First, if you don’t like the movie Mary Poppins, you can stop reading this. I’m not going to try and change your mind about the film. I think it is a wonderful film, charming, plenty of great songs and while Dick Van Dyke may have an accent that screams everything under the sun other than authentic, he still pulls off his role. If course Julie Andrews is practically perfect in role of the titular nanny
The role earned Julie Andrews an Academy Award for Best Actress and the film would earn five more, including two for the music. This film continues to draw adoration, and rightfully so. One could even consider this one of the absolute crown jewels of the entire Disney film output. It’s no wonder the studio wants to celebrate the film. Now (finally) on Blu-ray the film is meant to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the film, but Mary Poppins was released in theaters in the summer of 1964. This is over 6 months (and a calendar year) too early.
Oh well.
Saving Mr. Banks (a dramatic telling of the journey to get the film made) is in theaters and I’m sure this is meant to be some sort of cross-promotional deal, but I think it would have been better to pair Marry Popping and Saving Mr. Banks together in a double feature on home video next summer for those that want it.
Mary Poppins has been in rotation in my house since the previous DVD release 5 years ago. There will be long stretches between viewings, but essentially it’s a film that everybody doesn’t mind seeing again at one point or another. It is fun, funny, heartwearming, and has a great moral about family. Sure, the titular character can come across as a bit cold at times, but if you read the books you’d understand where this comes from. Actually, the film portrays Mary Poppins much nicer than in the book.
If you’re not familiar with the story, then there isn’t anything I can do for you. You simply need to at the very least rent Mary Poppins. This is one of those films where you should at least see it to catch up with virtually everybody else on the planet.
This 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray looks and sounds great, as well as containing all of the previous special features from the previous 45th anniversary edition DVD. As I said before, Saving Mr. Banks, now in theaters, should have been placed in this package as a bonus feature or double feature because the offerings that are new to this package, other than the high definition transfer are paltry. We get a 15 minute featurette that is much better suited to being attached to Saving Mr. Banks. Then there’s “Mary-Oke” which is a sing-along feature. Other than that everything else is from the previous release.
Don’t get me wrong, the previously available special features are good, it’s just that I was hoping for more. If you’re not familiar with what was on the 45th anniversary edition there’s an audio commentary (featuring Julie Andrew and Dick Van Dyke among others), a decent and lengthy making of documentary, and plenty of other items that fans both old and new will enjoy.
Mary Poppins is a great film and I’m glad it has finally arrived on Blu-ray. I do wish there was a bit more to the package to provide enough incentive to upgrade over the previously available 45th anniversary DVD.