20 years, Travers refused to grant the rights to Disney. Eventually she said she would relent, but only if the movie was made to her specifications, which ranged from choosing the precise tape measure used in one scene to the exclusion of the color red from the entire movie.

[lowbridge]

Bump

[Vaquero]

The Daily Beast? Really?

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

They couldn’t think of a better title? Audiences will think this is a sequel to “Saving Private Ryan” - which also starred Tom Hanks.

[GeronL]

“True Story” should be in scare quotes. Hollyweird and TV never tell the “true story” of anything without taking liberties and artistic license

[DJ MacWoW]

It’s rated PG-13. *sigh*

[Arm_Bears]

I could care less.

[Beowulf9]

I actually never cared for that movie. But...I see red. Did that get resolved or what?

[Darksheare]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic

True story?
Expect there to be differences between the reality and the relating.
Kinda like the linked movie “trailer”.

[DJ MacWoW]

I watched the movie trailer and then read a short Travers bio. Disney’s movie is a fantasy. But we figured that.

[Stentor]

Saving Mr. Banks goes behind the scenes of the ferocious battle to make what was to become the famous 1964 musical adaptation.

I had best repent. I know I'll be forced to watch that for eternity at the point of a pitchfork.

[Darksheare]

Back then, it was just entertainment.
Fun for fun sake.
These days, they shove politics into it.
*sigh*

[a fool in paradise]

For 20 years, Travers refused to grant the rights to Disney. Eventually she said she would relent, but only if the movie was made to her specifications, which ranged from choosing the precise tape measure used in one scene to the exclusion of the color red from the entire movie.

Maybe she's the one who started to movement to change the name Washington Redskins.

Wanted to eliminate one of the primary colors from the visible spectrum. Right. Well, he could've opted for black and white.

[DJ MacWoW]

Travers thought the movie was to saccharine. She didn’t like it.

[a fool in paradise]

It’s rated PG-13. *sigh*

It probably has scenes of Walt Disney SMOKING tobacco.

Also studios now consider PG to be a kiss of death and will drop some F-bombs in to garner a PG-13.

[DJ MacWoW]

I read that Disney was a chain smoker but showing that was a taboo in this film. I can only imagine why it’s PG-13.

[Fiji Hill]

“I won’t have her turned into one of your silly cartoons … These books do not lend themselves to prancing and chirping,” she says, railing against animation and musicals".

After seeing how Disney butchered Felix Salten's classic story Bambi--A Biography from the Forests (Berlin: Ullstein, 1923), I would grant that P. L. Travers has a valid point.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Obligatory. The Mary Poppins trailer re-cut as a horror movie. Scary Mary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic

(As an added bonus, the trailer for The Shining, re-cut as a romantic comedy.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0

[Darksheare]

Hmm.

[DJ MacWoW]

It appears that they spiced up the story by making Poppins personal to P L Tavers. In the trailer there’s a scene about a nanny that comes to save her father, not the children. Travers father died an alcoholic when she was 7 and there was never a nanny. Unless it’s her fantasy that someone saved her father. *shrugging*