This is the Christy pick for March. She made it easy this time because it is streaming on Amazon through the Starz add-on. Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) is an inventor living with his father (Lionel Jeffries) and two children (Heather Ripley and Adrian Hall), fulfilling that Loving But Distracted Dad trope when he meets Truly Scrumptious (Sally Anne Howes), the heiress to a local candy magnate. She takes him to task for not making sure his kids are going to school, or you know, are supervised in any way, and he tells her she's a busybody for showing human concern. His kids like her, however, so he attempts to mend fences by inviting her on their random picnic, where he spins a fantastic yarn about a flying car, an evil Baron (Gert Fröbe), and a land where children are outlawed.
I never saw this when I was a child, which is when you'd have to see it, I think. As an adult, I found it too long and too cloying. The dance numbers are well choreographed but the songs are too simplistic and repetitive. There were also too many of them. Obviously, the gender politics of the film haven't aged well, but more than that, I just didn't buy the two leads as romantic. It was very much two people who just agreed they liked the same children.
If you have a strong sentimental attachment to this film from your own childhood, you're probably going to want to show it to your kids. For me, though, it's a miss.
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