There is a very jolly, welldone dance number, in which Miss Howes and Mr. The preoccupation with sweets and machinery seems ideal for children. X, as in X and pains," the movie, which accelerates, as a musical should, as it goes along can hardly miss. Sherman) like "Oh, what a lovely, lonely man," and "There's magic in the wake of a fiasco" and lines like "Zis is X speaking. The music is not distinguished, but with lyrics (by Richard M.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a car that swims and flies and finally rescues everyone.The screenplay, by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes (who also directs) is remarkably good. Gert Frobe rather overplays a balloon-borne villain from the kingdom of Vulgaria-keeping one eye shut for most of the film in a physically disturbing, villainous way. Sally Ann Howes plays a Major Barbara-like candy tycoon's daughter, who ultimately marries him.
Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall are his two pleasant, unaccountably English, children.
After that it settles down and becomes a happy anarchical story within a story about cars, kids, adults, love and candy.Dick Van Dyke plays a gentle, nutty, apparently widowed father, who invents fine Rube Goldberg devices that serve eggs at breakfast. The film is based on a fantasy by Ian Fleming, and its violence level just after the credits is fantastically high (a car drives off the road and explodes, a child is nearly run over, the breaking of an adult bargain is treated as a desirable thing). IN spite of the dreadful title, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," which opened yesterday at the Loew's State 2 Theater, 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.