T'anks, Sherman

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2013)

This is a factual story that fits where it touches. In reality, after an initial meeting in which he realized that Pamela Travers was intractable, Walt Disney walked away and left the Sherman brothers to negotiate the rights to the novel, so thanks, Sherman, with your input the film got made. Before we start tossing bouquets in Disney's lap we should remember who actually made this movie. Clue: It wasn't P.L. Travers Studios. As a fiftieth celebration of the movie Mary Poppins it's also a neat PR job on Walt Disney portraying him as a benign uncle who wouldn't say moo to a cow which, if true, would make him the only movie mogul who went from not having change of a match to running his own studio simply by being a nice guy - you know, the ones who finish last. Of course Travers herself was not exactly Mary Pickford so in reality you had two egotists going to the mat. On the other hand the Disney studio does know how to turn out fodder that pleases the masses and that is what they have done here and if you check your brain in the cloakroom chances are you'll get a great bang out of this.