Child Catcher

### Enemies

Caractacus Potts, Truly Scrumptious, Jeremy Potts, Jemima Potts, Grandpa Potts, Toymaker

### Likes

Tricking children by pretending to give them candy, pleasing the Baron and Baroness Bomburst by imprisoning children underneath the castle

### Dislikes

The presence of children in Vulgaria, Caractacus Potts and Truly Scrumptious freeing all of the children from imprisonment

### Quote

"The Baroness will have your teeth for a necklace, and your eyeball for earrings."
"Let me tell you, toymaker. This nose of mine has never failed me, and if there are children here, my friend, you will die."
"I don't trust a man who makes toys in a land where children are forbidden."

The **Child Catcher** is a character featured in the 1968 film *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang* who was portrayed by Robert Helpmann.

## Biography

Known as the man with a big nose and dastardly attitude, he works for Baron Bombert of Vulgaria to lock up any children. In the film, he almost finds the Potts children and even when they are disguised as puppets, he knows something is amiss. After the children's father, the toymaker and Truly leave, he is able to lure the children out of hiding by disguising his cage as a candy wagon, which works. He kidnapps the children and locks them up in the tower. Later on when the children seize control of the castle, he is given a taste of his own medicine and caught in a net himself.

## Appearance

He has a long nose (a staple of his appearances) a black top hat and black clothes, when he disguised his carriage as a candy wagon he wore a colorful coat and decorated his hat with flowers and ribbons.

In the film, the Child Catcher was played by ballet dancer Robert Helpmann. Whilst rehearsing one of the scenes where the Child Catcher drives his horse and carriage out of the village, the carriage tipped over as it turned a corner with Helpmann on board. Dick Van Dyke recalls Helpmann, with great presence of mind, swinging out of the carriage and skipping across the crashing vehicle to safety. Van Dyke later commented that he had never seen anything as graceful in his life. Helpmann was 60 years old at the time, and the fact that he was able to that at his age was amazing.

The Child Catcher does not appear in Fleming's original book. Reputedly, Roald Dahl (co-author of the film's screenplay) created the character. Dahl's screenplay was heavily rewritten by Ken Hughes, the director, who said he had created the character.

In the theatrical version in London's West End, he has been played by Richard O'Brien, Wayne Sleep (another ballet dancer), and Stephen Gately amongst others and on Broadway, he was played by Kevin Cahoon. In the Australian theatrical version, he was played by Tyler Coppin who wrote and performs a solo show about Robert Helpmann called LyreBird (Tales of Helpmann).

In 2005, the Child Catcher was voted "the scariest villain in children's books".

In 2008, *Entertainment Weekly* called Helpmann's depiction of the Child Catcher one of the "50 Most Vile Movie Villains."

## Trivia

* The child catcher made a major impact and even appeared in 2012 Opening Olympic Ceremony as one of the Children Literature portion of the show, despite not being from the book.
* 80-90% of the people who saw the film as children said that the child catcher scared them and gave them nightmares.
* Despite being deemed scary in the film, the two actors who play the children said that the actor who played the Child Catcher, (Robert Helpmann) was not scary at all, he was actually a true gentleman and made them laugh in-between takes; which at times made it difficult for them to act afraid of him. The one scene that did scare them was when all the items on the carriage fell off and he cracked the whip taking off. He also defended them from the temper of director Ken Hughes, even telling him to stop swearing in front of them.

## References

1. ↑ "The Child Catcher - near death experience on set", *YouTube*, 19 March 2017.
2. ↑ Kerridge, Jake. "The dark truth about Roald Dahl: how anti-Semitism tainted his work", *The Daily Telegraph*, 7 November 2018.
3. ↑ Chilton, Martin. "10 things you didn’t know about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", *The Independent*, 20 December 2018.
4. ↑ "Childcatcher is scariest villain", *BBC News*, 9 May 2005.
5. ↑ "50 Most Vile Movie Villains". Retrieved on 31 December 2013.