How Mary Poppins Charmed Us: Walt’s Dream Team

There’s a certain film that has managed to retain its charm and classic status for over six decades. Two charming children. A magical “practically perfect in every way” nanny. Laughing people having tea parties on the ceiling and leaping into chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Dancing chimney sweeps on the roofs of London. Of course, I’m talking about the Disney family classic, Mary Poppins.

Mary Poppins premiered on August 27, 1964, to universal acclaim. It raked in $44 million in its original run. It was also the highest-grossing film in the U.S. in 1964. In fact, it was Walt Disney’s highest-grossing film ever upon its release. During its entire theatrical run, it grossed over $103 million worldwide. The film received a total of 13 Academy Award Nominations and won five: Best Actress for Julie Andrews, Best Film Editing, Best Original Music Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Song for “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”

By all accounts, Mary Poppins was a tremendous success, especially for Walt himself. This was his dream project, and he took every step he could to make it happen perfectly. From getting the rights to adapt the books, to hiring Julie Andrews and Dan Van Dyke, to ensuring the soundtrack and special effects were designed by the best teams, Walt Disney succeeded in all areas, even if there were some bumps in the road in getting started.

To make Mary Poppins, Walt first had to acquire the rights. His movie would be based on a series of children’s novels by P.L. Travers. Just like the books, it would center on a magical nanny taking the Banks children on wonderful adventures. According to the Special Features on the Mary Poppins 50th Anniversary Blu-Ray, Walt Disney’s daughters fell in love with these stories. This was his impetus to adapt them.

His first attempt to acquire the film rights failed. As Travers states in the Special Features, she was afraid that a film adaptation of the books would not do them justice. Disney continually attempted to gain the rights for the next 20 years. However, he finally visited Traver’s home in Chelsea, London, during the summer of 1959. She had 30 days to consider his offer after he visited. On the final day, she finally relented. There were, of course, stipulations. Travers retained script approval rights. This whole process is chronicled in the Disney biopic film Saving Mr. Banks (2013), where Disney is portrayed by Tom Hanks, while Travers is played by Emma Thompson.

Walt followed by gathering together his director, writers, and actors. He hired Robert Stevenson to direct. A British American, the man was known for directing Jane Eyre (1943) with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. After Mary Poppins, Stevenson would go on to attempt to replicate its success with Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), which critics considered derivative of his previous success.

He then phoned in Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi to pen the script. Walsh was known for his work on the Mickey Mouse comic strip, which he worked on for more than two decades until 1964. He also wrote and produced Disney’s The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and its sequel Son of Flubber (1963). DaGradi was known for helping write Lady and the Tramp (1955) and Sleeping Beauty (1959).

When Disney had Walsh and DeGradi first show Travers their work on Mary Poppins, she absolutely hated what they had done with the story. She had them reconfigure Mary’s character, focusing on reintegrating her harsher personality traits. Still, the Mary Poppins in the novels is much more disagreeable than the one Andrews portrays. Furthermore, when it came to casting, Dick Van Dyke, who played Bert, stated that Travers disapproved of both Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke’s castings.

Speaking of casting, Walt considered several actors for the role of Mary Poppins before he chose Julie Andrews. Mary Martin, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, and Judy Garland were just a few of the potential names. As the special features on the film state, Walt Disney saw Julie Andrew’s performance as Queen Guinevere in the original 1960 Broadway production of Camelot at The Majestic Theater. After the performance, Disney went backstage to offer her the role of Mary. This would be Julie Andrews’ on-screen debut.

Even though this was Andrews’ first film role, with the help of Disney and Stevenson, she took to it extraordinarily well. Although the prospect of film was hugely daunting for her, as she says in this interview from The Hollywood Reporter, people taught her all about “cameras and closeups and lenses and all those kinds of things.” She had a bit of trouble with a harness during one of the flying scenes. During that scene, she fell to the floor and uttered a few choice expletives, but in the end, she was alright.

Disney offered Dick Van Dyke the role of Bert after he read an interview with him by Earl Wilson. In it, Van Dyke stated that he wanted to make pictures that he could take his children to see. When Van Dyke met Disney, they instantly hit it off. Disney showed Van Dyke the watercolor paintings of the movie, and both admitted to being children who just “pretended to be grown-ups.” ; as Van Dyke recalls in an interview with ABC’s 20/20.

Bert was Dick Van Dyke’s second major film role. He had no formal dance training before his performance in the film. Instead, Van Dyke started as a mime in 1947, as part of a comedy duo called the “Merry Mutes.” Dyke credits his experience as a mime for preparing him for his role as Bert. The physical comedy of the film, as well as interacting with animated pictures, required someone fully in tune with their body. Dyke’s skill is proven, especially in his performance in the “Step In Time” section, where he was required to do a backwards flip up a ramp and then continue on with the routine.

His work wasn’t done there. Dick also played Mr. Dawes Sr., the elderly banker, in the film. As one can imagine, he was given heavy makeup treatment to appear older than he actually was. His physical sways make for great comedy.

Although Dick Van Dyke was superbly skilled when it came to physicality, his accent could have used a bit more work. Dick himself calls it “the worst cockney accent ever done.” The man who trained him was apparently an Irishman. Funnily enough, as he claims in this article by The Guardian, Dick was never told by anyone on set that he was doing the accent incorrectly.

When Walt saw David Tomlinson in The Ring of Truth at The Savoy Theatre, he chose to cast him as Mr. Banks. After his performance in Mary Poppins, Disney also cast him as antagonist Peter Thorndyke in The Love Bug (1968) and Professor Emelius Brown in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Tomlinson also took part in World War II as a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF. He hugely enjoyed making the film and playing Mr. Banks, but was convinced, as The Telegraph states in this obituary, that it would be a dud.

Finally, came the children.  Disney first met Karen Dotrice, the young girl who played Jane, when a scout spotted her at a performance of The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK. He brought her to Walt, who took a quick liking to her. Karen called him “Uncle Walt.” Disney met Matthew Garber through a friend of Karen’s dad. Matthew was his son.  Walt cast both Karen and Matthew in The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963). They had such great chemistry in that film that he cast them in Mary Poppins as well.

Disney chose Robert and Richard Sherman to pen the songs. He had first met the brothers when they recorded their song, “Tall Paul,” with future Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. This piece grabbed Disney’s attention, and he hired the brothers as exclusive songwriters for Walt Disney Studios. The duo also wrote music for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967). By the time their careers had ended, they had been awarded two Academy Awards and three Grammy Awards.

The brothers based a couple of the pieces in the film on older songs and styles. For instance, “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank” was written to echo the pieces of Gilbert and Sullivan. It stands out as a song that, as a child, you can barely understand, yet as an adult, you can easily relate to. For Jane and Michael, the bankers must be monsters, and that’s entirely the point. While it is wise to invest sometimes, taking time to appreciate the beauty of the world is important. Feeding the birds is not a frivolous waste of money and adds value to life.

One can tell Mary was guiding Michael to realize this, as she sang “Feed the Birds” to him the night before he went on his outing to the bank with Father. This was Disney’s favorite song, and he had the brothers visit him often to play it on the piano.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” was penned to mimic the old English Folk Song, “Boiled Beef and Carrots.” The song exudes playfulness and joy. It captures the wonder of childhood in just a few verses.

“Sister Suffragette” was written specifically for actress Glynis Johns, although it was based on “Practically Perfect,” an older song that had already been cut from the film.  According to the brother’s autobiography, Walt’s Time, Johns thought she would be offered the role of Mary Poppins, when in fact she had been cast as Mrs. Banks. She was disappointed, but thinking quickly, Walt promised her they had written a new song specifically for her character. He called up the brothers and told them Johns was looking forward to hearing her new song, all within earshot of Johns. The Brothers quickly got to work on the song and finished it before she visited.

The special effects and set designs were also overseen by Disney. He hired Art Director William H. Tuntke to design Cherry Tree Lane and London. All of the sets within Mary Poppins were built inside at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. The team managed to create Cherry Tree Lane and London by using tricks to “shrink” their sets. Tuntke explained:

“Where Mary Poppins made her entrance and all the way up to the Banks’ house, I built the set full-scale. The Banks’ house itself was 7/8ths scale. The next house was 3/4ths scale. The next house was half-scale. And the next one was 1/4 scale. And you would see all these houses receding. I got real cherry trees to line the street, and I had all the greensmen to put twigs on them and paper cherry blossoms; there were eighteen trees in all, and they were built to decreasing scale as well.”

Disney hired London-born matte painter Peter Ellenshaw to paint the backdrops of London.  Walt had previously worked with Ellenshaw on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Treasure Island (1950). He gave Ellenshaw the task of painting 100 backdrops for London. Yes, the dreamy, hazy city that Bert, Mary, Jane, and Michael look down upon from the rooftops of London is, in fact, a painting. The lights that stand out from the paintings were a special touch specifically added by Ellenshaw:

“I painted a view of the city of London in the late afternoon, and behind the glass made little holes in the paint so that we could put lights back on it and the lights would all come on gradually all over the city, or appear to.”

Walt Disney, of course, had input on all the special effects of the film. Walt specifically drew different kinds of drawings of Uncle Albert’s dining room. Some were normal, some truncated, and even some on their side. When the scene was filmed, every shot had to be done in a different style to convince viewers that the actors weren’t on wires. The heights didn’t affect most of the actors, though Matthew Geiber, the boy who played Michael, was afraid of them. Julie Andrews and Dan Van Dyke recall in the Making of Mary Poppins Featurette that someone offered him a dime every time he went on the wire. Van Dyke also recalls that Michael was somewhat mischievous; he’d even bite him on the leg when he got nervous.

Walt had a few other special touches as well. As the Making of Mary Poppins feature states, the penguins in the park were his idea. Originally, they were waiters, but they specifically reminded him of penguins.

This scene (along with the others), which combined live action with animation, was added using a certain sodium vapor process. Actors would act in front of a white screen lit up by specialized yellow sodium vapor lights. Then a beam-splitter prism inside the camera would separate the light and expose two separate strips of film. One of those strips captured the standard color image, while the other captured the yellow sodium wavelength. The yellow strip would then be used to “cut out” the actors and place them into the animated worlds.

Disney helped pioneer this process with the help of Wadsworth E. Pohl (along with Ub Iwerks and Petro Vlahos), who all won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Pohl ultimately created 3 prisms. These prisms and the sodium vapor process allowed cleaner, tighter edges than traditional blue screen. They also preserved details like the actor’s hair and motion blur. Today, one prism is located in the Walt Disney Archives.

Walt had an extremely positive relationship with both Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber. He treated them as a doting uncle, shielding them from the more strenuous aspects of filmmaking. Both children were absolutely bowled over by the special effects. In the Making of Mary Poppins feature, Dotrice recalls how almost all of her reactions in the movie were authentic. For example, Andrews’ drawing multiple items out of her bag drew a real reaction from the kids, as did the two different colors of the medicine that Andrews gave them from the bottle.

Bill Justice and Xavier Artencio were hired by Disney to design the nursery scene of the movie, although Art Directors Caroll Clarke and William H. Tuntke, as well as Set Director Emile Kuri, designed the Banks’ home. Julie Andrews states in this interview that they fed the items through a hole in the table through the bag to perform the “infinite bag trick” and that they filmed the shots and ran them backwards to achieve the needed effect in the nursery scene. The bird that Julie Andrews held was an animatronic, with wires going up Julie’s arm to control it.

Combined, every one of the people Disney chose had unique talents and experiences that made Mary Poppins a once-in-a-lifetime film. Fifty-Four years later, it would spawn a sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, which featured Emily Blunt as the titular nanny. But no matter how skilled Blunt may be, her performance could never match Andrews, who was “practically perfect in every way.”

Just like the team that worked on this film.