Though sanitized, ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ is worth watching

By KAREN PARKER | County Line Publisher

If you’re looking for a feel-good movie for the holidays, may I suggest “Saving Mr. Banks” as a seasonal respite from the usual Hollywood guts, blood and gore. Just don’t do what I did and get on the Internet, looking for the story behind the story. As a matter of fact — spoiler alert — you may want to stop reading right here.

Usually I keep my movie preferences in the closet. Who would believe that a cranky, cynical old woman is a devoted fan of “Mary Poppins”? I would say I am starting to lose it, but I must have started a very long time ago. “The Sound of Music” and “The Wizard of Oz” also are on my favorites list. It could be the music, or maybe it is the sugarcoated parables.

When Mary Poppins urges us to “feed the birds,” it is a gentle reminder of the importance of kindness and charity. Never preachy, Mary Poppins gently reminds us to be better people than we are.

When the movie “Saving Mr. Banks” was released early this year, I looked for it at the theatre and then on Pay Per View, with no luck. Then it suddenly popped up on Starz.

“Mary Poppins” is an American movie classic that almost did not get made, and this is the story behind it. Supposedly Walt Disney’s daughter had fallen in love with the book, and he promised her he would make a movie.

He told the book’s British author, P.L. Travers, that he always kept promises to his children. But Travers was decidedly unimpressed. The very idea of turning over her beloved nanny to the Hollywood machine was repugnant to her. Consequently, Disney spent 20 years pursuing the woman seeking the rights for the book, all to no avail.

But as the public began to lose interest in the Poppins series of books (yes, there were more eight of them), Travers’ finances fell on hard times. Disney finally persuaded her to come to California, where he pulled out all the stops in an attempt to impress the woman with all the glitz and glamour the Disney empire could offer.

He also gave her veto rights on the script, which she used with abandon, nixing nearly every line and song that was offered to her. Emma Thompson plays Travers’ British snobbery to the max, her character terrorizing the screenwriters and lyricists and frustrating Walt Disney, played by Tom Hanks.

Overlaying it all are flashbacks to Travers’ sad childhood and of her dearly beloved father, a banker, who died at a young age from alcohol abuse. The Mr. Banks character is based on him, and Mary Poppins references a nanny/aunt who came to help the family during her father’s illness and death.

Just when it appears that the Walt Disney charm might have won over Travers, someone lets it slip that the movie will contain the animated penguin sequence. Travers is horrified and leaves immediately for England with Disney in hit pursuit.

Only when the two confront the darkness of their childhoods does Travers relent and agree to sell the film rights to Disney.

And thus was born Mary Poppins, who blew in with the wind and became one of the most beloved movie characters of all time.

That ought to be enough. But not for me. No, I always have to wreck things by digging a bit deeper. P.L. Travers was actually Emma Goff, an Australian whose father was an alcoholic but actually died of influenza.

She took her father’s first name as her last and went on a lifelong quest to replace him in her life, picking up and discarding men and finding them all wanting. She worked as an actress and as a journalist, writing “Mary Poppins” when she was recovering from an attack of pleurisy.

At 40, she decided to be a mother and adopted a son from a disadvantaged Irish family. On the advice of an astrologer, she refused to adopt the child’s twin brother. Motherhood was not to Travers’ liking, and the child spent most of his time in boarding school. At age 17, he was mortified to learn he had a twin brother, something Travers had never told him. The two were estranged, and he died plagued by alcoholism.

While the movie leads us to believe that Travers was overjoyed at the first screening of the movie, she was in fact infuriated with Disney’s interpretation of her book. In fact, when she was approached much later to sign off on a stage production, she refused unless no American writers were involved with the project.

Travers died in 1996, a bitter old dragon who was largely forgotten by even her family.

Oh, well, it’s still a movie worth watching. Or maybe it would be better to just go watch “Mary Poppins.” Again.

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