Bedknobs and Broomsticks - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[eli]

Angela Lansbury, Roddy McDowall, and Robert Stevenson emigrated to the US from the UK due to the outbreak of WWII. David Tomlinson was a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. Robert B. Sherman served in the US Army, and was one of the first Allied soldiers to see the Dachau concentration camp. He used his time recuperating from a gunshot wound to the knee to learn about the English people and their culture. Manfred Lating and Fred Hellmich were native-born Germans who had lived under Nazi rule.

[wallace]

This was the last Disney movie released while Roy O. Disney was still alive. He died a week after its U.S. premiere.

[jessie]

This movie premiered at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. The Music Hall's Christmas stage show ran so long, that movie premieres had to run less than two hours. After much debate, Disney cut this movie down to one hour and fifty-seven minutes. The Sherman brothers decided not to renew their contract with Disney after the same thing happened to The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968). In 1995, Scott MacQueen, head of Disney's restoration department, discovered that two of the cut songs, "With a Flair" and "A Step in the Right Direction", were still on the soundtrack album and quoted throughout the underscore. He persuaded Disney to reconstruct the longer cut. The picture element of "A Step in the Right Direction" has yet to be located.

[sandra]

During the final battle, a German soldier is apparently seated in his armor with his kicking legs sticking out in front. The actor playing the soldier did the walking, while two kicking special effects legs stuck out in front.

[stephanie]

GOOFY HOLLER: Heard during the soccer game when King Leo kicks the hyena.

[jesus]

The armor in the climactic battle with the Nazis was authentic medieval armor, previously used in Camelot (1967) and El Cid (1961). When any item of armor was to be destroyed, exact fiberglass replicas were created and used.

[wallace]

This is Dame Angela Lansbury's first movie for Walt Disney Pictures.

[linda]

HIDDEN MICKEY: In the establishing shot of the animated soccer game, a bear wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt is in the crowd, on the right side of the frame.

[stephanie]

Julie Andrews, Leslie Caron, Lynn Redgrave, and Judy Carne were considered for the role of Miss Eglantine Price.

[victoria]

Ron Moody and Sir Peter Ustinov were considered for the role of Professor Emelius Browne. Moody refused to do this movie unless he was billed first.

[tom]

This is the last feature film for which longtime Disney studio songwriters Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman wrote songs until The Tigger Movie (2000). They briefly returned in the early 1980s to write songs for EPCOT Center.

[ella]

Terry Jones, James Coburn, Basil Rathbone, James Garner, and Larry Storch were considered for the role of Professor Emelius Browne.

[leo]

The song "The Beautiful Briny Sea" was originally written for a sequence in Mary Poppins (1964) that was ultimately dropped.

[norma]

Walt Disney bought the movie rights to two Mary Norton books in the early 1960s, around the same time as work on Mary Poppins (1964). When P.L. Travers stonewalled on the movie rights negotiations to her books, most of the script and many of the songs for this movie had been written. Had Travers not granted the movie rights to her books, this movie would've been made instead.

[beth]

The "Gypsy Switch" is the act of reaching inside the pocket of one's coat, grabbing contraband and switching it to another pocket on the other side of the coat.