The dastardly bumbling Baron von Bomburst of Vulgaria wants a magic car like the one he saw sailing around his yacht. The Baron decides to kidnap (shednap? skyjack?) the car's inventor and bring him back to Vulgaria, but he gets the wrong man. The inventor, Caractacus Potts is driving "Chitty" home with Truly Scrumptious and his 2 children. They are alarmed to see Grandpa in his garden shed hanging from the Baron's zeppelin. Grandpa's a little dotty to begin with, and Caractacus can't understand what's going on, so he turns Chitty around and pursues the zeppelin in the sky. Not watching the road, he plunges the car and its occupants over a cliff heading for certain death in the rocky sea below.... But Chitty has other ideas and unfurls her wings to everyone's amazement. There isn't much good dialogue (in this scene particularly), just a lot of screaming so I accompanied the video with the instrumental theme song from the original 1968 motion picture soundtrack. The movie is frequently confused with "Mary Poppins" (a far more superior film) but it has its own charms. Dick Van Dkye and Sally Ann Howes play the lead roles. Before the role of sweets heiress Truly Scrumptiou, Sally Ann Howes co-starred with Vivien Leigh in "Anna Karenina" in 1948 and took over the role of Eliza Doolittle from Julie Andrews on Broadway in 1958 (and at a higher salary). The windmill is till located in Buckinghamshire England. The coastal scenes were filmed on location in the south of France. The ...
