Last week Buena Vista released the 40th Anniversary Edition of “Mary Poppins” here in Brazil. And let me tell you folks, it was worth the wait. I know I should be posting this on the International forum, but as the region 1 edition is probably going to be the same I think there is no problem in posting it here.
VIDEO
“Mary Poppins” is presented in anamorphic widescreen, with the aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Lowry Digital, the same company that worked on restorations for other Disney DVDs like “Snow White” and “Alice In Wonderland”, has restored the film and the effort that has been made to preserve it can be seen in every frame. This is the best “Mary Poppins” has looked and certainly will look in many years.
Despite its age and its use of numeral special effects and camera tricks, the print looks remarkably clean, and one will find himself looking very hard to find any kind of dust, spot, hair or speckle. The closest thing from print flaws I could find was some very mild grain during the effects shots of the “Spoonful of Sugar” sequence, but even those look much better than they have ever looked (older transfers usually presented these shots in a very murky and grainy way, giving away the effect).
Softness is not a problem and most of the sequences look really well defined. Peter Ellenshaw’s incredible mate paintings can now be appreciated like never before, and detail in the backgrounds and in the costumes is indeed impressive. The chalk-like backgrounds seen on the “Jolly Holiday” sequence and Bert’s colorful striped coat are good examples of how impressive this transfer can be. Colors are always very lively and never look faded. Reds are reproduced masterfully and never bleed (Mary’s dress looks just great) and black levels are solid, although in some of the roof sequences they look a bit grayish. If there is anything to complain about is that the actor’s skin tones can look a bit unnatural some times, but it isn’t that distracting. I had no problems with edge enhancement or digital artifacts whatsoever.
Ultimately, “Mary Poppins” certainly looks almost perfect in every way. I only wish most of Disney’s live-action catalogue titles would receive the same treatment.
AUDIO
The Brazilian edition doesn’t include as many audio options as the North American DVD, but we get a few. We have English and Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks and the option for Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix in both English and Portuguese as well. For this review I’m only going to concentrate on the English mix.
One of the complaints people had about the original 5.1 mix of “Mary Poppins” is that the music sounded really thin. No needs to worry anymore: with the new Enhanced Track, the film’s soundtrack has been given a whole new life. Music really fills the room and sounds a lot more rounded, making great use of all the channels to envelop the listener. A great deal of low end has been added to the track, giving the score and songs the punch that was lacking in the older mix. In fact, the new mix sounds so different that it can take some time to get used to it. Now all the elements of the score blend together better than before, but I confess sometimes I missed the very stereo-ish separation of the score. Some sections actually sounded a bit like mono spread to five channels, like the choral in the “Feed the Birds” musical number.
Dialogue and sound effects all sound crystal clear, with no distortion or whatsoever. I could hear a bit of hiss in some of the final dialogues, but I guess it had to do with the volume being loud. What really impressed me is how this new mix uncovers audio not audible in previous mixes. I could notice lots of discrete sound effects that I had never heard before, like Mary Poppins “sticking” her umbrella in the clouds in the beginning of the movie, Bert grabbing a bunch of animated flowers in the “Jolly Holiday” sequence or the sound of the reporters’ pens touching the paper as they interview Mary after she has won the horse race.
The new mix is also much more aggressive when it comes to spreading the sound effects across the room. My favorite moment is the thunderclap and subsequent rain after the “Supercalifragilistexpialidocious” sequence. The thunder is so powerful and the rain sounds so real (with different sounds in each speaker) that you’ll think it might be really raining inside your living room. Also loads of fun is the fireworks explosion during the “Step In Time” musical number, which makes a good use of split surround to make the fireworks pass right through us or explode in different directions.
The Disney Enhanced Home Theater mix of “Mary Poppins” really impressed me, and I’m very curious to hear from people what they think of it when they get the DVD, specially regarding the recording of the soundtrack.
BONUS FEATURES
DISC 1
Music & More
Only one extra is found on this section and it is the now common Disney Song Selection which lets you watch all the musical numbers of the film with or without subtitles.
Backstage Disney
Audio Commentary With Actresses Julie Andrews & Karen Dotrice, Actor Dick Van Dyke and Composer Richard Sherman: For this commentary, Andrews and Van Dyke have been recorded together in the US while Dotrice and Sherman were recorded in London. This is a very informative commentary with few if any gaps. Here we find information and bits of trivia that can’t be found anywhere else on the discs, which is something rare when we have a number of extras as vast as in this edition. Particularly interesting are the bits concerning working with Walt, the use of stunts for some scenes (I’m sure some will surprise everyone) and the symbolisms implicit in the film’s songs. Along the way we even hear a few archival interviews with composer Robert Sherman, director Robert Stevenson, musical supervisor Irwin Kostal and Walt Disney himself. Even if you are not very found of audio commentaries, this is a must-hear.
Mary Poppins' Fun Facts: A text-based track which is a perfect companion to the audio commentary. There are lots of name-dropping, but the track is filled to the brim with really interesting trivia and some are indeed fun to read (did you know that some of the ugly nannies that fly away were actually men?!)
DISC 2
Deleted Song: Here we find composer Richard Sherman performing a deleted song called “Chipanzoo” accompanied by storyboards and preliminary art. There is no introduction or whatsoever to the piece but we are going to revisit it later, so the only reason for its inclusion here is so that Disney could advertise it on the cover. It runs for 1 minute and 32 seconds.
Music & More
A Magical Musical Reunion (17:18 ): Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke and Robert Sherman gather around a piano to reminisce about the making of the film. A lot of ground is covered here, like the origins of the project and the songs, how the musical numbers were accomplished and even some interesting behind-the-scenes trivia like how “A Spoonful of Sugar” could never come into being wasn’t it for Julie Andrews. It all culminates with a bittersweet performance of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, with Dick even trying to performance a few dance steps. Not to be missed.
A Musical Journey With Richard Sherman (20:52): One of the most interesting extras on the set and it shows how much care goes into the production of these special editions. It places composer Richard Sherman in some of the movie’s sets and scenes (through the use of blue screen, of course) and along the way we hear bits of deleted songs and music cues, watch outtakes (including a yodel scene with Julie Andrews) and see production footage, artwork and discarded ideas. In the end Sherman performs the very same “Chipanzoo” song we had just heard, but this time putting it in perspective.
Games & Activities
All we find here is the “I Love To Laugh” Set Top Game, and it is a rather lackluster one. All you have to do is to answer three questions about the film to make Uncle Albert come down from the ceiling. No reward is given after its conclusion.
Backstage Disney
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: The Making of Mary Poppins (50:45): Presented by Dick Van Dyke, this is an in-depth exploration of the production of the film. We hear from film historian Brian Sibley; actors Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dike, Karen Dotrice and Clynis Johns; composers Richard and Robert Sherman; Disney animator Adreas Deja; author Valerie Lawson; cameraman Bob Broughton; sculptor Blaine Gibson; mate artist Peter Ellenshaw; Disney producer Don Hahn; animator Frank Thomas; choreographers Dee Dee Wood and Mark Breaux; and costume designer Tony Walton.
“Making” covers about every aspect of the production of “Mary Poppins”: the difficulty of acquiring the book rights from P.L. Travers, the casting of the actors, the challenge of creating a cohesive screenplay out of a book of disjointed nature, the special effects, the mixture of animation and live-action, the pioneering use of animatronics, the creation of the songs and the input of the Sherman Brothers in the project and, finally, the gala premiere and the awards the film went on to win. The documentary has a very good pacing and it mixes modern interviews with archival production footage, photographs, audio recordings (including the arduous meetings with P.L. Travers) and even a hilarious bit of Andrews receiving her Golden Globe. Inevitably some sappy talk shows up from time to time, but ultimately this is a sincere and fascinating exploration of what went on behind-the-scenes during the production of “Mary Poppins”.
The Movie Magic of “Mary Poppins” (07:05): This featurette shows how many of the visual effects on the film were created. The narration and the video clip pacing clearly show this was meant for young audiences, but it still packs a good deal of information and it serves as a good complement to the major making of.
Deconstruction of a Scene brings us two scenes from the film and lets us see what went on the process of bringing them to the screen. The scenes in question are “Jolly Holiday” (13:04) and “Step In Time” (04:52) and we get to see a mix of the final sequences with shots of the actors acting in front of the sodium screen, outtakes, rough and color animation, mate paintings and rehearsals of the choreographies.
Dick Van Dyke Make-Up Test (01:07): Not a lot to see here, this little bit of footage is narrated by Dick himself and shows him making funny faces to the camera dressed as Mr. Dawes. Not terribly interesting but nice to have included nonetheless.
The Gala World Premiere gives us two items. The first one is “The Red Carpet” (17:43) and it shows a collection of archival television footage and radio recordings from the famed night. We see the artists, celebrities and guests being received and interviewed at the door of the Grauman Chinese Theater. Obviously some restoration has been made to this material, because it looks really good (specially the bits in color).
The second featurette is “The Party” (06:24) and it shows 16mm footage of the special party given after the premiere accompanied by recordings of the radio broadcast of the occasion (the original audio from the footage has been missed). The video quality is watchable but nowhere near as good as the Red Carpet footage, which is understandable considering this comes from 16mm material. Both extras take us back in time to the night of the “Mary Poppins” premiere and are a real treat to watch.
Publicity is a rather large section, which is a great thing considering how reluctant Disney has been to include this kind of material on their DVD editions. Here we find the original theatrical teaser trailer (02:54); the original theatrical trailer (04:14); a trailer for the 1966 re-release (01:02) and two trailers for the 1974 reissue (running 01:14 and 01:03 minutes each). We also have two TV spots from 1964 (both running 32 seconds) and a “Julie Andrews’ Premiere Greeting” (00:40) showing the actress apologizing herself for not being able to attend to the regional premieres.
Mary Poppins Still Art Galleries gives us an assortment of material. We have galleries for Visual Development (36 still pictures), Story Development (18 ), Peter Ellenshaw Paintings (12), Recording Sessions (9), Costumes & Make-up (35), Behind-the-scenes (78 ), Cast Photos (18 ), Walt & Friends (9), The Premiere (11), Publicity (17) and Memorabilia (21). All of them are very interesting to see and are sure to please the ones who like to see this kind of material on Disney DVDs.
The last extra on the set is the eagerly awaited Bonus Animated Short “The Cat That Looked At The King”. It runs 9:49 minutes and is presented in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 surround sound. The short shows a live-action Julie Andrews entering a chalk drawing alongside two children. Once there, they see the story of a king who is too worried about knowing all there is to know in the world that he doesn’t pay attention to his queen and his kingdom anymore. But his points of view are changed when he decides to make a competition with a talking white cat that proves to be wiser than him.
Produced by the Toon Disney Studios, the animated short is really well made, even though if it isn’t quite Feature Animation material. The animation is mostly very good and the character design is very interesting but what really caught my attention was the quantity of well-know names in the end credits, such as David Bossert, Cristy Maltese, Rasoul Azadani, Joseph Moshier, Rick Maki and Mike Gabriel.
I wish the story would have been better developed and that the ending wouldn’t have felt so rushed but, ultimately, it is a nice short that adds even more value to the package of extras. Besides, it’s always great getting a little more of Julie Andrews on the screen.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed my early review of “Mary Poppins”. This is certainly one of Disney’s best releases for any of their films and it rivals “Aladdin” as one of the best Disney DVD releases of the year. It took some time for “Mary Poppins” to receive the digital treatment it deserves, but it was surely worth the wait. Hugely recommended.
I don't know about the pre-screen overture music.