Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

by Ian Fleming

personal copy (via my mom's classroom library - Mrs. Somers) paperback 126 pages

Published: 1964

Genre: children's adventure, fantasy

I saw a stage production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang last week that my daughter-in-law Stacie had stage managed. It was a lot like the Disney movie (that I haven't seen for about forty years) and the songs got stuck in my head! I had this book on my shelf and was curious about the connection between Fleming's original story and the musical version. My goodness! Radical differences . . . 

The hero of the story is the car, of course. But it was interesting to me that in the book, Mimsie (the mom) is part of the quartet with Caractacus Potts and the two children Jeremy and Jemimah. In the musical, Truly Scrumptious plays the love interest. Mimsie is dead?

Also, the book has no child catcher or evil empire trying to steal the car. There is a mobster named Joe the Monster who kidnaps the children after the Potts family blows up his cache of weapons in France.

The book is three quick chapters. I went online to read about it and when Ian Fleming wrote it in relation to his James Bond stories. He wrote this for his son, Caspar. It made me sad that Fleming died on Caspar's twelfth birthday and Caspar committed suicide at age 23. So much sadness.

I have requested the movie from the library. It's been so long since I've seen it and I'm even more curious now about how this little book got turned into a full-length musical. According to Wikipedia:

 "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang was loosely adapted as a 1968 film of the same name with a screenplay by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes; a subsequent novelisation was also published. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli, co-producer of the James Bond film series. The story was also adapted as a stage musical under the same name."

 

Oh! One of my favorite characters from the movie is grandpa . . . who is not in this original story as a character.

<Above posted 8.5.22. Below added 11.17.22.>

Rewatching the movie has been interesting! There are obviously a lot of correlations with the stage production (the county fair, hair-cutting machine, etc.). But there are a few things that I hadn't noticed in the past:

 

When they're having a picnic on the beach, Mr. Potts starts to tell a story about pirates to his children. There's a "dream sequence" floatie effect onscreen. So . . . the evil empire wanting to steal the car are a figment of his imagination? This didn't come across in the stage version! It's all a story he's telling, with Vulgaria, the ruler wanting to steal his car, the child catcher, etc.

I love the song and dance sequences. I wonder if the movie was written with Dick Van Dyke in mind. It was funny to recognize the toy maker! I went online to make sure, but yes! It's Benny Hill. Funny.

 

The child catcher is super creepy. I remember disliking him from my childhood. The long pointed nose, the scary eyes . . . so creepy!

 

The stage version had two funny and cute spies who cropped up in lots of scenes. They're funny in the movie, too, but they don't show up until after the "pirates" scene.

 

I like how Truly points out that Caractacus commenting on the difference in their stations in life would be identified as snobbery if she had said it. There are more socio-economic themes than I remembered.