Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 feature film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, based on Ian Fleming's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The film was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, best known as co-producer of the James Bond series of films, also based on Fleming's novels. Irwin Kostal supervised and conducted the music, and the musical numbers were staged by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood.
Storyline;
The time is the 1910s. Jeremy and Jemima Potts are playing in a wrecked car in Mr. Coggins' junkyard. The wreck, Coggins explains to a potential customer, was a winning Grand Prix race car until it crashed. The customer is only interested in it for salvage, but Coggins accepts his offer, much to the children's dismay.
On the way home, the children meet the beautiful Truly, who demands to know why they are not in school. They take her home to their windmill, where she is introduced to their eccentric father, Caractacus Potts—who is about to make an attempt to fly—and the equally eccentric Grandpa Potts, who, resplendent in soldiers' uniform, explains that he is going to India for "a cup of tea with the Maharaja", before disappearing into the outhouse at the end of the garden. Truly shows interest in Caractacus' odd inventions, but he is affronted by her attempts to tell him that his children should be in school. Angrily, she leaves.
The children tell Caractacus about the car, and he promises to try and get it, although he can't afford to outbid the scrap man. Edison, the family dog, discovers that the supposedly useless "sweets with holes in", made by Caractacus, can whistle. Caractacus goes to a local sweet factory the next day, and attempts to show his new candy to Lord Scrumptious, who turns out to be Truly's father. He initially refuses to look at the sweets, but eventually gives in, and finds he likes them. However, the whistling attracts every dog in the village, and they ruin the factory's confectionery, and Lord Scrumptious throws Caractacus out.
Caractacus takes his automatic hair-cutting machine to the fair in an effort to raise money. Carried away with his schpiel, Caractacus' first customer ends up half-bald, and chases him all around the fair. In order to escape, Caractacus disguises himself as one of the dancers in a musical revue. The other dancers are so impressed that they share the money which the audience gives them for the performances, earning enough to buy the old car.
He restores the car, which he nicknames Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the noises its engine makes, and he and the children, accompanied by Truly, go for a picnic on the beach. Over a very happy day, Jeremy and Jemima reveal that they have come to love Truly, while she's become fond of them as well. The children ask their father to tell them a story, and he tells them about nasty Baron Bomburst, the tyrant ruler of Vulgaria, who wants to steal Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and keep it all for himself. From his ship, the Baron fires on the car, marooned by high tide on a stretch of beach, but Chitty suddenly deploys huge flotation devices and they escape inland. The Baron sends two comical spies ashore to capture the car for him. Caractacus drops Truly off at her home, and when he has left, Truly sings that she has fallen in love with him.
The next day, the spies attempt to capture the car while the group are out for a spin, but end up nabbing Lord Scrumptious and his chauffeur by mistake. The spies dress up in their clothes and travel to the Potts residence, where they mistake Grandpa for the inventor. When he retires to his hut, they attach a grappling hook lowered from a zeppelin to take the hut to Vulgaria. Caractacus and the others see them flying above, and give chase. They drive over a cliff, but Chitty sprouts wings and begins to fly across the sea.
The Baron's soldiers arrive, and everyone closes themselves up in their homes, leaving Caractacus, Truly, and the children alone in the streets. A kind toymaker (Benny Hill) hides them in the basement of his shop, warning that if the children are found they will be imprisoned, as children have been outlawed in Vulgaria by order of the Baroness. The evil Childcatcher "smells" the children at the toy shop, but a search by the soldiers finds no one, and they leave when it is announced that the flying car has been found. Caractacus declares he will rescue Grandpa and get Chitty back. The toymaker reluctantly agrees to help and takes him to a grotto far beneath the castle where the townspeople have been hiding their children. Caractacus is moved by their plight but sees how they might be able to help. Meanwhile Grandpa is held in a dungeon workshop, threatened with death unless he builds the Baron another flying car. Back at the toy shop, the Potts children have grown hungry, so Truly goes into the village to look for food, entreating them to stay hidden. The Childcatcher takes this opportunity to pose as a lollipop salesman, luring the children out with the offer of free sweets. Seizing them, the children are locked away in a tower by order of the Baroness.
The next day, at the Baron's birthday party, the Toymaker presents two animated, life-size toys: a music box maiden and a clown figure (Truly and Caractacus in disguise). During a dance number, Caractacus manages to snare the Baron. The town's children swarm the banquet hall and the Baron orders the cavalry to attack. During a battle Caractacus and Truly manage to find Jeremy and Jemima. The Baron and Baroness are trapped in a cage, and the Childcatcher is suspended in a net from the ceiling of the hall. Vulgaria freed, the heroes, reunited with Grandpa, fly back to England in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Back at the seaside, Jeremy and Jemima finish the story themselves: "And Daddy and Truly were married!" "And lived happily ever after!" When Truly asks, "Is that how the story ends?" Caractacus is evasive, and later tries to "apologize" for the children's ending by saying "It's ridiculus for the children to say that". Truly, feeling rebuffed, storms off. The Potts arrive home to find Lord Scrumptious waiting with wonderful news: he has decided to market the whistling sweets Caractacus invented to dogs. Now assured of riches, Caractacus is about to sign the contract, but dashes off in Chitty to tell Truly the news. He runs her off the road yet again, carries her from the car, and they decide to be married after all. As they drive off together in Chitty, the car takes to the air again, this time without wings.
Memorable songs include:
1. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
2. "Truly Scrumptious"
3. "Hushabye Mountain"
4. "Me Ol' Bamboo"
5. "Toot Sweets"
6. "The Roses of Success"
7. "Lovely Lonely Man"
8. "You Two"
9. "Chu-Chi Face"
10. "Posh!"
11. "Doll on a Music Box"
12. "Doll on a Music Box/Truly Scrumptious"
13. "Come to the Funfair"
"Doll on a Music Box" is sung near the end of the musical by Truly and is a musical counterpoint, also being sung simultaneously with Caractacus' rendition of the song "Truly Scrumptious". Two songs apparently intended for the film but ultimately relegated only to instrumental background music are "Come to the Funfair" and the "Vulgarian National Anthem"; they were published with lyrics in the sheet music along with the other film songs when the movie was released. The stage version restores these two as vocal numbers. The Sherman Brothers also were hired to write several new songs for the stage production including "Think Vulgar!" which was replaced in 2003 with "Act English", "Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies", "Teamwork" and "The Bombie Samba"
Two songs stand out for the use of musical instruments in the orchestra: "Toot Sweets" – especially in the motion picture – employs a multitude of flutes; and the subject of "Me Ol' Bamboo" is aurally suggested by the xylophone (and accompanies Potts performing a Morris dance with a troupe).
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