Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The 1971 Robert Stevenson film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" often gets unfairly maligned as a lesser "Mary Poppins," but that's a huge disservice to the ...

The one thing that "Mary Poppins" has on "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" is the songs, because unfortunately most of the songs in the latter are totally forgettable. There are images from "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" that have been burned deep into the recesses of my brain since I was a child, and among them is Miss Price finally receiving her new broom and trying to figure out how to fly on it. There are some moments in "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" that have aged strangely, namely in a segment where the bed-riding crew visits the magical land of Naboombu, where animals rule, but for the most part, it's a joyous celebration of imagination as a way to escape tyranny and sadness. The kids join her on a magical flying bed that can travel through time and dimensions in order to find the fabled final spell and hopefully fight back to save their home. She doesn't know what to do with children and the kids don't really like her all that much, but once she reveals that she's learning how to be a witch via a correspondence school, they become fascinated. The late Academy Award-nominated actor had not yet become a household name with the 1980s television series "Murder, She Wrote," but film and Broadway fans were sure to recognize her playing a wacky witch who goes on a magical animated journey with a family of children and a con artist/purported school of witchcraft professor named Mr.