The magical nanny, portrayed by Julie Andrews, first floated over London in 1964. Disney actually wanted to produce a sequel to its hit musical a year later. Now, over half a century later, Mary Poppins finally returns.
Image: Jay Maidment
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Mary Poppins returns!
"Mary Poppins" was one of the most successful films of the 1960s. Now, after 54 years, a sequel is out. Will "Marry Poppins Returns" manage to fulfill Disney's blockbuster expectations?
Image: Jay Maidment
Walt Disney's second Mary Poppins
Rarely has it taken so long for a sequel to follow a hit movie. The world first discovered Disney's musical fantasy film in 1964, over half a century ago. Now the magical nanny is back, in "Mary Poppins Returns." This time around, Emily Blunt takes on the title role. Its release comes just before Christmas, in typical Hollywood style.
Image: Jay Maidment
An iconic scene
It's one of Hollywood's most famous film scenes of the 1960s: Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, floating over London's sky with her black umbrella and her handbag. While Andrews was already a prominent Broadway performer, her feature debut kick-started her film career. She immediately won an Oscar for the role and went on to star in various musicals, including "The Sound of Music" (1965).
Image: Imago/United Archives
A film for the entire family
English filmmaker Robert Stevenson moved to Hollywood in the 1940s. Among the 19 Disney movies he directed, "Mary Poppins" was by far the most successful one, offering details to please both children and adults. Not only was it a box office sensation, it was also nominated for 13 Oscars, winning five.
"Mary Poppins" was an aesthetically innovative work. By combining live action and animation, Disney's post-production work added swing to the catchy songs and dance performances of the legendary Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke duo, making the film supercalifragilisticexpialidocious like no other.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/Impress
Messages with a spoonful of sugar
While Stevenson's movie, based on the stories written by Australian author P.L. Travers, is set in London in 1910, the aesthetics definitely reflect those of early 1960s' Hollywood. While the film evokes issues such as the power of banks and the suffragette movement, they are treated in typical Disney style: The film's happy end is accompanied by a good dose of conservative family values.
The new Mary Poppins seamlessly carries on the tradition of its classic predecessor. While the set of characters is lightly modified, the general mood doesn't change. "Mary Poppins Returns" is pure family entertainment, packed with colorful scenes, songs and dance.
Image: Jay Maidment
Banks in the bank
Set two decades later, the new Mary Poppins film has the nanny return to the grown-up Banks children, Jane (Emily Mortimer) and Michael (Ben Whishaw, right). As they face financial problems, they meet up with a banker (Colin Firth, left). Though he appears charming and fond of children, he is actually mean and greedy.
Image: Jay Maidment
Mary and the children
As in the classic, animations are built into the live action film. And children are still at the center of the movie. The scenes showing how the unusual nanny (Emily Blunt) takes care of them turn "Mary Poppins Returns" into a charming film, evoking a mischievous and cheerful mood.
Image: Jay Maidment
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Back in 1964, millions poured in from all over the world: "Mary Poppins" was a box office sensation. It turned Julie Andrews into a star, and people cheerfully sang the film's catchy tunes all the way home, and shared the experience with their children for the decades that followed.
To this day, Mary Poppins remains one of the most successful musical films ever made. While it was directed by a seasoned filmmaker, Robert Stevenson, it remains above all a Disney production.
At the time, Walt Disney was best known as an animation specialist. With movies including Bambi, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, the US production company had already enchanted millions of people — and not only children.
But Disney had to come up with something new to keep building on its success. That happened with Mary Poppins, a musical that innovatively combined live action and animation.
Julie Andrews as the "practically perfect" nanny making the Banks children (Mathew Garber and Karen Dotrice) happyImage: picture-alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library
Half a century later
Mary Poppins remained a cult classic over several generations.
Knowing that Hollywood is the master of sequels, prequels and remakes, it is therefore no surprise that a new movie, Mary Poppins Returns, should follow up on the popular story. But what's unusual is that it took so long for it to happen: 54 years.
The author of the original Mary Poppins books, P.L. Travers, wasn't satisfied with the Disney film from 1964. She didn't like the way it sweetened her title character and she hated the use of animation.
While Walt Disney attempted to develop a sequel a year after the first film's release, the Australian-born British author stood in the way of the project. Later attempts to get her approval for a sequel in the late 1980s also failed.
Travers died in 1996. In 2015, her estate approved a project that was to be directed by Rob Marshall, who won the 2002 Oscar for the musical Chicago and had just completed another Walt Disney Pictures musical fantasy film in 2014, Into the Woods.
A new character adds to the fantasy: Meryl Streep is Cousin TopsyImage: Jay Maidment
2018's top box office spots
Disney was behind three of the top five biggest earners of 2018 at the US box office — with Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Incredibles 2. The numbers of the competitive end-of-year period obviously aren't in yet: Will Mary Poppins Returns join them at the top?
Mary Poppins Returns is released in the US on December 19 and a day later in Germany.
