Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 children's musical fantasy film directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli. It stars Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Fröbe, Anna Quayle, Benny Hill, James Robertson Justice, Robert Helpmann, Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall. The film is based on the 1964 children's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car by Ian Fleming, with a screenplay co-written by Hughes and Roald Dahl.
Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music for the film based on songs written by the Sherman Brothers, Richard and Robert, and the musical numbers were staged by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood. The film's title song was nominated for Best Original Song at the 41st Academy Awards.
In rural 1910s England, the two young children of widowed unsuccessful inventor Caractacus Potts, Jemima and Jeremy, are enthralled by the wreck of a champion racecar. When they learn it is due to be scrapped, they return home and beg their father to save it. To raise money, Caractacus attempts to sell one of his inventions, a musical hard candy whistle; however, the sound attracts a horde of dogs, ruining his sales pitch to the large Scrumptious candy company.
That evening, Caractacus goes to a carnival and attempts to raise money with an automatic hair-cutting machine. Fleeing a furious customer whose hair was ruined by the machine, Caractacus joins a song-and-dance act. He earns enough money in tips to buy the car and rebuilds it, naming it "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" after its unusual engine sounds.
For their first trip in the car, Caractacus and the children go to a beach to have a picnic. They are joined by Truly Scrumptious, the very beautiful and wealthy heiress to the candy company. Though she and Caractacus previously had heated encounters, everyone has a pleasant time. At the beach, Caractacus tells the children a story.
Baron Bomburst, ruler of the land of Vulgaria, attempts to steal Chitty. The family escapes thanks to Chitty's miraculous transformation into a boat, and Truly goes home to Scrumptious Manor. The Baron sends two spies to get the car. Finding this task impossible, the spies decide to kidnap Caractacus instead, but mistake Grandpa Potts for Caractacus. As the spies fly away in their airship, Chitty sprouts wings and propellers. Caractacus flies the car to Vulgaria, with Truly and the children in tow.
Grandpa is taken to Bomburst's castle, where the Baron has already imprisoned other elderly inventors. They are ordered to make another floating car, but all their attempts fail. When the Potts party arrives, they find that children have been outlawed in Vulgaria, as Bomburst's wife is disgusted by the sight of children. A Toymaker harbours Caractacus' group in his shop, and they disguise themselves as jack-in-the-boxes to hide in plain sight from Bomburst's Child Catcher. Chitty is discovered and taken to the castle; while Caractacus and the Toymaker search for Grandpa, and Truly searches for food, the Child Catcher returns and traps Jeremy and Jemima. The Toymaker takes Caractacus and Truly to a grotto beneath the castle where the townspeople have been hiding their children; there, Caractacus concocts a scheme to free Vulgaria from the tyranny of the Bombursts.
The next day, Bomburst's birthday, the Toymaker sneaks Caractacus and Truly into the castle disguised as giant dolls that sing and dance. At Caractacus' signal, the Vulgarian children swarm the banquet hall, overcome Bomburst's guests, and capture the Baron, Baroness, and Child Catcher. The Vulgarian adults storm the castle, while Caractacus, Truly, and the Toymaker free Jemima and Jeremy. The group joins the fight against Bomburst's soldiers; Chitty comes to their aid, and Grandpa is rescued. With the battle won, the Potts family and Truly bid farewell to the Vulgarians and fly back home to England.
As Caractacus' story concludes, the children ask if the story ends with him and Truly getting married. Caractacus does not answer; later, he tries to apologize for his children when he drops Truly off at her manor, saying that the difference in their social status would make a relationship between them ridiculous, offending Truly. Returning glumly to his cottage, Caractacus is surprised to encounter Truly's father Lord Scrumptious, who is revealed to have been Grandpa Potts' former brigadier. Lord Scrumptious offers to buy Caractacus' failed candies and market them to the public as dog treats. Overjoyed that he has finally made a successful invention, Caractacus rushes off to tell Truly, but her house staff has already told her the news, and she meets him halfway. They confess their love for each other, and as they return home, Chitty flies up into the sky once again, this time without wings.
After Ian Fleming had a heart attack in 1961, he decided to write a children's novel based on the stories about a flying car that he used to tell his infant son. He wrote the book in longhand, as his wife had confiscated his typewriter in an attempt to force him to rest.
The novel was initially published in three volumes, the first in October 1964, which was two months after Fleming's death. It became one of the best-selling children's books of the year. Albert R. Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films (which were based on novels by Fleming), read the novel and was not initially enthusiastic about turning it into a film, but the success of Mary Poppins (1964) changed his mind.
In December 1965, it was reported Earl Hamner had completed a script based upon the novel. The following July, it was announced the film would be produced by Broccoli, without Harry Saltzman, who was his producing partner on the James Bond films. By April 1967, Ken Hughes was set to direct the film from a screenplay by Roald Dahl, and Hughes subsequently rewrote Dahl's script. Further rewrites were made by regular Bond scribe Richard Maibaum.
Van Dyke was cast in the film after he turned down the role of Fagin in the 1968 musical Oliver! The role of Truly Scrumptious was originally offered to Julie Andrews to reunite her with Van Dyke after their success in Mary Poppins (1964), but Andrews rejected the part because she felt it was too similar to Poppins; Sally Ann Howes, who had replaced Andrews as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady on Broadway in 1958, was then offered the role, and she accepted.
Broccoli announced the casting of Dick Van Dyke in December 1966. The film was the first in a multi-picture deal Van Dyke signed with United Artists. Sally Ann Howes was cast as the female lead in April 1967, soon thereafter signing a five-picture contract with Broccoli, and Robert Helpmann joined the cast in May. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the first film for both of its child stars, Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall, who were cast after an extensive talent search.
Filming for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang began on 17 July 1967 and ended on 4 October 1967.
John Stears supervised the film's special effects, and Caractacus Potts' inventions were created by Rowland Emett. An article about Emett that appeared in Time magazine in 1976 mentioned his work on the film, saying that no term other than "'Fantasticator' [...] could remotely convey the diverse genius of the perky, pink-cheeked Englishman whose pixilations, in cartoon, watercolor and clanking 3-D reality, range from the celebrated Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway to the demented thingamabobs that made the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a minuscule classic."
Ken Adam designed the film's titular car and six Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs were created for the film, though only one was fully-functional. At a 1973 auction in Florida, one Chitty sold for $37,000, equal to $262,079 today. The original "hero" car, in a condition described as "fully functional" and "road going", was put up for auction on 15 May 2011 by a California-based auction house. Expected to fetch $1 million to $2 million, it was purchased for $805,000 by New Zealand film director Sir Peter Jackson.
The songs in the film were written by the Sherman Brothers, who had also worked as the songwriters for Mary Poppins. Poppins' musical supervisor and conductor Irwin Kostal would also work in the same capacity for this movie, as well as the choreographers Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood.
United Artists promoted the film with an expensive, extensive advertising campaign, hoping to reproduce the success of The Sound of Music (1965), and it was initially released on a roadshow basis.
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang contains about the best two-hour children's movie you could hope for, with a marvelous magical auto and lots of adventure and a nutty old grandpa and a mean Baron and some funny dances and a couple of [scary] moments." His review was not without criticism, stating that "these two hours of fun are surrounded by about another 45 minutes of soppy love songs, corny ballads and a lot of mushy stuff. This was apparently meant for the adults. At least, I didn't see any kids who looked interested." Despite this, he called the film "more colorful, moves faster, and has more believable children, who occasionally even have dirty faces. Best of all, there are a lot of incredibly complicated inventions and gadgets that you can really see working!"
Time stated the film is a "picture for the ages—the ages between five and twelve", and ended by writing that "At a time when violence and sex are the dual sellers at the box office, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang looks better than it is simply because it's not not all all bad bad." The review also said that the film's "eleven songs have all the rich melodic variety of an automobile horn. Persistent syncopation and some breathless choreography partly redeem it, but most of the film's sporadic success is due to director Ken Hughes's fantasy scenes, which make up in imagination what they lack in technical facility."
Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that "in spite of the dreadful title, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [...] is a fast, dense, friendly children's musical, with something of the joys of singing together on a team bus on the way to a game." She called the screenplay "remarkably good" and said the film's "preoccupation with sweets and machinery seems ideal for children". She summarized by saying, "There is nothing coy, or stodgy or too frightening about the film; and this year, when it has seemed highly doubtful that children ought to go to the movies at all, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sees to it that none of the audience's terrific eagerness to have a good time is betrayed or lost."
Although the film was the tenth-most popular at the U.S. box office in 1969, because of its high budget, it lost United Artists an estimated $8 million during its initial theatrical run. The same year, five films produced by Harry Saltzman, Battle of Britain among them, lost UA $19 million. All of these financial difficulties caused UA to scale back their operations in the UK. Van Dyke stated in 2025 that he was supposed to get 20 percent of the box office for the film, but "never saw a dime."
FilmInk stated: "It's a gorgeous looking movie with divine sets, a fabulous cast and cheerful songs; it's also, like so many late '60s musicals, far too long and would have been better at a tight 90 minutes." Film historian Leonard Maltin disagreed, giving the movie just 1.5 out of a possible 4 stars, and claiming "the film is to children's musicals what the Edsel was to cars, with totally forgettable score and some of the shoddiest special effects ever." Neil Jeffries of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as a "too long at well over two hours, but the effects are impressive for the time and the musical numbers zippy." In a 2024 respective, The Telegraph's Alex Larman called the film "a piece of harmless fun" that "was riddled with inexplicable darkness and chaos", noting the troubled production and the director's misgivings. He felt that the film "was generally met with disappointment, with the undistinguished songs and generally over-busy storyline being cited as the reasons for family audiences refusing to take this particular adventure".
The character of the Child Catcher has been seen by some as antisemitic. Aimee Ferrier said that the character "bears many anti-Semitic stereotypes, most notably, his large prosthetic nose, which appears like a caricature. Antisemitic depictions of Jewish people have often included men wearing tophats, something that is also sported by The Child Catcher."
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 70% based on 30 reviews, with an average score of 5.9/10.
The film's original soundtrack album, as was typical of soundtrack albums for musical films of the period, featured mostly songs with vocals, and few instrumentals. Some of the songs were edited to accommodate the time constraints of a standard 12-inch LP and help create a fluid listening experience.
The soundtrack has been released on CD four times. The first two releases used the original LP masters, rather than going back to the original movie masters to compile a more complete soundtrack album with underscoring and complete versions of songs. The 1997 Rykodisc release, which has gone out of circulation, included several short bits of dialogue from the film between some of the tracks, but otherwise used the LP master. On 24 February 2004, a few months after MGM released a two-disc "Special Edition" DVD package of the film, Varèse Sarabande reissued a newly remastered soundtrack album without the dialogue tracks, restoring the original 1968 LP format.
In 2011, Kritzerland released a two-CD set featuring the original soundtrack album, plus bonus tracks, music from the "Song and Picture-Book Album", the Richard Sherman demos, and six playback tracks (including a long version of international covers of the theme song). This release was limited to only 1,000 units. Perseverance Records re-released the Kritzerland double-CD set in April 2013, with new liner notes by John Trujillo and a new booklet by James Wingrove.
No definitive release of the original film soundtrack featuring the performances that lock to picture without the dialogue and effects can be made, as the original isolated scoring session recordings were lost or discarded when United Artists merged its archives. All that is left is the 6-track 70MM sound mix with the other elements already added in.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was released numerous times on VHS, as well as on Betamax, CED, and LaserDisc. It was released on DVD for the first time on 10 November 1998, and a two-disc "Special Edition" package was released in 2003. On 2 November 2010, MGM Home Entertainment, through 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, released a two-disc Blu-ray and DVD combination featuring the extras from the 2003 release, as well as new features. The 1993 LaserDisc release by MGM/UA Home Video was the first home video release of the film with the proper 2.20:1 Super Panavision 70 aspect ratio.
The film did not follow Fleming's novel closely. A novelisation of the film written by John Burke was published at the time of the film's release. It basically followed the film's story, but there were some differences in tone and emphasis; for example, the novelisation mentioned that Caractacus had difficulty coping after the death of his wife and made it clearer that the sequences including Baron Bomburst were fantasy.
Corgi Toys released a scale replica of the titular vehicle with working features, such as pop out wings. Mattel Toys produced a replica with different features, while Aurora produced a detailed hobby kit of the car. Post Honeycomb cereal contained a free plastic model of Chitty inside specially-marked boxes, with cutout wings for the car on the back of the box.
An educational PC game titled Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's Adventure in Tinkertown was released in October 1996. It featured the titular car and required players to solve puzzles to win.
A musical theatre adaptation of the film with music and lyrics by Richard and Robert Sherman and book by Jeremy Sams premiered on 16 April 2002 at the London Palladium in the West End. This adaptation features six new songs by the Sherman brothers that were not in the film. A Broadway production of the play opened on 28 April 2005 at the Hilton Theatre.
After closing in London, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang toured around the UK, and the UK Tour opened in Singapore on 2 November 2007. The Australian national production of the play opened on 17 November 2012. The German premiere took place on 30 April 2014.
In 2008, Telegraph reported Michael G. Wilson was conceding to a possible remake of the film.
In 2024, it was reported that a remake of the film was in early development, to be produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Eon Productions, the production company behind the James Bond movies. Matthew Warchus is set to direct the film with Enda Walsh as screenwriter.